Use Media & Pop Culture to Bring Your Memoir to Life with Ashley C. Ford

NYT bestselling author Ashley C. Ford will present 4 lessons on how to dig through the ephemera of the media from your past -- not just physical objects, but sights, sounds, and collective emotional experiences -- to inspire and/or help center your memoir.

We come into this world on our own, and we live here for the rest of our lives. Of course there was a world here before we arrived, and the universe continues to expand in the wake of our grand debut, but in a memoir, everything begins with you and what you remember. In this course we’ll be digging through the ephemera of the media from our past -- not just physical objects, but sights, sounds, and collective emotional experiences -- to inspire and/or help center your memoir. Film, television, music, and of course books, are not only markers of a particular time in culture, and a way to see and hear the world beyond the limits of one’s circumstances, but they are typically our first encounters with the emotion-inducing power of storytelling. Sometimes, to begin or finish writing the story of You requires a re-examination of the stories that made you.

While we won’t be workshopping individual pieces, there will be time reserved for questions and answers each session, some in-class time reserved for quick and useful exercises, and examples of published work that reflect the central lessons of instruction. Please note that there will also be video and audio recordings shared, and while listening/watching them isn’t required, it will only benefit you in getting as much as possible out of the instruction time.

CLASS ONE // Holding onto the ME in Memoir 

One of the most common mistakes writers make when attempting to tell a story about their own lives, is pushing their personal narrative to the side in favor of, what they perceive as, a safer or more prominent subject. I get it! It may seem easier to write around the self rather than straight through the heart. But this serves neither the writer nor the writer’s story in the pursuit of memoir creation.

In this session, we’ll discuss a variety of tools to help memoirists share the core of their own stories in the craft of their work, so said work may remain focused and true.

CLASS TWO // The Theater: What We Saw 

Full House isn’t real life, but a lot of people wanted to imagine themselves living with that family. What does that tell us about your real life? The second session will focus on the depictions of family systems in film and television, and how we translate emotional experiences with (very real) people we care about on the page.

CLASS THREE // The Studio: What We Heard

At any given time, and in any given moment, we are making decisions and telling stories based solely on information we get from the voice in our heads. In my experience, never is this voice more inspired to share than when listening to a familiar or notable piece of music from our personal past. In this session, we’ll discuss how to hear ourselves, and how to translate what we hear in a memoir.

CLASS FOUR // The Library: What We Read 

No easier stories to remember than the ones we found in books. From the time we’re born, if we’re lucky, someone reads to us and wants us to know how to read. The first books we love, or hate, or keep returning to make up the foundation of our ideas about what a story can and should be. Revisiting these texts, exploring the why behind how they affected us emotionally and intellectually, will assist us in narrowing down the way we want our own stories to exist in the world.

Ashley C. Ford is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoirSomebody’s Daughter published by Flatiron Books. Ford is the former co-host of The HBO companion podcast Lovecraft Country Radio, and the current host of Ben & Jerry’s Into The Mix. She currently lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband, poet and fiction writer Kelly Stacy, and their chocolate lab Astro Renegade Ford-Stacy.