JERSEY CITY, N.J. | (狈闯颁鲍)鈥檚 will offer a four-week course entitled 鈥淲rite the Cross-Generational Memoir,鈥 beginning on Wednesday, July 21.
The virtual course, which will run for four (4) weeks on Wednesdays, July 21 through August 11, 2021 from 6-7:30 p.m., will be taught by Edvige Giunta, NJCU Professor of English and an accomplished author.
The course builds upon Professor Giunta鈥檚 successful 鈥淲rite Your Memoir鈥 course in spring 2021. Participants of this course will learn how to write a cross-generational narrative of their families, utilizing memory, imagination, and research. Lessons in the craft of memoir and in the creation of personal archives will guide writers as they time-travel into the past and evoke and connect with the stories of their ancestors, even when they know little about those stories.
By the end of the workshop, students will have completed a draft of a memoir piece that focuses on one or multiple ancestors and will have a toolbox of writing strategies that will enable them to continue to work independently on their memoir. The course will meet on Zoom and utilize Blackboard activities and resources to support the weekly practice.
Professor Giunta said: 鈥淪ome ancestors are sweet, vivid childhood memories. They are family gatherings, old stories, and lullabies. Others stare at us from photographs as if waiting to speak. Still others are haunting shapes, often nameless, nestling in the crevices of our memory, insisting we ask them questions鈥攁nd that we listen for their answers. As a writer of memoir, I have felt drawn to all of them; I have been in awe of the ways we can meet our ancestors on the page, even if we have never met them in person. As a teacher of memoir, I have been privileged to witness individual writers, and communities of writers, engage in the powerful time travel that writing about those who came before us requires. In this course, we will engage in this me