Is there a story you’d love to tell? Join Lara Feigel, an award-winning writer of memoir, history and group biography, as she delves into the art of memoir writing.
Lara will help you decide which part of your story to tell and how to structure it into a beginning, a middle and an end. And she’ll offer her advice on how to turn yourself into a character on the page, using the techniques of the novel.
Lara will also help you find and develop your voice as both a memoirist and a storyteller, guiding you to investigate what kind of voice your story needs. Finally, she’ll explore how much your own story is the story of others, and offer you tools to navigate and negotiate this.
The session will end with a brief Q&A, so come ready with your questions.
The masterclass will take place online via Zoom. It will also be recorded so if you are unable to attend live, you'll be able to catch-up and access the recording for up to two weeks after the event has taken place.
I am a writer and cultural historian and am a Professor in the English department at King’s College London. I am fascinated by the relationship between life, literature and history and in my books I attempt to find new ways of writing that can allow the three to intertwine. Most recently, I have written Custody: The Secret History of Mothers, which tells the 200 year history of child custody through the stories of seven women – Caroline Norton, George Sand, Elizabeth Packard, Frieda Lawrence, Edna O’Brien, Alice Walker, Britney Spears – who have fought for their children and been found wanting.
Before that I wrote two bibliomemoirs. Look! We Have Come Through! takes D.H. Lawrence’s life and work as a starting point in thinking through our contemporary world. Free Woman is an investigation of freedom that’s part memoir and part biography of Doris Lessing. I interweave life and literature to think about motherhood, sex, madness and communism, testing the gains and costs of living freely.
My acclaimed novel, The Group, uses Mary McCarthy’s landmark 1963 novel as a model for thinking through contemporary women’s lives in twenty-first century London.
The Bitter Taste of Victory is an account of the experiences of twenty of the British and American cultural figures sent in to Germany after the war, and The Love-charm of Bombs is about five writers in London in the Second World War. Both these books move fluidly between cultural and political history, collective biography and literary criticism while also attempting to create a narrative that unfolds with drama and suspense. Both books are set in war zones and I am intrigued by the way that war acts as a catalyst in transforming lives and creating art.
I grew up in London and studied English at Oxford University, going on to do an MA at University College London and a PhD at the University of Sussex. I have been teaching at King’s since 2008 and all my books have been in part the result of conversations with colleagues and students in the English department and the School of Arts and Humanities.
The workshop fee of £30 (incl. VAT) is payable in full online. Please note that payment instalment plans are available for all W&A events, writing courses and editing services. Contact W&A Admin on [email protected] so that we can find a payment schedule that works for you.
This is a live online event which will be presented using video conferencing software. Joining instructions and full guidance will be provided by the W&A Team a week before the event start-date. Please note, all event timings are in UK time.
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Accessible to All
- It’s of real importance to Writers & Artists that our events and courses remain accessible to all.
- Writers & Artists has made one bursary place available for this event as part of our accessibility scheme. Please visit our bursaries page to find out how to apply for a bursary to the event.
- Payment instalment plans are available for all W&A events, writing courses and editing services. Contact W&A Admin on [email protected] so that we can find a payment schedule that works for you.
- At the speaker's discretion, event materials will be made available to attendees after the masterclass.
- A link to a recording of the masterclass will be circulated after the event. This will be made available to event attendees only, for two weeks.
- If you'd like to receive a transcript of the session, please do let us know and we can circulate following the session.
- This event will include written text and visuals. Please contact us in advance so that we can make arrangements to be sure all documents appear in a format that works for you.
- If you’d like to attend but have any questions or concerns regarding accessibility, then please email [email protected]
