PJ Seminar: A Master Class on Containing Big Themes with Joyce Maynard

This class will be devoted to the container story—a small story that allows a writer to explore (and contain) big, hard, unwieldy themes. I’ll be talking you through a container story or two of my own, and we’ll look at your own lives, in search of the containers (a house, a garden, a car, a dog you had once, a meal) that may allow you to make writing about them less daunting, more manageable. 

As much as we can, within the structure of a virtual class, this will be an interactive workshop. Before we meet up, take some time to write down some of the big themes and obsessions of your life that you want to tackle in your writing. Together, we’ll try to locate the containers that may allow you to do that. 

Remember: A memoir is not The Story of My Life. It’s one story of your life. And strangely enough, by telling that one story, you may discover, you reveal more, and do it more powerfully, than you would if you attempted to tell them all. 

Contain it. This class should help you learn how. NOTE: There are no requirements for this class, but you might find it helpful to read my memoir, At Home in the World, or my more recent memoir, The Best of Us.

Please support Joyce and purchase her memoir At Home in the World from Bookshop.