Workshop: Two Truths and An Imagined Scene

In nonfiction, we are bound by an oath of truth, yet some pivotal moments in our lives are obscured or fragmented by time, age, and distance. This generative workshop will focus on bridging the gap between fixed memories, lost ones, and scenes we may not have been privy to. 

We’ll begin by exploring craft elements in the assigned readings, followed by guided writing, where we’ll dig into previously inaccessible portions of our narrative using three key prompts. Participants should expect to leave the session with tools for using what we don’t know to shape the story of ourselves, and possibly, the germ of an essay in hand.

Keema Waterfield was born in a trailer in Anchorage, Alaska the year John Lennon was shot, smallpox was officially eradicated, and the first Iran-Iraq War began. Her essays have appeared in Brevity, WIRED, NYT, Pithead Chapel, and Redivider, among others. She received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Montana. She now resides in Missoula, Montana, where she plays music for kicks and occasionally moonlights as a standup comic. She lives lives and writes on Séliš and Qlispé landwith her husband, two children, a bunch of extra instruments she doesn’t know how to play, and a revolving cast of quirky animals. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @keemasaurusrex.