Description
This is a bundle for the memoir-writing course “Write Your Own Story” that takes place online live via Zoom during Summer 2026.
Please note–The course, without added items, is available separately here. Tuition is $300.
Bundle includes—
- 12-week course on memoir-writing ($300 value)
- your copy of Craft & Current: A Manual for Magical Writing, signed, dated, and personalized ($20 value)
- your copy of the Companion Workbook for Craft & Current, spiral-bound with wire, with blanks for your writing ($15 value)
- 1 Blackwing pencil, the brand used by many famous writers, tie-dyed color ($4 value)
- a free 1-year paid subscription to Rhizosphere, my Substack for writers ($30 value)
- a free 1-year paid subscription to Trackless Wild, the Substack where my writing lives ($33 value)
- access to my 2-hour workshop on book marketing, a recording, with ebook & handouts. This is not available except in this offer. ($44 value)
- free shipping
Total value—$455
You pay—$355
Please note: Coupons do not apply to this item. If you need to pay on time, or if you would prefer to pay by cash, check, Venmo, or some alternate way, just be in touch with Janisse directly.
Details for the course—
- Level: Beginner to Mid-Level
- Weekly for 12 weeks
- Wednesdays 11 am-12 noon Eastern
- June 3-Aug. 12, 2026
- Live via Zoom
- Participant numbers not limited
- Session dates: June 3 / June 10 / June 17 / June 24 / July 1 / July 8 / July 15 / July 22 / July 29 / Aug. 5 / Aug. 12 / Aug. 19
- Open Mic Night (currently set for Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026, 7 pm Eastern Time)
What you get—
- A summer semester spent writing
- Twelve 1-hour sessions of guidance on writing structure, technique, and craft
- A lesson concerning memoir each session
- An engaging class that you look forward to all week
- Time to write–30+ pieces of your writing by the end of the summer
- Writing prompts
- Pages of important, useful handouts in pdf form
- Link to a Google Drive where handouts, readings, & recordings are posted
- Honest, authentic interest in your story & belief in you
- Opportunities to ask questions of Janisse Ray
- Information on printing, binding, & publishing
- Engagement with other writers
- Access to online Office Hours and Coworking Sessions
- A chance to read your work in an online Open Mic Night
- A receipt to file with your taxes, if you have writing income
Why take the course—
You are living a rich, beautiful, colorful, interesting life. You’re full of stories.
You’d like to get them down on paper. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. It’s hard to keep going once you get a few words. It feels like WORK when it should be FUN.
Let me help you write your own story.
This is a memoir course for writers of all levels. No experience needed.
All you need is a desire to get your stories down on paper for family, friends, and maybe the reading public—while you can.
No life is too large, no life is too small. Everybody has amazing stories. All you have to do is recognize them.
Use your memories, family photos, scrapbooks, diaries, interviews, and memorabilia to help you fill out the details of important stories in your life. Your stories are gold.
Get them on paper now. This is the summer to do it. Escape to your writing space for an hour each week spent with Janisse Ray and work on your own life story.
Your investment—
- $300
- an hour in session each week
- plus at least 1 additional hour at your desk
- a receipt to file with taxes if you have writing income
- & a sincere desire to get your stories down on paper
General schedule for each session—
opening poem
flow-writes
lesson
craft minute
writing practice
Draft syllabus—
CLASS #1—Find the Story & What to Leave Out
CLASS #2—Make Your Writing Come Alive
CLASS #3—Pinpoint Your Theme & Mission
CLASS #4—The Awesome Outline
CLASS #5—Truth & Ethics: Who Gets Hurt
CLASS #6—Honesty & Vulnerability: How to Protect Yourself
CLASS #7—Research, Especially Interviews
CLASS #8—Emotional Impact & Navigating Upset
CLASS #9—Place & Setting
CLASS #10—Revise: 33 Ways to Improve Your Writing
CLASS #11—Using AI or Not
CLASS #12—Get Published & Find Your People
FAQS—
How many sessions are there?
One 1-hour session each week. For folks in the Eastern US/Canada time zone, this hour falls during lunch. Most weeks you will also be invited to an hour-long co-working session.
How many weeks?
12
Is the course virtual?
Yes, via the app Zoom.
Are you live, meaning are you there?
Yes. We work together in real time, as they say.
What if I’ve never used Zoom?
It’s an easy app to install and use. And it’s free.
What if I have to be absent for a session? Is the workshop recorded?
Yes, each session is recorded and will be uploaded to a shared Google Drive.
How many people are typically in a course?
Janisse doesn’t set limits to her workshops. She will teach one person and she will teach 100. Expect at least 25.
Are the sessions interactive?
No. The one-hour Wednesday sessions are webinar style. However, Janisse organizes lots of ancillary sessions for coworking, Q&A, live editing, and more, so you have plenty of time to interact with other writers.
Will I be required to share my work?
Absolutely not. There is no requirement, although you will have opportunities to do so, if you desire.
What if I’m just getting started on a memoir?
Perfect.
I already have 300 pages of memoir written but I think it could be better. Is this course for someone who has already been doing the work?
Absolutely. You will learn information and receive guidance in this course that will completely transform your writing. As you begin revising and editing you’ll be so glad you signed up. This is a perfect point to make something really great out of your project.
I have no desire to publish, only to write down some stories for my family and friends, especially my grandchildren? What do you think of me signing up?
Janisse would love to have you in the course. She believes that writing down family stories is a healing and bonding process, and she highly encourages people to do this. Some of the lessons she teaches may go beyond what you need, but you can choose to stay with the basics. Even if you only write to the prompts she gives in class, you should have pages of material to shape up when the course ends.
If there are handouts, how do I access them?
They will be loaded to the shared Google Drive.
What is a Google Drive?
It’s an online storage space that multiple people can access, like having a storage unit and all of us owning a key to it. It’s also free.
How do I access this Drive that you mention?
Janisse sends you a link to it.
How will I get the Zoom link?
You will receive it by email from Janisse directly after you register.
May I be in contact with Janisse directly?
Yes, please feel free to contact her either using the Contact Form on the website or at this email address, wildfire1491@yahoo.com.
Bio—
Writer Janisse Ray has earned a living from her writing for more than 30 years. Her first book, Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, told the story of growing up on a junkyard in south Georgia amid endangered longleaf-pine flatwoods. The book sold well, won awards, and was named a New York Times Notable and a Book All Georgians Should Read.
Since Ecology, Janisse has published many books of literary nonfiction, two collections of poetry, and a short novel. Her collection of essays, Wild Spectacle: Seeking Wonder in a World Beyond Humans, was chosen by Pam Houston for the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence, which carried a $10K award. In 2024 Ray published Craft & Current: A Manual for Magical Writing.
Janisse has won a Pushcart Prize, an American Book Award, and a Southern Environmental Law Center Writing Award, among many others, and has been inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame. She has taught at the University of Mississippi, Hollins University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Bread Loaf Environmental, Orion Online, and many more. She holds an MFA from the University of Montana, where she returned to teach as the William Kittredge Distinguished Visiting Writer.
Janisse lives and works on a historic farm an hour inland from Savannah, Ga., with her partner, the painter Raven Waters, and her infant daughter. She’s crazy about dark chocolate, wildflowers, blackwater rivers, and the blues.
