It’s easy to think of research as an activity that happens when we write about other people’s lives, or archives as places we visit when we’re writing about people who are famous and/or dead, but the truth is we all have vast personal archives already at our disposal: old diaries, cell phone photos and videos, email threads, voice memos. But how does a random text from five years ago become vivid writing material?

New York Times bestselling author of nonfiction and essays Leslie Jamison will teach you how to use personal archives to enrich your writing — not only for memoir, but fiction and poetry as well.

Supported by University of Auckland, Faculty of Arts.