Whether you are a published writer or you last wrote in your childhood diary, this workshop will help you write your personal story, whether it’s an essay or a longer form of memoir.
Instructor Patty Dann, who is a bestselling writer and the author of THE BUTTERFLY HOURS: Transforming Memories into Memoir, will guide you at the table and on the page. Patty will help you to access memories, articulate them for a reader, and find the best shape and medium for them. Each week, she will provide assignments and offer wisdom, techniques and encouragement in a safe, respectful, collaborative and intelligent forum. Along with brief writing in every class, participants may bring in two pages for weekly feedback from classmates and the instructor.
New York Magazine named Patty one of the “Great Teachers of NYC.” She earned an MFA in writing from Columbia University and a B.A. from the University of Oregon. In addition to the Fairfield County Writers’ Studio, Patty has taught at Sarah Lawrence College and the West Side YMCA.
THE BUTTERFLY HOURS was chosen as one of the Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers Magazine. Patty is the author of THE GOLDFISH WENT ON VACATION: A Memoir of Loss, and THE BABY BOAT: A Memoir of Adoption. She has also published three novels, MERMAIDS, STARFISH and SWEET & CRAZY. Her work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. MERMAIDS was made into a movie, starring Cher, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci.
Patty’s articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Science Monitor, O Magazine, The Oregon Quarterly, Redbook, More, Forbes Woman, Poets & Writers Magazine, “The Writer’s Handbook,” “Dirt: The Quirks, Habits and Passions of Keeping House” and “This I Believe: On Motherhood.”
Patty lives in New York City.