The Hybrid Memoir

Memoirs begin in the tension between what happened, and how to tell it. For many of us, when we sit down to shape our life events into something that can truly reach a reader, we find that simple chronology isn’t enough—and that we also yearn to bridge our life’s stories with poetry, fiction, journalism, or even other art forms entirely.

This is where the hybrid memoir comes in. The hybrid memoir doesn’t limit itself to straight personal narrative, but reaches over the permeable fences of genre to select the most useful and enlivening techniques from other forms-combining them to create stories that are more layered, more surprising, and more deeply meaningful. By weaving together different modes of telling, hybrid memoir allows personal experience to resonate outward, engaging history, research, image, imagination, and larger cultural questions alongside the self.

In this course, you’ll work hands-on with these possibilities. Each week, we’ll focus on a particular form or approach you can weave into your memoir—from images and primary sources to blends of poetry and prose, elements of fiction, and more. Weekly writing prompts will invite you to experiment, while regular discussion, feedback, and examples from accomplished hybrid writers will offer guidance and momentum as your work takes shape.

Our weekly Zoom sessions will center on major themes from the readings and on workshopping student writing. Toward the end of the course, you’ll receive special feedback—from both a peer and the instructor—focused on the themes, motifs, and patterns emerging across your pages, helping you see more clearly what your story is becoming and what most strongly resonates with readers.

Who this course is for: 

Writers of all experience levels are welcome to join this course! If you’re already working on a memoir project, this course will help you to expand its possibilities. If you’ve never written memoir but would like to give it a try, this course will offer an exciting start. 

Learning and Writing Goals

Learning Goals

In this course, you will: 

• Become familiar with a wide range of strategies for incorporating different genres into memoir. 
• Practice some of these strategies to gain confidence and flexibility in your memoir writing.
• Discover what aspects of your drafts–what images, strategies, themes–are most compelling to readers. 

Writing Goals

In this course, you will: 

• Generate seven new memoir pieces that utilize various genre-blending techniques.
• Complete at least one substantial revision, and receive feedback on all of your pieces that you can use for further revision and development. 

Zoom Schedule

We will meet on Zoom on Wednesday evenings from 7-830 PM Eastern. Please note, there will be no meeting the week of March 30, 2026.

Weekly Syllabus

Week 1: Braiding stories   

This week we will get to know each other and the workshop process. We will also delve into the foundational hybrid technique of “braiding,” and explore how we can utilize braiding to connect our own stories to the stories of others, whether biography or historical narrative. 

Week 2: Text & Image

A picture is worth a thousand words, but pictures in combination with words can be even more powerful. This week we’ll explore the possibilities of incorporating images in memoir, including the fascinating subgenre of the graphic memoir. 

Week 3: Poetry & Prose

One of my professors used to say that nonfiction writers should “think like a poet, write like a novelist, and tell the truth.” But what about writing like a poet too? This week we’ll discover how to utilize the lyricism and leaps of poetry in our memoir writing to ramp up its beauty, texture, and emotional impact. 

Week 4: Research & Primary Sources

The most fascinating memoirs often combine a personal story with some other source of information that draws readers in. This week we’ll practice bringing research, primary sources, and artifacts into our writing to both broaden and deepen the stakes of our stories. 

Week 5: Hearing Voices 

One of the common pitfalls of memoirs is that, if too narrowly focused on the perspective of the author, they can become claustrophobic or even feel self-involved. A great way to counteract this is to bring in others’ perspectives and voices to balance and push against the author’s narrative. 

Week 6: Autofiction 

We know we need to tell the truth when writing nonfiction, but there’s also a long history of writers that combine the truth with fiction in various proportions. This week we’ll explore “autofiction,” or autobiographical fiction, and discover some of the freedoms and challenges it poses, as well as discussing why a writer might choose to work in this hybrid mode 

Week 7: Travelogues 

To read a story is to go on a kind of journey with the author, but some authors also tell their story through a more literal physical journey. This week we’ll learn about the possibilities of blending memoir with travel writing and let our own memoirs take us on a journey, even if it’s just around our own neighborhoods. 

Week 8: Revision and Directions 

In this last week of the course we’ll focus on strategies you can use to move forward with your memoir project. Participants will have the chance to submit revised work for more in-depth feedback about what genre techniques, motifs, themes, and other strategies are feeling most compelling and alive in your writing.

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$545.00 Original price was: $545.00.$465.00Current price is: $465.00.Enroll Now