2025 Memoir Workshops
Come take a magical journey through memoir! I will be facilitating six units of my memoir workshop in 2025.
Each unit of this workshop focuses on a different area of writing that has been useful to me. This is the perfect type of workshop for developing your story, processing the complicated emotions around our lives, and moving forward with new tools to make your book compelling.
WHAT EACH UNIT OF THIS WORKSHOP CONTAINS
• A one hour Zoom meeting on Tuesday evening each week for six weeks.
• A discussion of an important aspect of writing, including a colorful slideshow.
• An assignment to be worked on through the week and turned in by Sunday night.
• Discussion of how the previous assignment went.
• Access to the Wet Ink portal for our class, which includes the assignments, recordings of the classes, and a place where students can give and receive feedback.
• One of the unique aspects of these workshops is that I participate as a student too. I tackle the assignment along with everyone else, and that keeps me connected to the struggle.
PRICING
(A unit = one six week class)
One Unit: $275
Two Units: $500 (250/ class)
Three Units: $700 (233/class)
Six Units: $1200 (200/class)
UNIT ONE // LETTERS // STARTS FEB 4th
Our 2025 Memoir Workshop journey starts with the letter. One of the things that stops me from writing is not being sure who I’m writing to. Who is my audience? How smart are they? How funny are they? When you’re writing a letter, at the very least, you know exactly who your audience is. You can jump right to the important things, because they already know the backstory. Perhaps there’s something we can learn from this format in our memoir writing. Everyone always gets trip up in writing memoir because they don’t know where to start. My advice to people is always, “Promise me this: DON’T START AT THE BEGINNING!” It’s better if you jump in like you’re already in a conversation with an old friend. Letters can help us get to that voice, and it’s a great place to start the year of writing memoir.
CLASS TIMES
EARLY Class - 4:00PM PT
MIDDLE Class - 5:30PM PT
LATE Class - 7:00PM PT
CLASS DATES
Feb 4
Feb 11
Feb 18
Feb 25
Mar 4
Mar 11
UNIT TWO // POETIC MEMOIR // STARTS MARCH 25th
Unit two of our 2025 Memoir Workshop journey continues with a focus on poetic memoir. This is my personal favorite genre of literature in general, and I’ve never spent a full unit on it. The keys here will be to find the poetic compass in our heart, learn the patience to polish language, and live in a state of constant wonder. The benefits are more than just the writing you produce. You get to live in a world of beauty!
CLASS TIMES
EARLY Class - 4:00PM PT
MIDDLE Class - 5:30PM PT
LATE Class - 7:00PM PT
CLASS DATES
Mar 25
April 1
April 8
April 15
April 22
April 29
UNIT THREE // WRITING WITH TENSION // STARTS MAY 20th
Unit Three of our journey focuses on the most fundamental element of great writing, in my opinion: tension. It is not to be feared, but embraced. And with memoir, it can be cathartic. All the tension circling in our lives, all the doubt, all the mysteries we can’t figure out… instead of making them all make sense before we start writing, we can live inside the questions, we can harness that tension for literary gains. It’s a little bit of a magic trick, flipping that power that normally squashes us and using it to create compelling stories.
CLASS TIMES
EARLY Class - 4:00PM PT
MIDDLE Class - 5:30PM PT
LATE Class - 7:00PM PT
CLASS DATES
May 20
May 27
Jun 3
Jun 10
Jun 17
Jun 24
UNIT FOUR // WRITING WITH JOY // STARTS JULY 29th
Unit Four of our memoir workshop year focuses on joy in our writing. It is easy to think that the only thing we should be putting on the page is hardship and trauma, but joy has a place in our stories as well. And, when we give ourselves permission to spend a whole unit on the moments of joy and wonder, we have more depth to our writing voice.
CLASS TIMES
EARLY Class - 4:00PM PT
MIDDLE Class - 5:30PM PT
LATE Class - 7:00PM PT
CLASS DATES
July 29
Aug 5
Aug 12
Aug 19
Aug 26
Sep 2
UNIT FIVE // RESEARCH IN MEMOIR // STARTS SEP 16th
At first it seems like research isn’t an aspect of memoir, and then we realize that “research” can refer to curious investigation of any part of our lives. Looking through news stories from when we were in eleventh grade, going on YouTube to re-watch a scary scene of a film that terrified us when we were eight, or just going down Wikipedia rabbit holes to flesh out our understanding of themes that keep recurring in our story. Let’s call all that “research” and put some attention on it.
CLASS TIMES
EARLY Class - 4:00PM PT
MIDDLE Class - 5:30PM PT
LATE Class - 7:00PM PT
CLASS DATES
Sep 16
Sep 23
Sep 30
Oct 7
Oct 14
Oct 21
UNIT SIX // ASSEMBLING // STARTS NOV 4th
In this unit we’ll deal with editing, revising, and big-picture planning for the writing that we’re doing. We’ll talk about coming up with systems and organizational formats for working on our book. The good news is that this part of the process can be just as creative as the writing itself.
CLASS TIMES
EARLY Class - 4:00PM PT
MIDDLE Class - 5:30PM PT
LATE Class - 7:00PM PT
CLASS DATES
Nov 4
Nov 11
Nov 18
Nov 25
Dec 2
Dec 9
Hello, my name is Nick. I've written three books, I've taught dozens of writing workshops, I've edited manuscripts, and I've coached writers one-on-one. In all that work, I've come across hundreds of writers, and I've learned some things everyone has in common:
1. Everyone knows more or less what they want to write about.
2. Everyone is afraid to write those things.
To the first one, I say, “Great!” To the second, I say, “Let’s deal with those fears!”
I do these writing workshops because I get to see people when they dive into those fears and write what they’ve been wanting to write. And there is something special about gathering with a small group of people every week to write.
Here’s what I’ve seen writers get out of these workshops:
Morale
You feel good about the things you're writing because someone says, "Wow! I can relate to that."
Accountability
You feel how much it matters that you write, because there is a deadline to finish it and a group of people will be looking at you on a Zoom call.
Momentum
Six weeks of writing gives you a sense of what it's like to be in the habit of writing.
I believe that these workshops work best when the teacher is working on the same assignments as the students. That way I can provide examples of how I approach the problem, and walk through my solutions with the class. You don’t have to start at Unit One. You can join us in any unit throughout the year.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do you have to start with Unit One or can I jump in on Unit Three or something?
A: You can jump in at any time! Just sign up for the unit you can do. You won’t be lost or behind. Every unit comes with a fair amount of orientation for new students and even for people who haven’t written in a while.
Q: I don’t know, is this for me? I’m not actually a writer, even though I burn with a desire to tell my personal story of love and loss and I can’t sleep at night because I feel like I’ll never be able to write it.
A: Hmm… You sound like a writer to me! Come join the class!
Q: How many people are in the workshops?
A: My ideal number is ten people, because it feels like the perfect balance of group inspiration but you can still have your voice heard. Sometimes it’s a little smaller or bigger depending on the vagaries of human availability, but trust me, whatever number it is, it’ll be the right number.
Q: So, a one hour video meeting every week, and then we get an assignment, and we have to turn that in before the next class?
A: That’s it! You seem to know this as well as I do. Have you been in this class before?
Q. No, no, of course not. I’m a writer, so I observe and make good educated guesses.
A: Get in this workshop already!
If you have any more questions about the workshops, write to me at:
nickjaina (at) gmail (dot) com