Talking About Memoir

Join Us for Talking About Memoir!

Date: Sunday, October 20, 2024

Time: 1 - 2:30 PM

Location: Up Up Books

During her workshop, Martha Gies will offer three deeply probing prompts for starting a memoir; give a 30-minute talk on the various forms of memoir, along with some tools for enriching it, and answer questions for the final half hour.

Martha Gies is a fourth-generation Oregonian who began publishing in the late seventies, studied fiction with Raymond Carver in the early eighties, and won a couple of prizes that led to her being invited to teach at Marylhurst College. Her first book, Up All Night, a portrait of Portland told through interviews with graveyard-shift workers, was chosen by the Oregonian and Salem's Statesman-Journal as one of Ten Best of the Year. Her new book, Broken Open, is a sequenced series of personal essays that together comprise a memoir of life's three critical phases: childhood, finding right livelihood, and the rich reflections of later life.

Gies taught creative writing for three graduate writing programs, and short story and personal essay to undergraduates at Marylhurst, and workshops on four continents. She ended her 34-year career in June, 2023, at a week-long workshop on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, with writers attending from Oregon, Washington and California. https://marthagies.com/about-martha-gies

Host or Publisher Up Up Books