Writing your Personal Narrative: Personal vs Political with Cher Tan

Event Description

How do you capture and convey the immediacy of one’s experience in a way that is compelling yet not self-indulgent or self-aggrandising? Award-winning essayist and critic Cher Tan will walk you through the ways in which fictional forms and devices can be utilised to tell the true stories of our lives. The workshop will explore narrative structure, characterisation, argument, place-making, dialogue, under and overstatement and context.

You will learn:
• To explore various forms of creative nonfiction and what you need to write them effectively.
• How to use research, interviews and memory to generate material.
• How to narrativise your truths in a way that is compelling yet not self-indulgent.
• The ethical implications of writing in the non-fiction genre.
• How to weave political insights into your writing.


Cher Tan's work has appeared in Kill Your Darlings, Catapult, Runway Journal, The Guardian, amongst many others. She is an editor at LIMINAL and the reviews editor at Meanjin. Her critically-acclaimed debut essay collection, Peripathetic: Notes on (Un)belonging, is out with NewSouth Publishing. She lives and works on unceded Wurundjeri land.

Notes & Requirements

Note: this course is better suited for early and emerging Writers
Cher will send two pre-readings ahead of the workshop.

Event Partner

This event is presented by Writers Victoria with the support of City of Casey