Writing the Body in Memoir: How to Work with What Our Bodies Know

Even when they aren't the center of the story, our bodies are an essential, inescapable part of any memoir.  There is no life experience from which to write unless there is a body moving through the world, collecting memories, and translating them to the page. Savala Nolan, author of Good Woman: A Reckoning and Don't Let It Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body, leads this writing workshop. How do we draw from and contend with the body in order to craft memoir that is honest, fresh, and potent? What can our bodies tell us that our minds cannot? What if we don't like our bodies, or live in a society that doesn't like our bodies--how do we work with that? This talk will include concrete ways to approach these questions, examples of embodied writing from a diverse selection of celebrated authors, and a skills-building exercise to put the pieces together. Remember to bring a pen and notebook or laptop, whatever your preferred writing implement is.