Next session starts September 21, 2025 through January 11, 2026
Sessions are from 10:00am-12:00pm PST Sundays every other week.
Next Session
Next Session
Five Months to Memoir
Are you ready to tell your story?
Have you been dreaming of writing your memoir? Have you started but don’t know where to go with it? Have you already finished your draft but feel like you need a space to workshop your book?
Because if so, Five Months to Memoir is the space to begin.
Choose your PATH
In this five-month course, we will work through the building blocks of developing and writing your memoir. Five Months to Memoir begins on Sunday, September 21st and goes through January 11th. Sessions are from 10:00am-12:00pm PST every other week with a total of nine bi-weekly Zoom sessions and three 30-minute private sessions with your book coach to help you develop, write, and share your story. Classes are recorded and private sessions are offered between live workshops.
Upgrade for more private coaching and five one-on-one hour-long sessions with NYT-bestselling editor and LA Times bestselling author Kristen McGuiness. Five Months to Memoir begins on Sunday, September 21st and goes through January 11th. Sessions are from 10:00am-12:00pm PST every other week with a total of 9 bi-weekly Zoom sessions to help you develop, write, and share your story. Classes are recorded and private sessions are offered between live workshops.
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What can you expect from five months to memoir?
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Month One
Develop Your Story
In this first month, we discuss and develop your story, determining your message, confidence, and genre. By the end of the month, we create a rough outline for each book, guiding your writing journey over the next four months.
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Month Two
Develop Your Plot
In this month, we focus in on the people, places, and action that create the whodunit of your book, determining what happens and how you should share about it, how to handle problematic characters (and people!), and discussing the ever important need for dialogue.
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Month Three
Develop Your Narrative
We begin to establish the mechanics of your story, crafting your reflective voice, and determine the best choices around plot, polemic, poetics, and personal reflection, creating not just an engaging story but an inspiring and important message.
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Month Four
Develop Your Structure
Wait? Structure? Shouldn’t we start there? Actually, no. We give everyone a few months to find their voice, figure out the action, determine the characters, and then begin to develop the best ways to organize and structure their story.
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Month Five
Develop Your Strategy
In our last month, we go over the editing and querying process, helping writers determine the best plan, timeline, and strategy to get their books done and submitted to agents and publishers.
Have you been dreaming of writing your memoir? Have you started but don’t know where to go with it? Have you already finished your draft but feel like you need a space to workshop your book?
Five MonthS to memoir is a fun and engaging deep dive for those who are ready to start THEIR path to publishing.
Classes are offered live and recorded (with two private sessions) and include craft talks, live feedback, deep content development, and most importantly, a writing community to support your work, offering accountability, friendship, and the push we all need to just keep writing!
In addition, all writers will have the chance to do two private sessions as we work through your book in and outside of the group.
Are you finally ready to get serious about that memoir you’ve been writing? Because if so, Five Months to Memoir is the space to begin.
We can't wait to help you get there!
Kind Words
Kind Words
“Rise Literary helps and allows an author's highest voice to come through. If you are looking for a collaborator - someone brilliant and funny - Kristen is your person and Rise Literary is the place to be! They are book doulas in the highest form.”
— Christopher Rivas, author of Brown Enough (Row House Publishing, 2022)