Writing Memoir on Abortion with Lily Andrews

“Abortions will not let you forget./ You remember the children you got that you did not get…”

The opening lines to Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem, “the mother,” evoke a sense of lingering, complex grief over abortion not easily or often talked about. In this six-week workshop, we will explore the different and often contradictory emotions of abortion and its irresolvable moral questions through our personal narratives. While this workshop is in memoir writing, students are also encouraged to sign up if they plan to write a novel. With an emphasis on reading (mostly selections from Choice Words: Writers on Abortion, a new anthology edited by Annie Finch), writing, and plenty of workshopping, by the end of the six-weeks students will have the bones of a memoir that they can expand into a full-length work.

Course Outline

• Session I: We will begin with the titular poem, “the mother,” by Gwendolyn Brooks and read excerpts from Barbara Johnson’s essay on the poem, called “Apostrophe, Animation, and Abortion.” Students will read two more abortion poems for homework and use one of the three as a jumping off point for their memoir.
• Session II: Students will come in with a ‘start’ to their memoir. We will read and workshop in dyads, and select one-two people to workshop as a whole group. Students will read a selection from Choice Words, and use it to guide themselves as they go deeper into the meat of their story. Writing is homework.
• Session III: Students will come in with a ‘middle’ section from their memoir. We will read and workshop in dyads, and select two people to workshop as a whole group. Students will read a selection from Choice Words, and use it to guide themselves as they reach the climax of their story. Writing is homework.
• Session IV: Students will come in with a climax or critical moment in their memoir. We will read and workshop in dyads, and select two people to workshop as a whole group. Students will read a selection from Choice Words, and use it to guide themselves as they reach the end of their story. Writing is homework.
• Session V: Students will come in with a relatively full story that has a beginning, a middle, a climax, and an end. We will read and workshop the ‘end’ in dyads, and select two people to workshop as a whole group. Students will read a selection from Choice Words, and use it to guide themselves as they return to their story to revise, flesh out, or provide resolution (Afterword, anyone?). Writing is homework.
• Session VI: Students will come in with a revised, addended, or more fully realized draft. We will read and workshop the new or revised writing in dyads, and select two people to workshop as a whole group. We will discuss how students will continue to work on their memoir, using the draft from this workshop as the bones that may be fleshed out and expanded. Students will offer ideas in whole group discussion, be given further reading suggestions, and have the opportunity to set up a continuing writing group with their peers.

*Readings will be read and/or discussed in class as time allows.