Bronx Memoir Project (BMP) Workshop Series: Place and Time

BCA's continues with Series III: Place and Time: An Exploration of Setting as Character and Plot led by Melissa Coss Aquino, PhD at the Jerome Park Library (118 Eames Place, Bronx, NY 10468). This free hybrid workshop series is open to all regardless of writing experience.

Memoir is often situated in specific places. However, more often than not, the places are a kind of backdrop. A place where things happen. In Place and Time, writers will explore the many ways that place shapes characters and infuses plot lines with unexpected twists and turns. Memoir is often driven by the questions: Who am I? and What happened to me? In this series, attendees will explore the questions: Where Am I? and How did that impact who I am?

Workshop I: Reading and Writing Other Places

Exploring a series of short readings from locations other than NYC, writers will play with remembering other places, researching locations and imagining or creating worlds (sci-fi and fantasy). There will be a few generative writing exercises to put these ideas to work.

Workshop II: Writing Home

In this workshop, we will read excerpts about "home" and its multiple meanings and locations. Participants will play with notions of "home" in their memoir writing.

Workshop III: Where You At? Using slang, dialect, and multiple languages to evoke a sense of place

Writers frequently use language to give us a sense of location. Setting can often be inferred by how characters are speaking. Using excerpts and exercises to play with dialogue, participants will try to make readers "hear" their setting.

Workshop IV: The Land that Speaks A Thousand Tongues: Nature Writing in Urban Environments

The Bronx is the greenest of the five boroughs. Many who come here come with memories of oceans, trees, flowers and fruits. How can we do nature writing from where we stand in the Bronx?

Host or Publisher Bronx Council on the Arts