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Memoir Craft: Deepening Strategies for Life Writing 6-Week Zoom Workshop with Leila C. Nadir starts Saturday, January 10th, 2026
Regular price
$495.00

Memoir Craft: Deepening Strategies for Life Writing 6-Week Zoom Workshop with Leila C. Nadir starts Saturday, January 10th, 2026


Unit price per

This Workshop Begins Saturday, January 10th, 2026

Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Saturdays, 1:00PM - 4:00PM EST

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Instructor Leila C. Nadir is an award-winning writer, community-engaged artist, creative-critical educator, and academic and creative writing editor. She is a 2023 MacDowell Fellow in Literature, 2023 Hedgebrook Fellow, 2023 de Groot Foundation Courage-to-Write grantee, 2023 Tin House Scholar, and 2024 VCCA 50th Anniversary Fellow. Her work appears in literary and scholarly journals, in museums and galleries, and in forests, classrooms, and kitchens, and she is the founder of one of the first Environmental Humanities academic programs in the nation. She holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and regularly works with writers and academics around the world on developing their research and literary projects. She is an editor for Los Angeles Review of Books and is represented by Ayesha Pande of Ayesha Pande Literary in NYC.

This workshop, limited to 12 writers, will deepen understandings of the craft of life writing for memoirists of all levels.

What is most precious because it is lost,
what is lost because it is most precious.
– Amiri Baraka

We write memoir because we are carrying an intense experience or memory that won’t allow itself to be left in the past, remain buried in the unconscious, or be turned into fiction.

In this workshop, limited to 12 writers, you will gain tips and strategies for how to excavate these precious memories and transform them into prose. In each of our five class meetings, we will study key elements of memoir craft in a way that is beneficial to both beginner and advanced writers, deepening what we already know, or what we think we know, about voice, character, time, narrative structure, and more.

There will also be space to explore common emotional roadblocks faced by memoirists, such as self-doubt, public exposure, responses from loved ones, and gaps in memories in the face of cultural, political, or familial erasures.

Meetings will include brief in-class readings, craft discussions, generative exercises, and weekly workshops where students share 2000-word excerpts of their works-in-progress and receive feedback.

We will approach workshopping and craft not as a set of rules and practices used to discipline our writing but rather as reparative openings to feeling how our stories want to be told after being suppressed for so long.

Planned assigned texts: Vivian Gornick, Saeed Jones, Cheryl Strayed, Alejandro Zambra, Javier Marias, T. Kira Madden, and Nadia Owusu.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: The Situation and the Story

Week 2: Narrative Distance and Proximity

Week 3: Beginning the Journey

Week 4: Past & Present Selves;

Week 5: Voice

Week 6: Endings

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

  • Practical Revision Strategies
  • Generative Exercises
  • Language for How to Understand and Deconstruct Memoir (and to articulate what writers are doing on the page)
  • Feedback from Students During Workshop

TESTIMONIALS:

“I would definitely recommend Leila C. Nadir class, and her as a creative writing instructor in any capacity. This was a really excellent workshop, with a focus on collaborative and uplifting critiques interspersed with well-structured craft lectures. I was impressed with the care Leila used to construct each session's lecture on craft, focusing on a connective theme within the pieces to be workshopped that same day: this was a really eye-opening way of looking at writing. Leila's classes carried a high level of empathy and caring as we workshopped objectively difficult, always very personal subject matter, and I left every class feeling that we, as a whole, had achieved only a high level of learning and success. Leila welcomed challenges with patience. An all-around great workshop experience.” – Johan, 2025

“The class I took with Leila Nadir was excellent. I have taken a number of memoir classes over the past few years and I found her to be very personable and well read. In addition to a short reading/lesson on memoir each week, attendees shared their feedback on each other’s submissions. What I enjoyed so much in the sharing was Leila's guidance for us to only present feedback in a supportive and positive way—what works in a piece, what could be expanded, what else we might want to read for examples—rather than critiquing in negatives. Additionally Leila gave each of us specific notes on our submitted work, something to take away and refer to as we continue our writing. Throughout the course she referred to published memoirists’ work for future reference. I sensed that I could easily spend a semester improving my writing and my voice with Leila’s encouragement. She is very approachable and really made each one of us feel seen.” – Meredith, 2025

“Leila's course was one of the most enriching, productive writing workshops I have ever participated in. She provided a great balance of instruction, writing exercises, and discussion. Each week she incorporated relevant lessons and themes that we then applied to our reading and writing exercises. In addition to that, she facilitated interesting and rich discussions among the attendees so that each workshopped piece was a learning experience for all of us. I was really impressed with the way she encouraged and inspired participation by creating a safe and comfortable workshop environment. I learned so much from her over a short period of time.” – Katie, 2025

“My recent workshop with Leila Nadir, was excellent. I found the in-class readings, craft discussion, generative exercises and weekly workshops beneficial and appropriate for both my skill level and that of others much further along with their own memoirs. They allowed me to make good progress on my memoir and to develop a clear understanding of the craft of memoir writing. Leila was an excellent facilitator, infusing writing critiques with craft lessons appropriate to the issues being raised in student memoir excerpts being workshopped. She was affirming, yet candid, in her own comments on student writing, an approach I find most helpful. Her personality and skill as an educator helped create a collegial and collaborative spirit among members of the class. I can say without hesitation that this workshop was one of the best I’ve attended.” – Judy, 2025

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:


This workshop meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $495 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.
    • Instructor:
  • Leila C. Nadir
  • Workshop Begins Saturday, January 10th, 2026
  • Class will meet weekly via Zoom on Saturdays, 1:00PM - 4:00PM EST
  • Tuition is $495 USD.
  • The workshop is limited to 12 writers. 

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this class.