This in-person event has been canceled to comply with the Alameda County Shelter in Place request. Stay tuned for a possible Zoom meeting or another meeting date. Alia Volz will present “Memoir: The Art of Questioning Everything” at the Tri-Valley Writers May meeting. Alia used to think personal writing had to begin with questions and end with answers—not unlike the essays we were taught to write in high school and college. Her breakthrough came with the realization that the most interesting moments in memoir happen when questions lead not to answers, but to more questions. Memories change and become unreliable. A memoir starts out investigating one thing then shifts as the narrator’s worldview crumbles and new questions arise. Uncertainty becomes a plot device. This craft talk will explore relentless self-interrogation as the driving force behind contemporary personal essays and memoir. Alia will share practical tools, tips, and techniques for getting the most out of questions that refuse to be answered.
Join us on Saturday, May 16, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. RSVP by Wednesday, May 13, at reservations@trivalleywriters.org.
Alia is the author of Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020). Her writing appears in “The Best American Essays” column in The New York Times, “Dig if You Will the Picture: Writers Reflect on Prince,” and elsewhere. She lives in San Francisco.