This four-week class will meet on Mondays: March 31, April 7, 14, and May 5 (skip April 21 & 28). Each session is 2 hours.
“If you’ve survived childhood, you’ve got enough material to last a lifetime,” Flannery O’Connor famously said.
Writers have always used real life experiences as a source for material. In fact, any writer would be hard put not to include some of real life in their writing, and why shouldn’t it be used? Most fictional fires start with real life sparking against imagination. In this four-session class, participants will learn to mine their lives for promising nuggets to work into fiction. Sifting through memories, we’ll recall details, alter facts, play “what if …?” and transform real people into fictional characters.
The first three sessions will include in-workshop exercises and idea starters to generate material for flash fiction, short stories, or scenes for a novel. Our fourth session will be a showcase in which writers will read their finished story for an audience of fellow participants and invited guests. Writers of all levels of experience are invited to participate.
About the instructor
Judy Reeves is a writer and teacher who’s published four books on writing including the award-winning A Writer’s Book of Days, and Wild Women, Wild Voices. Her memoir, When Your Heart Says Go, was published in 2023. Previously an instructor at UCSD Extension, Judy has led groups and taught writing for more than thirty years at writing conferences internationally and San Diego Writers, Ink, a nonprofit literary center she cofounded. Read more here.
