Advanced Memoir Intensive
with Cara Stoddard
Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir
In Person
Intermediate, Advanced
20 Sessions
This class meets IN PERSON at Hugo House in Capitol Hill.
Memoir is more than just what happened—it’s personal history, shaped into art.
This 20-week intensive is for writers ready to commit to the long-haul work of building a book-length memoir. Whether you’re deep in a draft or just beginning to assemble your pages, you’ll find the structure and support to move your manuscript forward.
Through weekly in-person classes and intensive (7+ hours) reading and writing outside of class, you’ll read deeply, write steadily, and revise with intention—all within a dedicated cohort and a classroom culture rooted in respect, rigor, and care.
Together, we’ll explore the essential craft elements of longform memoir: how to move between scene and reflection, how to make nonlinear structure feel inevitable, how to build narrative momentum without sacrificing lyric depth. We’ll treat voice, place, dialogue, and memory as material—not just confession—and learn how to make vivid choices about what belongs on the page, and why.
You’ll leave with:
- Up to 120 pages workshopped across two rounds
- A deeper understanding of how memoirists shape lived experience
- A nonfiction writing community to sustain you through revision
Perfect for intermediate and advanced writers looking to shape, deepen, or revise a book-length memoir with clarity, commitment, and creative support.
Note: This is an in-person class with no hybrid option. Weekly participation and time outside of class are essential to your success.
This class focuses on:
- Craft & Technique: Focuses on improving writing skills, exploring elements like plot, character, or dialogue.
- Close Reading & Analysis: Engages deeply with published texts to examine craft, language, and style.
- Workshop: Students submit work and receive feedback from the instructor and/or classmates.
What to expect:
- Goal-Setting & Accountability: Includes tools or practices to help students stay motivated.
- Project-Based: Students will work toward completing a specific project (e.g., a story, poem, or essay).
- Reading & Analysis: Published works will be closely read as part of the learning process.
- Prompts & Exercises: Class features guided writing activities.
- In-Class Sharing: Students are invited to share their writing aloud or in small groups during class.
- Instructor Feedback: Students receive direct feedback from the instructor.
- Work Outside of Class: 7+ hours of reading and/or writing outside of class per week.
Students say…
“It’s a rare experience to learn from such a gifted educator. Truly. Cara is a master teacher. She combines rigor and high expectations with humility, grace, and respect for the realities and autonomy of each student.”
“Warm and knowledgeable teacher! I learned many new craft techniques and was warmly encouraged, and held accountable (which i loved). Cara is great.”
Q&A with Memoir Intensive Instructor Cara Stoddard
What do students need in order to take this class (craft knowledge, specific skills, projects, etc.)?
Students need to have a serious commitment to writing a book and the determination to see their project through to completion. Best if students have started working on their memoir and have significant pages before this class starts. This class is designed for folks who already know how to write scenes and use reflection in their creative nonfiction, and who are looking for a community of practice to help hold them accountable for a regular writing practice and make significant strides on their book in progress.
What is the community-building experience like in this class?
The first 2-hour class session is dedicated exclusively to getting to know each other, through a short personal writing prompt, and structured whole-group and small-group sharing out of goals for their books-in-progress and reading aloud what they have written (in class). Weeks 2 and 3, we will continue to build rapport with each other through reading aloud in small groups from techniques exercises (2-3 pages of writing students worked on at home over the course of the previous week, in response to a specific prompt).
What are you most excited to share and/or experience with your students?
I am excited to share in the joy of making things with our hands (and hearts and minds) – that self-awe at looking at all they have written over the course of the class and feeling like it is a thing they are proud of, that speaks some truth about who they are and how they make meaning of the experiences they have had.
What is your philosophy on being an artist?
I believe there is something hallowed about tapping into the “live wire” – that is, precisely naming (giving words to) the things we have lived that have left an imprint on us and making meaning from those lived experiences, finding resonance in the echoes and making metaphors out of real-events that have happened. I believe we can often remember more than we think we can when fully immersed in rendering a scene. The act of reliving it by re-dramatizing it in writing pulls it out of some buried place.
Anything else you’d like to share with your students?
Best books to read as prep for this course: The Art of Time in Memoir (Sven Birkerts) and Syllabus (Lynda Barry)
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Registration Dates:
- August 12: Member registration opens at 10:30 am PT
- August 19: General registration opens at 10:30 am PT
- August 26: Scholarships open
- August 31: Last day of Early Bird discount
This class is not eligible for a member discount. Learn more here »
Cara Stoddard
Cara Stoddard holds an MFA from the University of Idaho and a BA from the College of Wooster. Their work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Terrain, and Ninth Letter, among others, and has been nominated for Pushcart. Learn more at Cara's website.
