Mary Karr is one of the few serial memoirists of our time as well as an award-winning poet and professor at the University of Syracuse.

To date, Karr has published three memoirs–The Liars’ Club (1995), Cherry (2001), Lit (2009)–three books of poetry, and The Art of Memoir, which bestselling author Cheryl Strayed calls “the definitive book on reading and writing memoir.”

In this session, we’ll focus primarily on The Art of Memoir and learn what Karr has to teach us about the genre.

I also encourage you to read her first memoir, The Liars’ Club to see firsthand how she implements what she encourages all aspiring memoirists to do.

Here are the reading schedules for both The Art of Memoir and The Liars’ Club. I look forward to discussing these books with you.

You might want to listen to this interview with Mary Karr by Terry Gross by Terry Gross on the NPR series, Fresh Air, Mary Karr’s website and take a look at where you’ll find a couple of interviews. No doubt, you can find many more by doing an internet search on her name.

Please note that these lessons assume you have a copy of The Art of Memoir.