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A month ago, we shared our first video series on the making of memoir, a Udemy offering that can now be found here.

This past week, we filmed a series of ten video essays all relating to the big challenges, themes, and opportunities that present themselves to those writing for the young at heart. These essays reflect the thinking I've done over the past many years on topics ranging from the question, What is excellence? in this category, to the essential truths in all fictions, to the development of authentic voices and complex characters. Some of the pieces are adapted from keynote talks; most of the material is brand new, fashioned from the challenges I've faced as a writer, from the conversations I've had with teen readers and fellow prize jury members, and from my ongoing dialogue with the leading practitioners of YA and MG.

The full suite of videos will be up on Udemy by week's end.

Today I'm sharing this single episode from the series. I'm focused on complexity here—why it is important, and how it is achieved. I hope you'll find the time to watch it through. If you like what you see, perhaps you'll share it with a friend. If you'd like to receive an update when the series goes live, you know where to find me.

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It's been nine months since Bill and I began to dream about, plan for, and make quiet declarations about this company called Juncture. 

We haven't had this much fun in years. Our first memoir workshop, at a central Pennsylvania farm, is five weeks or so away, with writers coming from around the world to join us. We have another workshop planned in November, a seaside gathering in Cape May, NJ. We're feeling pretty lucky about the memoirists who have stopped by to talk with us for our free monthly newsletter—and grateful when we read the newsletter-inspired work that comes our way. And this coming weekend, in the Currents section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, we tell the story of our transition from corporate America to this something brand new.

Now we're ready to release our first series of video shorts designed for readers and writers of memoir. There are six filmed essays here that braid classic and brand-new memoirs around themes ranging from writer's block to kitchen lives to time and mortality. Tillie Olsen, Maggie Nelson, James Baldwin, Mary-Louise Parker, Diana Abu-Jaber, MFK Fisher, Chang-Rae Lee, E.B. White, Terrence des Pres, Abigail Thomas, Annie Dillard, Sarah Manguso—they, and many others, are here. So are lessons and prompts.

"The Stories of Our Lives" can be accessed through Udemy, at a discount, using this link: Juncture16. Click the link to preview both the introduction and one full essay for free. Hopefully you'll be inspired to take the (very reasonable) plunge and watch the complete series.

Please consider passing the news on.

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