Writing
your
life

A 10-week workshop in the art of the memoir with Cliff Bostock, PhD.

Photo: Detail of "Memory" by Daniel Chester French (1850-1931)

FOR WHOM? Appropriate for people wanting to write a publishable memoir and for those without literary ambitions but who find themselves in that common condition described by T.S. Eliot: "We had the experience but missed the meaning." Whichever group you fall into, this workshop aims to help you find meaning in your life story -- the myth that drives you. Cliff Bostock, being both a longtime Atlanta writer/editor and therapist with a PhD in depth psychology, is well equipped to work from both a literary and psychological perspective. (This workshop is also a good choice for people engaged in "blogging" or journaling on the Internet.)

THEORY? Before conventional talk therapy, people relied on creative work to make changes in their psychological states. Even at the dawn of contemporary psychology, Freud and Jung worked with the creative imagination, understanding that memory, like a dream, is a mixture of actual fact and invention. This workshop, like all of Cliff Bostock's work, is in that spirit. We reflect upon memories, as biographical fantasies, but any transformation is dependent on what we MAKE of them. Writing the memoir illuminates us but it is the writing itself that can transform us. (Recall that Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory, was the mother of the Muses. All art is depedendent upon memory and memory by its nature begets art .)

WHY NOW? The memoir has replaced fiction as the culture's favorite form of literature. There is an explosion of personal journals or "blogs" on the Internet. These writers are not only telling their stories but doing so in community, rather than in the private space of the consulting room. Conventional psychotherapy has become another tool of the dominant culture's effort to "normalize" people. The memoir, on the other hand, celebrates the oddity of human life, following James Hillman's assertion that the "wound is the eye." It is exactly in our oddity -- our pathology, our wound -- that we can discover who we are and how we are inescapably bound to one another. We connect by disclosing our "pathology."

HOW DOES IT WORK? Participants will choose a subject to write about. (The memoir is not an autobiography. It is a reflective narrative about one general aspect of life, typically.) There will be weekly assignments to be read to the group for feedback. The purpose of the assignments is to deepen understanding of the personal psyche but to also practice writing. Participants will also be given the opportunity to participate in Cliff Bostock's version of improvisational psychodrama, based on narratives developed during the workshop. As an enactment, this work gives a very clear sense of what inhibits us and, often, provides a taste of how different life can be when we are living in accord with our purpose.

WHEN, WHERE, HOW MUCH? Workshops are conducted in Grant Park, usually at 7 p.m. on a weeknight. Sessions last two hours. The group reviews schedules so that nobody has to miss more than one session. Cost is sliding-scale with the maximum fee being $50 per session (including review of your material by Cliff Bostock each week). If you pay for all sessions at least a week in advance of the workshop's start, the price is $450. Cliff Bostock is committed to making this kind of work available to everyone, so do not hesitate to discuss a sliding-scale fee with him.

Call 404-525-4774 or write grazer@mindspring.com. E-mail is the better choice for a prompt reply.