Memoir Writing with a Purpose with Jeff Rasley

Instructor: Jeff Rasley

Many writers keep a journal or write about their own experiences.  Most of this writing is not shared or published (except on Facebook). Many of us can turn our own experiences into a lesson for others—a didactic memoir. Short features for on-line publications, corporate newsletters and newspapers, full-length magazine pieces, and book-length memoirs: all offer opportunities for the didactic memoir writer. Dropping your child off for the first day of school, deciding how to bag your groceries, or climbing a Himalayan mountain are all grist for a didactic memoir. Ordinary and extraordinary experiences may lead to insights about ethics, spirituality, philosophy, psychology, etc., which can be turned into articles or books for the journal writer willing to go beyond the merely descriptive.