Drawing on Susan Johnson’s experience as the author of 14 acclaimed books, including the strikingly original Aphrodite's Breath, you will deep dive into the art of memoir, from voice and the writerly “I”, to structure and focus, with prompts, exercises, and guidance to enrich your creative practice.

Is your life too small for a book? How do you get the courage to assume the authorial weight of “I”? As Virginia Woolf wrote, the writerly “I” is “not afraid she will offend her friends or hurt her husband or shame her children”. And Winnicott declared that “the most aggressive and therefore the most dangerous words in the language of the world is to be found in the assertion I am”, so how do you start? How do you write and not offend the living? Susan Johnson will give you exercises and prompts to get started, or to keep going.

This special masterclass, presented in association with Adelaide Writers Week, provides rare insight and practical writing guidance with an unparalleled Australian author.

In this Masterclass, participants will cover:

• Voice
  What is it? What makes the authorial voice of the “I” of Marguerite Duras’s The Lover uniquely itself and so different from the “I” of Heather Rose’s Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here or the “I” of Robyn Davidson’s An Unfinished Woman? How to find your own unique voice.
• Structure
  It’s not plagiarism to take any structure and make it your own. We’ll analyse several best-selling or classic memoirs: what is its form? Might it suit your memoir?
• Focus
  Do you go big, or small? Tell one part, or the whole? You don’t have to start at the beginning in a memoir, you just have to decide where the focus is, and how to focus.

Praise for Susan Johnson:

’She has a knack for presenting what can be unbearable in reality, of rendering it on the page with tremendous heart.' Sydney Morning Herald

'One of the finest Australian writers.' The Australian

'Heartbreaking, funny and deeply moving...This is writing to savour.' Books + Publishing

Members $88 / Non-members $140
Venue: State Library of South Australia

—Not a Writers SA member? Members receive more than 30% off the full price of this workshop, you’ll also get a free 20 minute consult, expert advice about your career and your work, and join a community of like-minded creatives. Join now for as little as $60! 

—Writers SA members must be logged in to receive the member discount. If you would like to use a paid workshop credit or gift voucher to book in, please contact [email protected] at least five working days before the workshop commencement date. Our staff don’t work full time and we don’t want you to miss out! Program credits from First Draft, Poetry Studio and Manuscript Incubator cannot be used on Writers Studio masterclasses.

—If you are a member of another state based writers centre, SCBWI SA or Editors SA, please contact [email protected] at least five working days before the program commencement date to get a code for the member price.

—Writers SA provides complimentary membership for First Nations writers and for writers experiencing economic hardship. Please contact [email protected] to redeem.

About Susan Johnson

Susan Johnson is the author of 14 books, published in Australia, the US, England and in European translation. Nine are novels, including the most recent, From Where I Fell (2022), shortlisted for the Voss Literary Prize. The others are collections she edited, as well as two memoirs, A Better Woman (1999), on motherhood, illness and writing, and the critically acclaimed Aphrodite’s Breath: A Mother, A Daughter and a Greek Island (2023), about living on Kythera. Susan Johnson’s books have been longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, the Dublin IMPAC Literary Award and shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Prize, the Christina Stead Award, the National Biography Award, the Nita B Kibble Award and the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, among others. She has been awarded two residencies at the Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris, and her manuscripts and papers are collected by the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

Photograph copyright Effy Alexakis