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"Memoir writing is the single greatest portal to
self-discovery."
-Marion Roach Smith
Finding Memoir in
Your Life Story
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TUSCANY, ITALY
with Marion Roach Smith
May 4-10, 2025
MAKE A DEPOSIT
In Finding Memoir in Your Life Story, writers will learn to find memoir topics within the experiences of their lives. They will choose one of those stories – while keeping the others for later work – and then break that chosen topic into a simple, dramatic three-act structure, enabling the writers to curate the scenes from their lives that they will deploy to illustrate the tale of transcendent change that marks a full life.
By following the instruction of this workshop, you can better understand the task of writing memoir and produce publishable work. Marion Roach Smith teaches that you don’t need to slog through the task of writing a single big autobiography – something that begins with your great-great grandfather and ends with what you had for lunch today. Instead, you can draw from themes within your life story to write blog posts, essays, op-eds, long-form essays and book-length memoirs.
That is, you can learn how to have a writing life.
In this session, you will learn to find and choose memoir topics within your life stories, then break each of those topics into a simple, dramatic three-act structure and select the scenes you will need to illustrate that tale.
This is for all writers, regardless of prior experience or progress to date in writing memoir.
Marion Roach Smith
Marion Roach Smith is the author of four books, each featuring aspects of memoir. Her most recent book is The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. A former staff member of The New York Times, she has written for The New York Times
Magazine, Prevention, The Daily News, Vogue, Newsday, Good Housekeeping, Martha Stewart
Living, Discover and The Los Angeles Times. She was formerly a commentator on NPR’s All Things Considered, and she hosted a talk show on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius/XM 110.
A long-time memoir instructor, both in person and online, Marion has taught thousands of people to write what they know. She was twice writer-in-residence at the famed Chautauqua Institution. Her online writing school, The Memoir Project, reaches thousands of students each year; so far, 122 of her students have published books, and countless others have published opinion pieces and personal essays on various platforms.
She has appeared four times on NBC’s Today show and on many other major programs, has testified four times before committees of the U.S. Congress and has spoken to many creativity conferences and writers’ groups. In addition to being a writing teacher, she is an inspirational speaker and has been active in nonprofit work, including serving as board chair of the New York Council on the Humanities.
ABOUT THE RETREAT
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Writing memoir begins with understanding that it is not autobiography. While
autobiography is defined as that one big book that covers your entire life story, memoir
is best written from one aspect of your life. Looked at this way, anyone who chooses to
write memoir will never run out of topics to write about.
In a 90-minute, online pre-conference class, participants will learn the crucial difference
between autobiography and memoir and will be taught the three basic tools to identify
what each story is about. Every participant will also be sent a copy of Marion Roach
Smith’s popular text on memoir writing, The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-
Standardize Text for Writing & Life (2nd edition). With this preparation, every student will
be ready to write memoir when we arrive in Italy.
During our time together in Tuscany, we will explore the various forms of memoir, dig
deep into the many ways to write what you know, learn how to develop and keep a daily
writing practice, identify topics from our own lives to write about, and learn the structure
that all successful pieces of memoir follow to be of meaning to readers.
Whether you have no idea yet what to write, a mere wisp of an idea or if you are well
into a book draft, this class will heighten your work by getting you to the task of writing
what you know and giving you the insights you need into the discipline, technique and
structure of memoir writing.
What is included in this retreat:
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Group transfer to and from the Rome airport (Fiumicino)
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6 nights lodging at Fattoria del Colle
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Daily breakfast, lunch, dinner prepared by on-site chefs
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Daily classes with Marion Roach Smith
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Wine tasting, tour of the winery and ancient chapel, pici making class
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Excursion to Pienza a beautiful UNESCO heritage village
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Restorative Yoga
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State of the art classroom studio with gorgeous views
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Guided hikes
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Daily concierge and office staff
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On-site laundry
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Massage-available at your own cost
**Airfare not included
PRICING & RESERVATIONS
6 nights in wild Tuscany.
Completely Private Apartment w/ Private Bedroom and Bathroom | $4,100
Shared Lodging in an Apartment w/ Private Bedroom | $3,800
Please note: there are only 4 Completely Private Apartments available!
*Airfare not included.
*We cannot accommodate a vegan diet.*
MAKE A $1,500 DEPOSIT TO SECURE YOUR SPOT TODAY.
