Description
Please note: The memoir course “Write Your Own Story” is also available in a Bundle that includes the course, a paperback copy of Craft & Current, a copy of the Companion Workbook for Craft & Current, 1 Blackwing pencil, access to my 2-hour recorded workshop on book marketing, plus much more. Total value $455, you pay $355. See details at Shop, then Courses.
Details for the course—
- Level: Beginner to Mid-Level
- Weekly for 12 weeks
- Wednesdays 1-2 pm Eastern US/Canada Time
- June 3-Aug. 19, 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, 6 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, Coworking Sessions, Q&As, Guest Speakers, & Critique Groups
- 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 colorful, interesting life. It’s often beautiful. Things get wild.
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. The writing feels like work when it should be fun.
I can help you write your own story. I can’t do the work for you. But I can help you do it.
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, or maybe the reading public.
No life is too large, no life is too small. Everybody has amazing stories. They are solid gold. All you have to do is recognize them.
You’ll get started writing. Then you’ll use your memories, family photos, scrapbooks, diaries, interviews, and memorabilia to help you fill out the details. I’ll be encouraging you every step of the way.
You can get them on paper now, if you’re ready. This can be the summer to do it.
Escape to your writing space for an hour each week with me and work on the project you’ve dreaming about.
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
Please note: If you need to pay on time, or if you would prefer to pay by cash, check, Zelle, Venmo, or some alternate way, just be in touch with me directly.
General schedule for each session—
opening poem
flow-writes
lesson, taught by lecture & slide deck
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 + Using AI or Not
Class #8—Emotional Impact & Navigating Upset
Class #9—Place & Setting
Class #10—Get Published & Find Your People
Class #11—Revise: 33 Ways to Improve Your Writing
Class #12—5 Challenges to Great Writing & How to Overcome Them
Guest Speakers for Summer Memoir 2026—
𖦹 KELLY MCMASTERS is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop owner. She is the author of The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays, a Zibby Book Club pick. She is co-editor of the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire. Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, was listed as one of Oprah’s top 5 summer memoirs.
𖦹 MICHELLE DOWD is the author of Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult and the Substack Forager Fridays. She was raised on a mountain in the Angeles National Forest where she learned to identify flora and fauna, navigate by the stars, forage for edible plants, and care for the earth.
𖦹 Ecotherapist JEANNE MALMGREN is the author of Good Eye, Bad Eye: A Memoir of Trauma and Truth--the story of a childhood injury and the spiritual search that led her to peace and acceptance of a disability. She writes the Substack Rx Nature.
𖦹 Award-winning writer KATHRYN WILDER works on a ranch in southwestern Colorado, where she writes, cowboys, and lives among mustangs. Her book Desert Chrome: Water, a Woman, and Wild Horses in the West won the Colorado Book Award. Her story “After Birth” published in The Missouri Review, then won the 2025 Western Heritage Award for outstanding magazine article! Her memoir, The Last Cows: On Ranching, Wonder, and a Woman’s Heart, came out in 2025.
Adjunct sessions—
Co-Writing Group, led by Julie Nowak, Sundays, 1 pm ET
Writer’s Feedback Group, led by Stacy Mote, Thursdays, 6 pm ET
Office Hours. Led by Janisse. Times TBA.
Others TBA.
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FAQS—
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How many sessions are there?
One 1-hour session each week. For folks in some time zones, this hour falls during lunch. All other sessions, such as guest speakers and co-working times, are optional and adjunct.
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How many weeks?
12
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Is the course virtual?
Yes, via the app Zoom.
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Are you live, meaning are you there?
Yes. We work together in real time, as they say.
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What if I’ve never used Zoom?
It’s an easy app to install and use. And it’s free.
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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.
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How many people are typically in a course?
I don’t usually set limits in my workshops. I will teach one person and I will teach 100. Expect at least 25.
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Are the sessions interactive?
No. The one-hour Wednesday sessions are webinar style. However, I organize lots of ancillary sessions for coworking, Q&A, live editing, writers groups, and more, so you have plenty of time to interact with other writers.
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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.
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What if I’m just getting started on a memoir?
Perfect.
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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.
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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?
I would love to have you in the course. I believe that writing down family stories is a healing and bonding process, and I highly encourage people to do this. Some of the lessons I teach may go beyond what you need, but you can choose to stay with the basics. Even if you only write to the prompts I give in class, you should have pages of material to shape up when the course ends.
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If there are handouts, how do I access them?
They will be loaded to the shared Google Drive.
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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.
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How do I access this Drive that you mention?
I’ll send you a link to it.
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How will I get the Zoom link?
You will receive it by email from Janisse directly after you register.
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May I be in contact with you directly?
Yes, please feel free to contact me either using the Contact Form on the website or at this email address, [email protected].
My official 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 their small daughter. She’s crazy about dark chocolate, wildflowers, blackwater rivers, and the blues.
