Writing is hard but can be learned.
Tell the story of your pandemic isolation.
Anyone who writes for a living, needs a cover letter for a job application, a toast for the bride and groom or a post on social media knows that writing is not easy. This is why award-winning writer, published author and respected educator Ron Rozelle presents: ‘Telling Your Own Story: Pandemic Edition: A Memoir Writing Virtual Workshop.’ Classes start August 30, 2020 and continue every Sunday through October 4, 2020 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Ron knows his business.
Express Yourself
Expressing thoughts and feelings in a written narrative is not a skill most people are born with, which is why those who enroll in Telling Your Own Story: Pandemic Edition will benefit. Writing is a learned skill. And when the student is ready a teacher will appear. Ron Rozelle is an able and experienced teacher. The method by which he instructs derives from his years of teaching at the secondary and college level. Additionally, Rozelle has written and published both fiction and non-fiction books. The benefit to the student is that they have a chance to learn firsthand from someone who has experienced success in a very competitive field.
Tell A Story
Rozelle is an advocate of stories and storytelling. “How many people do you know who cannot tell a joke,” he recently asked. “They are not able to deliver a joke because they do not know how to tell a story.” He went on to describe that a joke contains the same elements as any written work whether fiction or non-fiction; a beginning, middle and end. The best comedians tell stories and not just jokes. But that is just one place where superior storytelling pays off. History is another subject that benefits when recounted as a story.
“Those who teach history as a series of dates, battles, and body counts make it seem really uninteresting,” he said. “But the teachers who recount history as a ‘story’ make it unforgettable.” Learning to tell the story of a state, person or discovery puts the reader inside and present with the people and places that were historic. For the upcoming workshop, the experience we all share in common is the shutdown of the country due to the Coronavirus/Covid-19 pandemic. Inside that common setting are as many individual stories as there are people to tell them.
Online Classes
The classes are online, which seems appropriate in the age of the pandemic, a situation ripe with storytelling prospects. As Rozelle says, there are plenty of things to learn while on lockdown. “Learning how to get online and participate in virtual events is one,” he said. Rozelle is good at pulling stories out of people and positioning them in episodes and the order that was important. “The red thread of a memoir is the pandemic,” he recounted. “Being put up inside your own house for days and even months is a chance to think about things you had not thought about lately or ever before.” Writing and sharing these thoughts and memories as a memoir is the outcome and benefit to those who take advantage of the occasion. The written pandemic account in chronicle like form is a chance to remember, record and share those occurrences. And who knows, someone might write a bestseller? But they or you will never know if you do not sign up.
