Master Class: Writing Your Memoir with Jerry Stahl
Master Class: Writing Your Memoir with Jerry Stahl
1 Session: Saturday, August 15
1:00-3:00pm ET
Jerry Stahl
Award-winning author, journalist and screenwriter, Jerry Stahl is the author of twelve books, including three memoirs -- Permanent Midnight, made into a movie starring Ben Stiller; O.G. Dad: Weird Shit Happens When You Don’t Die Young, and Nein, Nein, Nein!: One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tourof the Holocaust, which was included in Kirkus Reviews 100 Best Books of the Year and optioned by Robert Downey Jr.
In this masterclass, he shares the techniques and ingredients you need to turn your life into a compelling book. This session is geared for writers who believe their personal journey is one worth sharing. But before they do, they’ll need a structure and blueprint to get them going.
Together we’ll cover:
Intention: Why Do You Want To Tell Your Story? What exactly do you want the reader to feel when they finish? Everyone may think they have a story, but unless you know why you have the need to tell it – not everybody will feel the need to read it.
Inciting Incidents: Call it the Gift of Trauma: turning your nightmares into dreams. The beauty of memoir is that the worst moments of your life may save someone else’s. And the best ones may inspire them. We will select key moments/anecdotes on which to hinge your autobiographical journey.
Tone: To quote Bukowski. “I don’t care what the subject is, but if I like a writer’s voice I’d follow them over a cliff… ” It’s important, before setting out, to nail down this most intangible of elements. We can never assume we have the reader’s attention – we have to earn it. For some authors, the darker the anecdote, the funnier the writing. Others will have a different approach. Together we will help you find your perfect tone.
Chronology: Where to start – and where to end – are the two important questions you’ll need to answer to before your embark. Participants will be encouraged to get their key scenes on 8 X 5 cards. Once they write them they can, literally, assemble like a mosaic. It may counter-intuitive, but when it comes to your life, the beginning is not necessarily the place to start.
Class Highlights:
Voice: You will find the right tone and attitude for your story, learning from memoirs you admire to identify your own truth. The voice we tell the story in is every bit as important as the story itself.
Structure: Even if your life was chaotic, your book shouldn’t be. Which means you will come away with the all-important beginning, middle and end.
The Work: Fundamentals nailed down, you will be able to forget about everything but the joy of letting go and telling your story.
A Final Tip:
In my own experience, there are two things you should never do in a memoir: try to make yourself look good, or try to settle scores and make someone else look bad. The best advice I’ve ever received? If you write a sentence that makes you squirm, keep going.
After these preliminaries comes the fun part: taking the next step and writing your book.
Award-winning author, journalist, and screenwriter Jerry Stahl’s most recent book is Nein, Nein, Nein! One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust (Akashic Books, 2023), included in the Kirkus Reviews 100 Best Books of 2023 and optioned by Robert Downey Jr. His other books include the best-selling novel I, Fatty (Bloomsbury, 2004) and the narcotic memoir Permanent Midnight (Warner Books, 1995), which was made into a movie starring Ben Stiller. His second memoir, O.G. Dad: Weird Shit Happens When You Don’t Die Young (Rare Bird Books, 2015), is currently in development for television. His much-anthologized journalism and fiction have appeared in Esquire, The Believer, Vice, and the New York Times, among other places. A collection, Gonzo Neurotic: The Best (and Not-So-Best) of Jerry Stahl, is forthcoming from Unnamed Press in September 2026. His next novel, Bad Sex in the Afterlife, will be published by Arcade Books in early 2027.
Stahl has written extensively for TV and film, including the highest rated episodes of CSI, Bad Boys 2, Hemingway & Gellhorn, and Escape at Dannemora, for which he received an Emmy nomination. He co-wrote the surreal underground classics Café Flesh and Dr. Caligari, which continue to be shown at European avant-garde festivals and at midnight venues. Stahl has taught at Sylmar Juvenile Hall and San Quentin. His acting credits include David Lynch’s Inland Empire and Apple TV's Severance.
