Thursday, July 24, 2025 from 10am-12pm CDT in-person
This class is free and open to writers of all genres, skill levels, and backgrounds, 18+, on a first-come basis, and is limited to 15 participants.
Registration info coming soon
Writing a memoir is more than a linear reporting of the events of our lives. Along the way, we stop to reflect, to make meaning. We should also stop to eat. Childhood foods—both the unnatural prepackaged snacks we were drawn to and the “eat-this-it’s-good-for-you” fare pushed on us by grown-ups—are a rich source of sensory description.
The foods of childhood may hold the key to accepting and understanding an event that makes sense only in hindsight or they may signify that moment when things changed. Or they may simply help create a more complete picture of a life. Maybe those canned beets you scooped into a napkin on your lap tell a larger story about silence or things hidden or trusting your knowing. Maybe a clean plate tells a story of loss or absence or lack.
In this generative workshop, we will explore the foods that helped shape our personal stories and use them as tools of discovery and meaning that reconnect us to the kid we were at the dinner table who knew what was right all along.
Though this workshop is geared toward those writing creative nonfiction, fiction writers and poets are also welcome to attend. This class is open to writers of all skill levels 18+.
By the end of the class students will have:
- An understanding of the role of food in telling personal stories
- A draft of new written work
Michelle Otero is the author of Vessels: A Memoir of Borders, Bosque: Poems, and the essay collection Malinche’s Daughter. She served as Albuquerque Poet Laureate from 2018-2020 and co-edited the New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023 and 22 Poems & a Prayer for El Paso, a tribute to victims of the 2019 El Paso shooting and winner of a New Mexico-Arizona Book Award. A coach, community-based artist, and racial healing practitioner, she is the founder of ArteSana Creative Consulting, dedicated to creative expression and storytelling as the basis for organizational development and positive social change. Originally from Deming, New Mexico, Otero holds a BA in History from Harvard College and an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College. She is a member of the Macondo Writers Workshop.
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