Part of the ORA/EJC Collaborative Educational Series

In this workshop, you will be writing FLASH MEMOIR. Flash memoir is SHORT. You will be writing poignant, well-crafted autobiographical vignettes, basically, about the people, places, objects, moments that are unforgettable—that shaped your life.

The miniature, a working, functioning complete world unto itself, is not merely a "small" or "brief" thing, or a "shortened" form of something larger. Miniatures transcend their size, like small-but-vicious dogs, dense chunks of fudge, espresso, a drop of mercury, parasites. Finally, and most strangely to me, miniatures are radically self-sufficient. –Mary Carr

Exactly. You will write one to two-page personal narratives. We will take each short piece through a number of drafts. Using feedback from me and others in the class, you will whittle down your personal stories until you have almost a prose poem. No rambling. Yes, editing will be a major part of this workshop. You will capture details so magnificently, that any reader will be able to SEE what you are describing. You won’t be telling stories, you will be showing stories. Craft and clarity will be the ultimate goals. Individual pieces may be woven together later in a variety of ways that we will discuss. Also, we will discuss easy illustrations, even if you consider yourself not to be a visual artist. AND if you would like to keep working with me one-on-one after the classes, we can set that up.

Leanne Grabel is a writer, teacher, illustrator, spokenword performer, and retired special education teacher. She has been in love with mixing word-based genres for the past 48 years mostly in Portland. Grabel has written & produced numerous multi-media spokenword shows, including “The Lighter Side of Chronic Depression” “Anger: The Musical,” “One Woman Shoe,” “Badgirls, and “The Little Poet.” Grabel's graphic memoir, Brontosaurus Illustrated, called by award-winning Larry Colton “the bravest book I’ve ever read,” was published by The Opiate Books in 2022. My Husband's Eyebrows, a collection of illustrated prose poems, was published by the Poetry Box in 2022. Grabel’s newest work, Old With Jokes, a performance piece, chapbook and postcards created for ArtLab 2023. Grabel is the 2020 recipient of the Bread & Roses Award for contributions to women's literature in the Pacific Northwest.

http://leannegrabel.com

leannegrabel@gmail.com