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You’ve completed your memoir’s first draft—now it’s time to shape it into a book that readers can’t put down.

Revision is where raw experience becomes art, and this six-part, yearlong series guides you through every stage of this process. Each session focuses on a critical element of memoir revision, blending craft lessons, live feedback, collaboration opportunities, practical exercises, and, most importantly, fun, to help you refine your memoir’s structure, deepen its emotional resonance, and polish your prose.

Led by trauma-informed writing coach, story alchemist, and Writing Your Resilience podcast host Lisa Cooper Ellison, these interactive, online classes are designed for writers who want to make significant, lasting progress on their manuscripts. Participants will learn how to clarify their memoir’s essential question, build a compelling narrative arc, craft vivid scenes, and find a voice that’s both authentic and marketable. You’ll also discover how to maintain narrative momentum across chapters and trim thousands of unnecessary words without losing your writing voice or your memoir’s emotional truth.

Whether you’ve just finished your first draft or are polishing a near-final manuscript, this series offers the tools and insights you need to transform your story into a compelling, publishable memoir—one that honors your experience, connects with universal truths, and keeps readers engaged.

During this series you’ll:

• Identify your book’s essential question and learn how it can help you revise and market your work
• Discover the elements of effective storytelling and how to use them to create a powerful narrative arc
• Learn the secrets to writing propulsive scenes that resonate with readers
• Explore the elements of a strong writing voice and how to sharpen your own
• Find out how to maintain narrative tension throughout your book by avoiding common storytelling pitfalls
• Diagnose specific sentence-level issues that bloat your word count and learn strategies for addressing them

Each class offers a workbook with exercises you can use to deepen your practice as you revise your memoir. 

What are the benefits of registering for the entire series now that it’s underway?

You won’t be able to attend all sessions live, of course, but you’ll instantly receive access to all recordings of prior classes. You will also get access to Jane’s bonus class, described below, only offered for series registrants.

What if I don’t want the entire series, just specific sessions?

You will be able to register for live events starting about 2 months prior to the class date. But we do not sell access to single-session recordings, only live events. If you want access to past sessions, you’ll need to register for the series.

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What will each of the six classes cover?

February 25, 2026: Identify Your Memoir’s Essential Question. Every strong memoir is fueled by a burning question that drives the narrative forward. Identifying and clarifying your memoir’s essential question will help you decide what belongs (and what doesn’t) so you can create a story that transcends your personal experience and speaks to something universal. This powerful revision tool can also enhance your elevator pitch, help you confidently navigate interviews, and sharpen your marketing materials. In this session, you’ll learn how to uncover your memoir’s essential question and shape your book around that inquiry, so each scene, chapter, and reflection helps to answer it. We’ll also query potential readers in the audience to better understand their needs and expectations.

April 29, 2026: Find and Refine Your Memoir’s Narrative Arc: Three Tools to Shape Your Book (learn more). Structure gives memoir its momentum. During this class, we’ll use three powerful models to chart your story’s turning points, emotional beats, and the revelations that define your arc. You’ll also learn how to identify tangents that detract from your story and assess whether content you’ve gathered should be split into more than one book. We’ll examine the structures of a few published memoirs, then dive into a feedback session focused on unpublished work. By the end of this session, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to identify and shape the structure that’s right for your book.

June 24, 2026: Building Better Memoir Scenes: A Scene-Writing Clinic. Scenes are where memoirs come alive. In this hands-on clinic, you’ll learn to revise your scenes for maximum impact by focusing on tension, sensory detail, and emotional truth. Through published examples, feedback on selected submissions, and guided exercises, you’ll learn how to refine your scene’s opening and closing lines for maximum effect, keep readers from getting confused or lost, and harness the emotional beat at the heart of your scene so that it propels your narrative arc forward.

September 23, 2026: Finding and Sharpening Your Memoir’s Voice. Voice is what makes your memoir uniquely yours. This session explores how to develop and maintain a consistent voice that reflects your emotional truth and fits your book’s style—whether it’s straightforward, metaphorical, confessional, or lyrical. We’ll use both published and unpublished examples to explore which persona is telling the story, how to identify their perspective, and how to use your writing voice to engage your audience. We’ll also look at how to experiment with tone and language so that your voice is authentic and appealing to readers while avoiding the pitfalls of over-stylization or self-censorship.

