CityLit Studio IX: Writers on Craft, Creativity, & Community presents Writing Your Life Story with Memoirists Jeannie Vanasco & Sarah LaBrie

Jeannie Vanasco: To Tell the Truth in Memoir, Study Poetry
How can poetic techniques help memoirists tell the truth as accurately as possible? While some writers argue that fixating on facts contradicts the aims of art, Jeannie Vanasco believes that facts – as best we can access them – can further the artistry of nonfiction, serving as formal constraints. Of course, memory fails and self-deception exists, but memoirists are less likely to get to the experiential and emotional truths by deliberately inventing details. Poetic techniques can help us fasten passages together that resist the cause-and-effect relationship popularized by Western notions of plot. This session is tailored to memoir writing and will include close readings, discussion, generative prompts, and Q&A.

Sarah LaBrie: Using Nature’s Forms
A Lichtenberg figure is a branching, treelike pattern found across natural and engineered phenomena in lightning, river deltas, human anatomy, and architectural design. We’ll use this shape as a model for discussing the book-length memoir. How can multiple stories emerge from a singular origin point? How do we organize our manuscripts according to the natural forces that govern the development of everything from trees to airports?

Studio Bookseller: Greedy Reads

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CityLit Studio – Writers on Craft, Creativity, & Community, presented as a part of Free Fall Baltimore, is a unique opportunity for writers to experience readings/lectures by two authors in different or similar genres with a different approach. Participants engage in deep-dive discussions on craft and the writing process.

Free Fall Baltimore is made possible by Create Baltimore, formerly Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and the generous contributions of the Maryland State Arts Council. Visit: FreeFallBaltimore.org

The Studio is an information and discussion session on key aspects of craft to improve writing and learn the importance of finding artistic communities. Emerging and serious writers, along with the interested general public, get a unique look behind the writing process of two of the region’s esteemed literary stars. A writer-to-writer craft series to help writers and poets envision their art.

In addition to offering significant craft instruction, it gives support and insight into preparing writers for the business of publishing. Past featured authors and industry professionals include: Carmen Giménez Smith and David Yezzi, Maurice Ruffin and Donna Hemans, Yahdon Israel, Krishan Troutman, and Dawn Raffel, Eugenia Kim and Danielle Evans, among many others.

Register at: https://citylitproject.salsalabs.org/2025CityLitStudio.

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