Local Authors Writing Workshop: Memoir

Welcome to the Mystic & Noank Library's Local Authors Writing Workshop Series for the summer of 2023. This is the third year we've run the series as part of our adult summer reading program, connecting readers and aspiring writers with authors who live in or near our community. You may attend each of these workshops either in person or virtually. You must register for each workshop separately.

Shaping Sculpture from Shrapnel: The Art of Writing Memoir with Ravi Shankar
Editor Lee Gutkind has defined creative nonfiction as "true stories, well told" and during our session we will explore both poles as relates to the art of memoir. How do we define truth, particularly when it comes to the past, trauma, and the workings of fallible memory? What does it mean for that to be well told, e.g., how might we use issues of craft (such as flashback, foreshadowing, dialogue, description) and narrative structure in order to differentiate our writing from the diaristic and to create a world more surprising yet inevitable? We will look at examples from writers such as Mary Karr, Tobias Wolff, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tara Westover, Michel de Montaigne, and more. This will also be a generative workshop where we will begin working on a draft of life-writing that we can take home. Dr. Ravi Shankar has published 15 books, including most recently the Connecticut Book Award finalist Correctional. 

Bio
DR. RAVI SHANKAR is a Pushcart prize-winning poet, translator and professor who has published 15 books, including the Muse India award-winning translations Andal: The Autobiography of a Goddess and The Many Uses of Mint: New and Selected Poems 1997-2017. Along with Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, he co-edited W.W. Norton's Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia & Beyond called "a beautiful achievement for world literature" by Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer. He has taught and performed around the world and appeared in print, radio and TV in such venues as The New York Times, NPR, BBC and the PBS Newshour. He has won awards to the Corporation of Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, fellowships from the Rhode Island and Connecticut Counsel on the Arts, founded one of the oldest electronic journals of the arts Drunken Boat, is Chairman of the Asia Pacific Writers & Translators (APWT) and recently finished his PhD from the University of Sydney. His memoir "Correctional" was published in 2021 with University of Wisconsin Press and he teaches creative writing at Tufts University. Visit his website at: https://www.poetravishankar.com/