What’s your story? The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) presents “A Short, Short Memoir Writing Class”—a virtual workshop filmed and edited by Nathan Dean Talamantez, winner of the WCDH “For Honor and Pride” Fellowship. As a gift to the writing community, Talamantez requested to make this accessible to everyone via the platform of YouTube.
Life is long and winding. As decades pass, it becomes difficult to remember all its lessons—to grasp its narrative thread. Is there something you experienced that you wish your relatives and friends understood? This workshop seeks to organize personal experiences into short meaningful narrative essays that inspire personal growth from both the author and their readers.
Throughout the video, Talamantez guides the viewer through generating material to write about, sorting through the memories, identifying narrative threads, editing drafts, and building themes. Talamantez alternates between instructing and giving the writer space to create, so the entire workshop does take more than 30 minutes to complete.
This workshop is appropriate for writers of all levels of experience. As a final product, each participant will develop a 1500-word essay exploring either a single precious memory or a series of thematically tied events. The final essay created can be shared with friends and family or submitted to local newspapers for publication in memorial.
Nathan Dean Talamantez is a Fiction Novelist and Nonfiction Essayist who often blends the cultural and spiritual into surreal fever dreams. Nathan's sardonic narratorial voice offers readers "a view of yourself twisted through a prism by which I may show you something about yourself you've never seen before." Influential authors include Chuck Palahniuk, John Kennedy Toole, and George Saunders. Nathan graduated from Texas State University in 2012, before serving seven years maintaining aircraft in the United States Air Force. Between 2019-2022 his essays were featured in several publications, including Pensive Journal, Drunk Monkeys, and URevolution. Nathan's debut novella, Sacred Fool, was released via Atmosphere Press in January 2021. He is currently seeking a publisher for his debut novel: Texifornia Border. Nathan received his MFA from The California Institute of Integral Studies in May 2022. He was awarded The Writers' Colony fellowship in February of 2022.
The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow is a 501(c)3 nonprofit whose mission is to nurture writers of all genres, backgrounds, and levels of experience in a supportive environment that builds community, energizes creative expression, stimulates new thinking, and optimizes productivity. Since opening its doors to writers in 2000, the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow has made a lasting impact on the arts and literary communities hosting over 1,800 writers from 48 states and 13 countries. For more information, please visit www.writerscolony.orgor call Michelle Hannon or Jeanne Glass at (479)253-7444.