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Memoir: The Southern Gothic Style

Techniques to increase tension and interest

In this class, memoirists will learn and practice techniques perfected by southern gothic writers to fascinate readers. Your story fascinates you. Through craft and structure, you will make your personal story exciting to a broader audience.

We will parse and practice the narrative structure of three memoirs written by award-winning, Mississippi writers: Kiese Laymon, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and Natasha Trethewey. As a class, we will comment on sections of the memoirs and deep dive into their technique. We will then attempt to imitate the author’s style during in-class writing exercises with your own true stories.

The class will be especially helpful for people who have written some of their memoir but need techniques to increase tension and interest.

Miesha Headen is a journalist and fiction writer. She edited Cleveland Noir, published by Akashic Books. She is the recipient of The Williams Writing Fellowship from Columbia University, the Amplify Fellowship from Literary Cleveland, and the Gray Memorial Bookseller Award from the BINC Foundation.