Mapping the Self: Life Writing (Intermediate/Advanced)
In this life writing course, we will examine new ways to write about the self, and the importance of sharing our stories with the world.
Fully Booked
This course is fully booked. Please email [email protected] to join the waiting list.
What does it mean to write a self? To give voice, through our writing, to the myriad, mirrored and mirroring parts that make up the whole?
In this online tutored course led by Kerri ní Dochartaigh, author of Thin Places, you will discover new ways to navigate the map(s) of self and reimagine how you might write about the journey your life has taken in a fresh light. What a thing it is to live a life, and what a joy it is to be able to write it. To share it with others, though: therein lies the real magic!
This eight-week course is designed for writers with a work in progress. Over eight weeks, you will explore:
- The politics of self, and how you can reflect your true self in your writing
- The relationship between memories and time
- How you can navigate ideas of ownership through narrative voice
- Form, and its impact on how your story is told
- How life writing can help ourselves and others.
Kerri will read and provide feedback on two assignments, including up to 3,500 words of your manuscript in progress, and at the end of the course you will have a 1-1 tutorial with her to discuss your writing and potential next steps.
Start date
Tuesday 28 May
Location
Online
Length
8 weeks (please see course schedule below)
Price
£275 (early bird discount)
Book by 10am BST on Friday 3 May to take advantage of our early bird discount offer!
Course programme
Week one – Self
In the first week of the course, you will attend a live, online introductory session (via Zoom). You will meet your course mates and Kerri will give an overview of the course structure and materials, before moving on to a discussion on the politics of the self. We’ll start thinking about how we find our true self, and use our findings to write our own song of being; one that speaks individually and collectively.
Week two – Memory
Why do certain experiences lodge themselves firmly in our memory? Why do we struggle to recall others? This week, we will sit with the idea of choice and memory, and discover the impact of choosing to write one memory over another. We’ll look at the interwoven relationship between memory and time, and how we can create a timeline of past events and experiences to write the flow of time.
Week three – Story
In this session, we’ll look at the craft, choice and core of our story. We’ll work through questions on what matters, what we should focus on and how much we need to reveal to our reader so that they get the whole picture in the way we want them to. We’ll explore ideas around imagery, truth and more, and think about how these themes will impact our story. You will also send an 500-word excerpt of your manuscript to Kerri for feedback.
Week four – Form
In week four, we will discuss form, and the impact it can have when writing your strong, transformative story. We’ll examine a range of different forms, from fragments to auto theory; lyrical essay to traditional memoir. We’ll also discuss the impact of form on the reader, and how this can impact how safe and welcome the reader might feel when reading your work. This discussion will support you in deciding the form you’d like to use for your narrative.
Week five – Voice
We touched in week one on the idea of self, and now we will begin to imagine fresh ways we might sing a song of that self, and all the selves we hold within us. This week, we will discover how the language we use impacts our work, and how we can navigate ideas of ownership, authority, and autonomy through narrative voice. We will also look at writing about collective experiences as well as our own, and ensuring our voice is true and impactful for our readers.
Week six – Gift
How might writing our own lives help ourselves and others? We will discuss the therapeutic, cathartic and healing results of life writing, and how we can become more comfortable with being vulnerable with our readers. Life writing is not always easy, as we have to reflect on moments of difficulty and possible trauma, but once we overcome this hurdle we will be ready to share our journeys. Both the experience of writing a life, and of sharing it with others, hold the power to be a real gift to us, and to those we share it with. In the final week of the course, you will finish up your final edits and send your 3,000-word excerpt to your tutor.
Week seven – Feedback
Kerri will spend the next week reading and returning your 3,000-word excerpt with feedback.
Week eight – Tutorial
In the final week of the course, you will have a 1-1 tutorial with Kerri to discuss your writing and next steps.
Live sessions
There will be two live sessions for this course, an introductory sessions and a bookable one-to-one. Both of these sessions will take place via Zoom.
Zoom one: Tue 28 May, 6.30pm
Zoom two: Bookable one-to-one sessions later in the course
Kerri ní Dochartaigh
Kerri ní Dochartaigh is a mother, writer and grower. Her work currently explores ideas of emergency, interconnectedness and ecologies of care.
Her first book, Thin Places, was published by Canongate in Spring 2021, for which she was awarded the Butler Literary Award 2022, highly commended for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2021, and shortlisted for the Ireland Francophonie Ambassador’s Literary Award in 2024. Cacophony of Bone was published by Canongate in May 2023 and was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2023.
She lives in the west of Ireland with her family
Why study with National Centre for Writing?
National Centre for Writing has been supporting writers to develop their craft for over 25 years. Our online tutored courses are developed in partnership with University of East Anglia, home to the prestigious School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing, which boasts award-winning alumni including Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Anne Enright. Our course tutors are all published writers, many of whom have studied or taught at UEA themselves.
While there are many online courses available to you across the world, ours are unique in offering:
- One-to-one feedback on up to six assignments, directly from your course tutor
- A tailored learning experience with 15 students maximum
- Flexibility to progress through the course anywhere, any time
- Support and structure to develop a writing routine
- Skills and knowledge to improve the craft of writing
- Confidence in your ability as a writer
- Opportunity to join our NCW Alumni, an international network of like-minded writers and translators.
How it works
We have partnered with digital learning platform Teachable to host our self-paced courses. The platform is accessible across a range of devices, simple to use, and does not require any specialist equipment.
We want to make sure that you get the most out of our tutored online courses and feel confident that you’re choosing the right course. Each course contains a mixture of teaching content, reading to prompt discussion, writing exercises for you to hone your skills, and group and one-to-one feedback.
Got a question?
If you still have questions, get in touch with the learning team by email [email protected] or phone (+44) 01603 877177 between our working hours of 9am – 5pm BST, Monday to Friday. We’re here to help!
