CLASSES
What Next?: Revising Your Memoir to Get It out the Door
– ENROLLMENT CLOSED –
Have you already taken a Memoir-in-a-Year course (maybe even with Circe!), gotten an MFA, or worked with a writing group or mentor, yet still feel as though your memoir draft isn’t done—or just isn’t in the shape you know it needs to be in before being ready to send out to agents or editors? Do you have at least 150 double-spaced pages of material but feel unsure how to finish your book or how to organize your non-linear material into one cohesive narrative? Do you worry that your completed memoir draft may not stand out enough in the competitive marketplace, or struggling to make your work more intimate, layered, or innovative?
If any of these concerns resonate with you, we invite you to apply for Circe Consulting’s “What Next?: Revising Your Memoir to Get It out the Door.”
Beginning in September 2023 and limited to only 8 participants, this year-long course (ending August 2024) will offer everything a full developmental edit offers (except by two developmental editors—both Gina Frangello and Emily Rapp!) along with all kinds of perks of community, structure, craft lessons, and regular meetings that don’t come with getting a private developmental edit alone.
Course Includes:
- Entire manuscript (300 page limit*) read by Gina and Emily
- Monthly group-wide classes
- Small group and paired cohort support
- Regular open “accountability” writing sessions
- Guidance on writing agent queries
- A private meeting with each Gina and Emily
- An entire class being devoted to your whole cohort having read your book in full and workshopping it
You are a great candidate for this course if you:
1) Already have at least 150 pages of work that you are “pretty sure is a memoir” and want not just to complete your draft but hone and refine it as you go along.
2) Your completed memoir of 200+ pages has received plenty of positive comments from friends or in classes, but still cannot find an agent or publisher, and you have taken things as far as you and your own peer group can…you need fresh eyes and a vision to bring new life to your project!
3) Wait, you were never even a writer…so why have you suddenly, um, WRITTEN A BOOK?! If you have no formal training in writing, have a whole other career, and never expected this…but somehow wrote a book anyway, and now don’t know many writers or have a literary community to give you feedback and creative, editorial, and professional direction, we can help!
4) You wrote a “perfectly good” memoir…but deep down you know you held an awful lot back and that compromised the book artistically, politically, personally, or all of the above. You were afraid people would judge you, of upsetting someone in your life, of not being “likable” enough…but now realize your bigger fear is that you have censored and flattened down your book. Well, you are at the right party!
To apply: Send 500 words describing your project and what you hope to achieve in the course to [email protected].
Requirements: Monthly 2-hour Zoom meetings at a scheduled time, an “accountability partner,” a small support group, an editorial meeting with each Gina and Emily, confidentiality with your peers’ material, and the sincere and committed time dedicated to not only focusing on your work but bringing your best self and best ideas to 7 cohort members whose books-in-progress you will read over the year. This is a highly community-based course and your commitment to one another is mandatory.
*Full developmental edits and workshopping page limit is 300 double spaced 12 font pages. If your manuscript is longer than 300 pages you will need to select spillover parts to only show to your support group and accountability partner.
Open to writers of all genders, all 21 and over, and any previous writing experiences. Writers of color, LGBTQIA+ writers, writers with disabilities, and writers pissed off with Big 4 Publishing’s pervasive marginalizing of their voices all highly encouraged to apply. Woman/disabilities-owned company of two feminist as fuck writers who have made it on our own terms.
You must submit your 500 word project description and be accepted to the course before formal enrollment.