Write into Mystery: Writing Flash Memoir on Wonder and the Unexplained

with Joanna Penn Cooper

writing into mystery wonder and the unexplained

December 4, 2024
4 Weeks

$345.00

1 optional Saturday Zoom call

$345.00Enroll Now

Join me to write short passages of prose that explore the mystery woven through all of our lives: the mysterious, unexpected, or wondrous that exists in our everyday experience. Learn how to share what is strangest and most alive from your own life, and how your life-based writing can explore the connections between disparate experiences.

We will work in a mode that we could call flash memoir, vignette, or micro-essay. These short pieces could become the basis for a longer work (essay/memoir), or remain as standalone “flash” pieces. Alternately, you could see them as writing practice, as a way to loosen up and access your creativity. We will also explore the (blurry) lines between prose poem, flash fiction, and micro-essay, reading examples from each of these genres and dipping into them at will.

We will form a warm and supportive community, and find solace through a shared experience of writing and reading. We will spend much of our time in a mode of play and discovery, even when writing on serious subjects. You’ll post some of your responses to writing exercises for the whole group to see. You will receive feedback from me along the way, and at the end of the course, I will read a portfolio of your work, or an essay based on vignettes that you write through the course.

Please note, this course will not run the week of Christmas. Its four lectures are spread out over 5 weeks. 

Learning Goals:

  • To identify how other writers have approached mystery, wonder, and the unexplained in their life-based writing.
  • To experiment with strategies for approaching your own biographical material, and form new connections between disparate experiences.
  • To experience and contribute to a rich and supportive community of writers who are finding meaning and solace through reading, writing, and discussion.

Writing Goals:

  • You will produce short life-inspired vignettes in response to 2-3 writing exercises per week, which can be polished into standalone pieces of flash memoir/flash fiction or form the seeds of longer pieces.
  • You will gain practice in offering critiques to peers.
  • You will produce a final portfolio of vignettes for instructor feedback.

Zoom Schedule

There will also be one optional Zoom meeting to discuss craft issues and discuss our writing practices. This will run on Saturday, Dec. 14th, from 12-1pm Eastern. 

Course Schedule

This course is asynchronous, and will include four weekly lessons (spread out over five weeks to accommodate the holiday season).

Week 1: The Mystery of the Material World

Lynda Barry has discussed the way accessing memory through a concrete image or object takes you out of your linear conscious mind and allows you to make unexpected connections. In her book What It Is, Barry specifically discusses the uncanny quality things take on for children. This week, we’ll read examples by Barry, Jo Ann Beard, Eudora Welty, and others as you write exercises that delve into the mysteries of childhood and memory.

Week 2: Thinking Beyond the Familiar

Get your creativity flowing by experimenting with unconventional forms, such as letters, diaries, dream journals, commonplace books, and collage essays. This week, we’ll think about how these approaches can help you access new angles on the material of your life, world, and mind. We will also explore ways to “estrange the familiar” in order to give personal narratives new, compelling power (both for yourself and for the reader).

Week 3: Memory, Grief, and Wonder

This week, we’ll continue to read and write vignettes that allow room for suggestion, exploration, and the unexplained. The readings this week have a loose theme of grief and loss, along with the redemptive beauty of mystery and wonder.

Week 4: Myths, Tales, and the Subconscious

Set out into your own dreams, imaginings, and speculations. You’ll be invited to use dreams as seeds of writing; to delve into the subconscious with creative meditation techniques; and to craft your own narratives in relation to pre-existing cultural material such as fairy tales and myths.

$345.00Enroll Now

Course categories: ,
Course type:

Student Feedback for Joanna Penn Cooper:

December 4, 2024
4 Weeks

$345.00

1 optional Saturday Zoom call

$345.00Enroll Now

joanna cooper writer

About

Joanna Penn Cooper is the author of The Itinerant Girl's Guide to Self-Hypnosis (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2014), a book of lyrical prose vignettes, and What Is a Domicile (Noctuary Press, 2014), a book of poetry. Her recent chapbooks are Wild Apples: A Flash Memoir Collection with Writing Prompts  and Comfort Event, a collaboration with Todd Colby (both from Ethel Zine & Micro-Press).

Joanna holds a Ph.D. in English (American literature) from Temple University and an MFA in Poetry from New England College. In her teaching career, she has held full-time visiting positions at Marquette University and Fordham University. Joanna taught flash memoir and lyric essay for the Creative Nonfiction Foundation for several years, and she has served as an editor at Trio House Press. She is an editor-at-large for the literary zine Ethel, and she currently works as a freelance editor and writing coach through her business Muse Writing & Creative Support. She has been a frequent contributor to Good Letters, the online component of Image Journal, and her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day feature, as well as South Dakota Review, Zócalo Public Square, Open Letters Monthly, Poetry International, and other journals. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.