Andrea will continue to reply to lesson comments until May 15. Lessons 1-4 will become part of our workshop collection for paid subscribers at this time.
In April, Andrea A. Firth lead our subscribers through a deep dive into what makes an essay work and how to discover what your personal story is about and what it means. Here is what we learned ↓
Curriculum
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Join me for a personal essay love fest
Hi Writers,
Andrea Firth here. I’m your instructor for The Forever Workshop—Finding Your Essay’s Heartbeat. We’ll be reading and discussing a wide range of personal essays and writing our own essays, too. Sometimes, a personal essay requires us to re-imagine what happened in the past because our memories are incomplete, but we’ll still be writing true stories as best we can.
I’ve been reading, writing, editing and teaching personal essay for a long time (to give you a sense of how long, I count in decades now)—it’s my favorite genre. When I read a good essay, which I do almost every day, I always learn something and always feel something. What I love about personal essay is how it pairs our lived experience with the wider world, how it connects the personal and universal—that’s the essay’s heartbeat.
In this workshop, we’re going to take a deep dive into what makes an essay work and discover what your personal story is about and what it means. Each lesson will include 2-3 readings, short (but still craft fantastic) essays to make the load manageable.
We’ll cover all the essential parts of creating an essay:
Tapping Memory and Finding Ideas;
Scene Building and Structures;
Dialogue and Points of View;
Meaning Making; Beginnings, Endings and Titles;
the Craft at Work;
Revision Strategies.
Hi Vedika. Thanks! and yes more great essays to come. And yes, we'll follow a six-art prompt in Lesson #6 that will guide you to get a full essay down in one sitting. Plus I'll provide ideas to get you writing along the way too. Happy to have you here.
Hey Andrea! The listed essays are so wonderful! Can’t wait to read & learn more and of course write :p