The Story Only You Can Tell: Writing the Personal Essay

Led by writer Lisa Marie Basile, this three-part creative writing workshop explores elements of memoir and a great personal essay. Participants will read and discuss short personal essays and discuss how to incorporate reported research, cultural context, history, or inquiry to add dimension and authority.  Through guided prompts and positive feedback, participants will learn to craft the story they want to tell.

Instructor: Lisa Marie Basile is a poet and memoirist based in Jersey City. She holds an MFA from The New School and is the founding editor of Luna Luna Magazine. Her personal essays on family, trauma, memory, and girlhood have appeared in The New York Times, Narratively (where her work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize), The Account Journal, Catapult, HuffPost, Stigma Fighters, SELF, and Split Lip Magazine, with forthcoming work in Psyche Magazine. She helps writers find their voice, deepen inquiry, and permit themselves to be vulnerable.