Virginia’s Apple: Collected Memoirs

Join the Willamette Writers Coast Chapter and author Judith Barrington at Newport Public Library for a reading this Friday, June 20, and a memoir workshop this Saturday, June 21.

On Friday, Barrington will read from her new book, “Virginia’s Apple: Collected Memoirs” and will talk about the process of creating the collection. A Q & A session will follow.

On Saturday, Barrington will conduct a memoir workshop. She will lead participants through the characteristics of literary memoir, including the sticky question of “truth.” She will discuss the techniques that memoirists sometimes borrow from fiction and poetry, and address how to look back in time at our life stories, identifying ways to use language and craft to hold it all in place.

Participants are encouraged to bring a notebook and pen to practice a few memoir beginnings.

Barrington is the author of five collections of poetry and the bestselling “Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art,” used by writers and writing programs across the country. Her “Lifesaving: A Memoir” won the Lambda Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for memoir. She taught in the MFA writing program at the University of Alaska and in workshops across the United States, in England and in Spain. She and her wife live in Portland.

The Friday, June 20, program begins at 4 pm and the Saturday, June 21, program at 2 pm at Newport Public Library, located at 35 NW Nye Street. For more information, go to willamettewriters.org.