FAQ
Complete FAQEach class description includes a breakdown of what you can expect in terms of in-class activity, feedback, and homework (if any).
Generative means you’ll be generating new writing, either in class or at home between classes.
Workshop means you’ll be sharing work to be read and critiqued by your instructor and classmates and that you will also be critiquing the work of your peers.
Reading means you’ll be doing close reading of a work with an eye toward craft.
Craft discussion means you’ll be looking at the tools writers use to do that thing they do so well and then trying it out yourself.
Class levels are designed for various stages of the writing journey. Simply self-select the level that sounds best for where you’re at.
Introductory: This is your first creative writing workshop, first writing class since high school, or first foray into a new genre or form. You’re looking to try something new, kickstart your writing, and/or establish yourself in the fundamentals.
Intermediate: You have a strong understanding of writing fundamentals and are eager to deep dive into craft. You’re honing your writerly identity and voice through independent projects. In workshop, you look for constructive feedback and are ready to do writing and reading outside of class.
Advanced: You’ve written a significant body of work and have taken it through several stages of revision. You’re getting ready to publish or are in the early stage of publishing, and you’re interested in refining the skills that will take you to the next level in the literary industry.
All Levels: You are any of the above and are looking to play with new possibilities.
You’ll get your class information, including Zoom link if applicable, three days before the first day of class.
Write With Hugo House is our free monthly write-in program, operated in partnership with the Seattle Public Library. Two take place onsite at SPL locations, one takes place online.
Sliding-scale classes are offered every quarter. Find them in our Class Catalog.
We announce flash sales, early bird periods, and special deals through our e-newsletter; sign up at the bottom of this page.
At this time, we offer payment plans on classes 8 sessions and up. Email education@hugohouse.org with the name of the class you’re interested in to set up a payment plan. Please note that you can only have 2 active payment plans per quarter.
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We charge a 5% nonrefundable administrative fee for all payment plans.
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Extended payment plans up to 8 monthly installments and 16 semi-monthly installments are available upon request.
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We are unable to hold seats for prospective payment plan students. Students will be enrolled once their first installment has been paid.
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If you need to cancel, Hugo House will issue refunds according to its cancellation and transfer policies. Your 5% nonrefundable admin fee will not be refunded.
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If you withdraw from a class after it begins, you will not receive a refund and are still responsible for paying the full course tuition.
Asynchronous classes are perfect for students that need flexibility!
During an asynchronous class, instructors release new lessons once per week. Students then have one week to complete that lesson and any accompanying coursework. You’ll learn as much as you would in a traditional class but with the flexibility to work at the best times for your schedule!
While there are no live sessions, asynchronous classes are still a lively and rigorous experience. Async classes are not static lessons but an adaptable and energetic community space. Be ready to work in a collaborative environment, giving and receiving feedback on your writing, participating in discussions, and growing your writing practice in a way that works best for you.
Asynchronous classes take place through the website Wet Ink. Students receive an invitation to the class and to set up a Wet Ink account on the start date of the class. Each week of the class, a new lesson will be available through the Wet Ink portal. Classes close two weeks after the end date, and students receive an email containing their content from the class when it closes.
Hugo House will only process refund requests that are submitted 5 business days or more before the class start date. To request a refund, log in to your account, go to “My Account,” select the “Orders” tab on the left-hand side, click the appropriate order, and request a refund for your specific class. Administrative fees apply. Please see our full refund policy here.
In general, we do not record classes. However, an exception if a student has specific access needs.
We encourage students to only sign up for classes that fit with their schedule.
We do not tolerate racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist, transphobic or any other oppressive behaviors, regardless of who commits them. Please check out our full community guidelines by clicking here. If an instance of community guidelines are violated and not resolved within the classroom, students may let us know by filling out the student incident report.
If Hugo House needs to cancel a class for any reason, you’ll receive a full refund.
You can apply for a scholarship by clicking the red “Request a Scholarship” text on class pages. The scholarship request text is located at the top of each class page, underneath the “add to cart” button.
Due to the limited number of scholarships, please only request up to two scholarships for two different classes per quarter if you truly meet the financial need requirements.
Hugo House members get to register early for classes – a full week before they open to the general public!, receive a 10% discount on events and classes, and more. See the full list of membership benefits here!
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