October 21, 2026: How to Pace Your Memoir for Maximum Impact. Once your memoir’s structure and voice are in place, it’s time to ensure the story flows seamlessly from event to event. During this webinar, you’ll learn how to maintain your memoir’s “magnetic thread”—the emotional and narrative current that pulls readers through your story by chaptering your book well, developing effective transitions, and pacing your story so tension is sustained without exhausting your audience. We’ll also examine rarely considered elements of your manuscript, like white space, margins, and the flow of text across the page and how these elements impact your readers’ experience. You’ll leave with tools that will help you ensure your manuscript is cohesive and propulsive from the first page to the last.

November 18, 2026: Cutting Your Memoir Without Losing Your Story. Revision often means letting go. In this final session, you’ll learn practical strategies for cutting 10,000 words (or more) from your memoir without losing the heart of your story. We’ll discuss surgical cuts versus “shock-and-awe” edits, trimming repetition, sharpening your voice, and compressing scenes for impact. You’ll leave with a clear, humane process for tightening your memoir while amplifying its power.

Bonus session! December 2, 2026: Pitching and Publishing Your Memoir. This special class by Jane, only for series registrants, will discuss how to pitch your memoir to agents and traditional publishers. She’ll offer a look at what types of memoirs are getting signed, how to effectively query, the basics of book proposals, what role platform plays in your success, and what to do if you can’t secure an agent or publisher.

Who should register for this series?

• Memoirists who’ve completed a first draft and are wondering what’s next
• Memoirists in the “messy middle” who are working to revise their books
• Memoirists who’ve received feedback that their story is too raw, incomplete, or includes a series of disjointed events
• Memoirists who’ve received agent or editor rejections and sense their story needs more work
• Memoirists struggling to identify their story’s narrative arc or how to execute it
• Writers working on a memoir-in-essays or essay collection

This series is not suited for:

• Writers of (non-memoir) narrative nonfiction
• Short story writers or novelists
• Children’s picture book writers
• Poets

Refund policy

If you need to cancel your series enrollment, we’ll refund your registration cost, minus the value of classes or recordings you’ve already had access to (at $25 per class) plus a non-refundable $10 processing fee. This covers our payment processing fees, which are not refunded to us even when we issue refunds.

How do I attend the live class?

This class uses Zoom webinar technology (see system requirements). When you register, you will receive information via email on how to join all of the classes, with reminders sent the one day before and one hour before the live event. Each class will have a unique link to join.

The Q&A is managed through a chat-style submission system with questions read and answered by the presenter for the entire class to hear.

Closed captions are provided during the live and recorded class. We use Zoom’s automated closed caption service, which is about 80%+ accurate. We use ElevenLabs to generate a lightly edited transcript, provided with the recording.

Testimonials

All students receive the following

• Access to six live classes, plus bonus session from Jane. For each class, after roughly 75 minutes, the instructor will take questions during class using in-class chat/text. The class will end after roughly 90 minutes.
• Recordings of all classes—audio and video. This is especially helpful if you have a conflict with the class time or something comes up and you can’t make the session. Each registration comes with access to the archived version of the program and the materials through the end of 2026. You do not have to attend the live event to access the recordings.
• Presentation slides. All participants receive a copy of the slide presentation in PDF form.
• Rough transcripts. We use ElevenLabs to create automated transcripts of all classes, which is lightly edited for you.
• Supplementary materials. After each class, you’ll receive a workbook with examples and exercises designed to help you elevate your story, enhance reader insights, and effectively share your writerly wisdom while highlighting the narrator’s inner transformation.

Event Attendance & Anti-Harassment Policy

We strive to provide an environment where all present—whether attendee, presenter, or staff—can feel supported. In order to ensure a welcoming event, here is what we expect from all who participate.

• That the presenter and the presenter’s work be treated with respect by attendees and that all attendees treat each other with respect and a generosity of spirit.
• That attendees will refrain from harassment of any sort including (but not limited to) comments or questions of a racist, homophobic, sexist/sexual, or threatening nature. This includes actions that disrupt or interfere with anyone’s ability to participate. Offenders will be disconnected from the live event.