My Favourite Course to Teach

I'm very pleased that my favourite course to teach is running again beginning on January 24th at the Alexandra Writers Centre Society. If anyone is interested, there are a couple of spaces left. It's a personal essay course but the word essay seems to intimidate people, makes them think of English classes in school, theses, carefully constructed arguments, strong academic focus. But it's not like that.

We all have stories to tell, incidents that we want to relate because for whatever reason they're important to us. They stick. We remember them clearly and they have a deep meaning for us personally. What we try to do in the course is take these personal stories and incidents – easily  relatable anecdotes – and discover why they are important to us, why they stick in our minds, why we think about them over and over, and what deeper meaning behind the emotion they make us feel is.

Possibly most importantly, we explore how we can make them mean something to others, how we can connect with our readers and make them feel the way we do.

 We talk a little about markets and submissions, and we read published essays and discover how and why they work, but mostly we write. Participants are required to do some writing at home, there is a workshop component if the participants request it and, because we're sharing our personal stories, we get to know each other well. Often participants from previous classed become firm friends and decide to keep meeting and writing on their own.

I'm always amazed at how much I learn from the people who come and write their stories. Participants have written about scuba diving, mountain travel in the Andes, a trip to Auschwitz, buying lingerie, selling the family van, false teeth, grief and survival, school bus safety, cleaning up doggie do, canoeing, cultural differences, eating disorders…topics are as diverse and unique and the participants themselves. And it’s always interesting.

So, if you’ve ever wanted to write down your own stories, expand their meaning, and rant a little, visit the AWCS website www.alexandrawriters.org    go to "what we offer" and look under 8 week courses for Our Stories: Personal Essays with Public Appeal and join us. I'm already looking forward to meeting a new bunch of personal essay writers later this month.