A Weave, a Basket, a Vessel: outtakes from a memoir master class

Nine writers. Nine months. A memoir master class. A Weave, a Basket, a Vessel offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at an intensive workshop-the readings, lessons, and prompts that yielded new writing as well as the conversations and questions that bolstered or rearranged ideas about the memoir form. In these pages, flash nonfiction emerges in call-and-response fashion; exquisite lines of prose are reconfigured into choral poems; and brand-new, longer-length writing from talented writers is presented for the first time. Throughout, master-class teacher Beth Kephart explores the journey itself-the hopes she had as she forged her in-depth syllabus and the lessons she learned along the way.

Taken as a whole, the book offers a map for both teachers and writers seeking to expand their understanding of the possibilities of truth in prose.