Structuring Life:
Memoir Workshop

with Julia Bell

Friday 5 April, 1.00pm - 3.00pm
Central Milton Keynes Library, Community Learning Classroom
555 Silbury Boulevard, Milton Keynes MK9 3HL

Tickets: £20 [places limited]

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All pieces of non-fiction or memoir need a shape or some kind of organising principle to contain the ideas. But how do we know which form works best for our work, our voice, and particularly for the story we’re telling?

 

How does content dictate form and vice versa? What can we learn from other writers about form and the principles of good story structure? Do we need a form before we set out or does one become evident along the way?

 

This workshop will offer some practical advice, close reading, and an opportunity to try some exercises, and will help you to think about techniques for structuring and developing your work. This workshop aims to speak to writing memoir and non-fiction, but fiction writers are welcome too, as some of the principles of structure are the same in all forms.

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About Julia Bell

Julia Bell is a Reader in Creative Writing and writer who teaches at Birkbeck, University of London. She has published widely across poetry, non-fiction and fiction.

 

As well as the author of three novels, she is the co-editor of the  bestselling The Creative Writing Coursebook, and her most recent book-length essay on attention in the internet age, Radical Attention, has been recommended by Ali Smith as one of the books for the next twenty years. Her collection of poetry Hymnal was nominated as Welsh book of the Month and her essays and short stories have been published in the Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman, The Paris Review and Prospect as well as broadcast on the BBC.

 

As well as working at Birkbeck, she has given talks and workshops across many contexts for London Zoo, RIBA, the Selfridges Group, MAD/Fest, and the British Council.

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More about Julia: