OWN: Part I

I’ve been reading different definitions of the word “course,” trying to work out whether or not that word fits the experience we offer at OYLW. One definition is “a set of classes or a plan of study on a particular subject, usually leading to an exam or a qualification.” Other meanings of the word are “a continuous progression from one point to the next in time or space” or “the path or channel along which something moves.” There are elements of all three definitions that do feel true, so I’ve decided to keep “course” for now. But some people do come on initially expecting a different experience.

I never called it “life writing” — this thing I’d had an impulse to do since I was a kid (I wrote my first “autobiography” when I was eight years old). In high school and through my MFA, I’d referred to it as “creative non-fiction.” When I started my PhD in the UK, I was introduced to the term and found it to be much more inviting and all encompassing. When I came up with the idea for the course, I knew Life Writing would best describe the subject; I wanted to invite people to both craft a story for publication or write letters or journal entries for processing and cathartic release. Regardless, I would encourage everyone to approach the first foundation course the same way: use it as a space to explore, experiment, and find your story, style, and voice. Expand your repertoire. Find out what you’re excited to write, regardless of if you want to continue on and publish after. 

A brief overview: the 12-week course is a blend of seminars (where we discuss readings, consider practice, engage in writing exercises) and small workshop groups (where people prepare and submit writing ahead of time). All sessions are two weeks apart — and I didn’t realize how crucial the pacing would be when I first scheduled. One participant in the January 2025 group, a landscape designer, talked about how first-time homeowners are often eager to move in and alter the existing garden of their new home. But she recommends that they take the time to sit with and observe the garden through the seasons before rushing to make changes. I thought this was a beautiful sentiment for writing, too — and why I am less inclined to offer a more intensive, fast-paced experience. The time between seminars and workshops has proven effective, allowing for enough time to process, reflect, observe — and live.

For the first workshop submission, I give people free rein to submit anything they want — a scanned journal entry handwritten with cross-outs, an outline for a short story, a poem, a letter to themselves or a loved one — as long as it is no more than 8 pages double spaced. I take this from a philosophy I read in A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. There is a (very minor) character who, as a boy, was a “tremendously gifted artist” though never formally schooled. When he got older, he went to art school for drawing. For the first week, they were allowed to draw whatever they wanted — and it was always his sketches that the professor decided to post on the wall for praise and critique. But then they were made to learn how to draw: “Week two, they only drew ellipses. Wide ellipses, fat ellipses, skinny ellipses. Week three, they drew circles: three-dimensional circles, two-dimensional circles. Then it was a flower. Then a vase. Then a hand. Then a head. Then a body.” By the end of the term, he had grown too self-conscious; when he saw a dog, he saw not a dog but a circle on a box, and when he tried to draw it, he worried about proportion, not about “recording its doggy-ness.” Similarly, I don’t want people to think about life writing too logically. 

For the purposes of the foundation course, I’ve never really seen the point of critique. I knew that no matter the goal of the writer, they should start in a safe and encouraging space. As I considered the design, I figured we will just be getting to know each other, so how could participants come in and start telling the writer what they should or should not do with their work? How could I even? These first sessions would be a place where the writer could find out their intentions, ambitions, motivations, and process for their writing. Writing takes time! Sometimes you have to write to purge or clear, or write to generate and make certain connections, before you can craft the real thing. I wanted people to have the chance to figure that out with the group, rather than the group hinder that process. I wanted people to take risks, to write honestly, to write about what they wanted to write rather than what they thought people wanted to read. The reader would care about what they care about. In September 2024, we all read “The Poland Story” and other stories from Wendy and fell in love with the way she wrote about her parents and her brother, even if they were stories Wendy once thought of as mundane or uninteresting to read. One woman told her, “I genuinely didn’t think I could care about an ostensible stranger’s family so much.” That has always stuck with me.

While we do work to somewhat of a final product — a sample of writing to showcase in the group’s story collection — there is certainly not an exam or a qualification. I didn’t expect anyone to struggle with this fact, or the lack of critique. In January 2025, I saw one woman in particular struggle greatly with the positive feedback on her writing. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen this, but it was the most frustrated expression of it; she couldn’t tell if her writing was any good because I was always finding something to compliment or admire in everyone’s work, because that is “the point of the course.” Which is true. She is right. It is. And I genuinely do admire something in everyone’s work. Mostly in the workshops we name what we see, read the work aloud, ask questions, point out where we’re curious to know more, highlight particular lines that use fresh language or are well-crafted, etc. I steer away from categorizing something as “good” or “bad” and have taken to asking people if they are proud of it. It is much more difficult, but much more rewarding, to decide if you think your writing is good. 

There have, of course, been moments where someone has tried to make a suggestion or a recommendation for someone’s piece of writing, ie “cut this paragraph” or “flesh this paragraph out more.” Very quickly I realized whenever this happens, someone else in the group chimes in, arguing to keep that detail or omission. I realized that these workshops are just little microcosms of the entire world — some of your audience will argue for one thing and some of your audience will argue for the other. There are freedoms and limitations in both. Life writing, especially, can be non-linear, fragmented, messy, and raw, and still both very accomplished and engaging to read.

This blog is a space for my own stories about these little microcosms — things I’ve seen happen in the workshops, what I’ve learned, unexpected transformations, frustrations, vulnerabilities, etc. I expect I’ll mostly go in order, starting with a notable first workshop group with four women in March 2024 who were both all from different countries and all expats…

— Becky