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Book Recommendation: Heating and Cooling

I have had micro-memoir on the brain for a couple months now, and I can’t wait to offer Micro-Memoir: The Art of Writing Short, a two-part workshop on Saturday, May 12th. The workshop’s morning session is devoted to learning all about micro-memoir, or life stories told start to finish in fewer than 1,000 words. In the afternoon, we will practice writing short in response to a variety of prompts.

Do you want to get a feel for successful micro-memoir? I have a book recommendation for you. Heating and Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly is the perfect book with which to start exploring the micro-memoir.

In Heating and Cooling, Beth Ann Fennelly, poet laureate of Mississippi, wrote fifty-two pieces–some one sentence long and some a couple of pages–about her family, herself, and the human condition. The book’s micro-memoir are genre-bending in that they sometimes feel more like poetry than prose, and many of them are infused with humor, which is perfect because April is both National Poetry Month and National Humor Month, making this the perfect book recommendation for this month.

I also suggest that you read this terrific 2017 interview with Beth Ann Fennelly about how she came to write Heating and Cooling, and what the book means to her.

Give Heating and Cooling a read to get a feel for this fast-growing genre. Then, register for my workshop to give short memoir writing a try yourself. The cost for either the morning or afternoon session is $69 or spend the day and enjoy a delicious lunch, included in the price for just $119. You need not attend the morning session to benefit from an afternoon of writing.

If you read the book, I would love to read your thoughts in the comments below.

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