Past Selves

“There is no essential self that lies pure as a vein of gold under the chaos of experience and chemistry. Anything can be changed, and we must understand the human organism as a sequence of selves that succumb to or choose one another.” – Andrew Solomon

How do we become the people we are, and how do we write about that process – either as the explicit subject of a work or as the backdrop against which characters develop and take action? If we are writing fiction, we must construct a textured past out of which our protagonists have emerged, and that can form a plausible basis for their actions. If we are writing memoir or personal essays, we need to excavate our own past selves, to recall and inhabit them as fully as possible in order to tell evocative stories. How can we access those selves, real or imagined, so that they come as fully alive as possible on the page?

This workshop will use a mixture of writing prompts, group discussion, and short assigned readings to help students develop the tools for creating the selves, or characters, that populate our work. There may be 1 or 2 short readings circulated before the class that students will be asked to read.

Molly McCloskey is the author of four works of fiction and a memoir. Her most recent novel, Straying, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. She has taught writing at George Washington University, University of Maryland, Boston University, Trinity College Dublin, and elsewhere. She is also an editor of both fiction and nonfiction.