Pivotal Moments: A Personal Essay Writing Workshop

We are excited to offer a three-week intensive course in personal essay writing with author Jane Ganahl. Please note the sessions will take place from 4:00 to 6:00 PM on three consecutive Wednesdays: January 14, January 21, and January 28. The total cost for the three-week session is $300, and is limited to eight people.

About the Workshop

Every day there are moments that could inspire a personal essay: finding your late mother’s favorite shoes, being asked by your curious grandchild when you’re going to die, walking past a restaurant and smelling the pungent aroma of a birthplace you have not seen in decades. These are moments that cause you to pause, reflect and learn: the basis of a solid personal essay. In this three-part introductory class, you’ll learn how to identify these pivotal moments, find the lessons therein, and write about them in a way that resonates with readers. Because the best personal essays don’t just relate something that happened to you: they draw the reader in with deep sharing and offer a new perspective. The goal of this course is to write an essay—or at least get a solid first draft done—in three weeks!

Students will learn:

- How to choose a topic (and topics to avoid)

- The five elements of a good essay

- How to structure your essay with an outline

- The importance of perspective

About the Instructor

Jane Ganahl is a writer, teacher, and co-founder of the Litquake festival. As a Hearst newspaper journalist for many years, she wrote the “Single Minded” column for the Chronicle, which led to her memoir, Naked on the Page: The Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife. She was also the editor of the anthology Single Woman of a Certain Age. Her essays have appeared in five different anthologies and in the magazines Spirituality & Health, , , Huffington Post, Bazaar, and Salon, among other places. She is also a crazy cat lady, with a small nonprofit that tends feral colonies on the San Mateo County coast. Read more at janeganahl.com.

The workshop will take place in a second floor office at 1047 El Camino Real which is directly across the road from Kepler’s Books. Please note that there is no elevator in the building.

Also check out other Workshops in Menlo Park, Arts events in Menlo Park, Literary Art events in Menlo Park.