Memoir: The Process
with Kimberly Dark

Saturdays in January of 2025 over Zoom from 10AM-12PM PST (1/4, 1/11, 1/18, 1/25)

Memories aren’t enough. We have to connect them to culture, to history, to zeitgeist—and then be as clear and specific about our unique perspectives as possible. In this generative workshop, we’ll open a number of creative doorways (and windows and portholes and tunnels) into meaning and we’ll discuss how and why they work. We’re going to work on releasing the story without it getting caught in the mind first. We’ll work together in four, two-hour, face-to-face (Zoom) meetings. This workshop is about process and creation, not revision. You may write things you never want to share in order to get to the stories you can revise for audience. In every session, Kimberly will offer ways of working to hone your unique angle of vision. We’ll also write together, share ideas, discuss examples and investigate how every act of creation is, in some way, memoir. Participants will leave with at least twelve new ways to mine memory and life stories for deeper meaning and story structure.

All Zoom meetings will be recorded and shared, in case you need to miss one.

Kimberly Dark is a writer, sociologist and storyteller, working to reveal the architecture of everyday life so that we can reclaim our power as social creators. She’s the author of four books, including Fat, Pretty and Soon to be Old: A Makeover for Self and Society and Damaged Like Me: Essays on Love, Harm and Transformation. All four of these books use memoir, even though one is poetry, one is a novel and two are essay collections. Kimberly is a sociologist by training who believes in our responsibility as social creators. Art is one way to find and re-forge the vast and intricate connections between self and the social world. Kimberly teaches writing at Cal State Summer Arts, Hugo House, Corporeal Writing, among others, and she offers workshops for do-gooders to do better, on topics like unconscious bias and conflict resolution. Learn more at www.kimberlydark.com.

Pricing:

The following payment model is inspired by and borrowed from the payment model of Bayo Akomolafe’s class, We Will Dance With Mountains: Into the Cracks.

This workshop offers a sliding scale based on your relative financial standing. In an effort to reflect disparity in economic condition and access to wealth, the following payment system is designed for those with more wealth to help cover the costs of those with less access to wealth and resources. We trust your discernment of your current financial situation and how you fit into the global economic context.

As you decide what amount to pay, please consider your present-day financial situation governed by income, but also the following factors: historical discrimination faced by your peoples; your financial wealth (retirement/savings/investments); your access to income and financial wealth, both current and anticipated (how easily could you earn more income compared to other people in your community, country, and the world; are you expecting an inheritance); people counting on your financial livelihood including dependents and community members; the socio-economic conditions of your locale (relative to other places in your country and in the world); your relationship to food & resource scarcity.

$450 Partner

$400 Supporter (Note: This amount reflects the “real” value of this course.)

$350 Companion

Payment plans are also available for anyone needing further financial assistance. Please email Daniel at registration@corporealwriting.com for more info, or if you are feeling challenged in any way by the financial requirements of participation.