"Stars matter because they act out aspects of life that matter to us," Richard Dyer once wrote. In this four-week workshop, we’ll interpret Dyer’s axiom through the lens of memoir, learning how to write about actors on film and what they mean to us. The parasocial bonds we, as viewers, sometimes forge with performers on screen can be uniquely clarifying: They allow us to see our hopes, fears, and desires reflected back at us in ways that other forms of art just can’t capture. It follows, then, that these relationships make for fertile terrain for memoir writing. What can the work of the stars we watch on screen teach us about ourselves?

The generative exercises in this workshop will involve learning how to write about scenes on film while focusing on a performer’s gestures, mien, and affect; how to map a performer’s work on film onto the narratives of our own lives; and how to make yourself a character worth the reader’s emotional investment. We will also discuss pragmatic matters, such as best practices for pitching and submitting essays for publication. Students will walk away from this four-week workshop with an essay that meets all the above criteria, using a performer’s life and work as a window into telling your reader who you are in the world.

This is a four-week long workshop starting on Saturday, March 16th from 2:00 PM–4:30 PM ET. This workshop is open to all writers of color.

Check out the class page for more information. To see all of our upcoming classes, visit kundiman.org/online-classes.