三明治 x Nazli Margins of Memory Interview in English
April is the month of some of my favorite classes coming back! I get to teach another class with Sanmingzhi again, specifically, I get to teach the second installment of my City, Memory, Desire class, which I absolutely loved teaching.
Nazlı: I cannot believe it! I’ve been following Sanmingzhi’s projects closely, so it didn’t feel like so much time had passed. I’ve been gone because I decided to take periodical breaks from teaching and to lower my teaching load for a while to make time for some personal reading and writing. For every class I teach, I spend a lot of time preparing, and I do a lot of side reading, which I love, but it takes a lot of time. Until recently, I could only work on my shorter pieces because I didn’t have enough time to revise longer pieces. I also wanted to reread some of the ancient epics and comb through the entire oeuvre of certain writers I admire, and that meant putting classes on hold. But it’s now time to teach, and I am happy to be back.
三明治: Welcome back! Tell us about this new course.
Nazlı: Margins of Memory is the second installment of the City, Memory, Desire course that I taught a little over two years ago, but it is completely different than the first class. City, Memory, Desire was one of the classes I most enjoyed teaching. Since I started teaching, I rarely taught the same class twice, but there are some writers and some themes that are closer to my heart, which are easily visible when you look over the 55+ classes I taught. Love stories come up often, and works concerning memory repeatedly find their way into classes, from novellas structured as memory collages to essays in neuroscience that deal with the biology of memory. Another repeating topic has always been the city. With that, you can see why I loved City, Memory, Desire. After the first class ended, I kept thinking about other possible pieces to read and study. Now, I am lucky enough to do so with you. The first City, Memory, Desire class focused on the city, and the second one will be on memory.
三明治: What made you pick memory? What does Margins of Memory really mean?
Nazlı: We often have a rather practical but pedestrian understanding of memory. In this class, I want to take you to the margins of memory, to discover what escapes the mainstream understanding, what lies beneath the surface, cliché definitions.
Memory will be our guiding theme as we continue to study City, Memory, Desire. I am interested in seeing the correlations among the three themes. How does memory affect my understanding of my city; how does it affect the construction of my self; how does it affect my relationships, my love, desire, and disappointment? We can even make it more complex. How about thinking about the city as a part of one’s personality? Desire can also be a desire for meaning, fairness, and happiness. Memory still plays a part in all of those.
Memory is a storyteller. We think what we remember is true, but more often than not it isn’t. When we remember, we only remember the last time we had the event replay in our minds, not the original incident. Our memory edits and revises our past experiences. What we forget or how we misremember are all part of the story memory writes.
三明治: And why Virginia Woolf and Jeanette Winterson are in the margins of memory? What books are you going to teach?
Nazlı: It is because Woolf and Winterson endlessly explore their minds and their memories. In their writing, they use memory in its less common applications and in utter honesty. They are aware of what they forget, they are curious about why they forget. In this class, they will help us discover the possibilities of applying memory to art.
Virginia Woolf was a key figure in modernist literature and stream-of-consciousness writing. Every single one of her novels does something new and different, and had she not committed suicide to avoid concentration camps (her husband was Jewish, and their names were on the Nazi lists), I know she would have written other novels of unparalleled authenticity and creativity, likes of which we rarely find today. Most of that you already knew. But did you know that she also wrote brilliant essays on the craft of writing that show a philosophical perception of her art and times? In this class, we will read Woolf’s memoirs and essays so that she can teach us how to write in theory and practice.
Jeanette Winterson might at first strike you as a strange pairing. I have three reasons why I chose her. First, she would have chosen herself. She says she is Virginia Woolf’s intellectual descendant, which annoys many people, but I only have respect for a writer who aspires to such great heights. Secondly, I have already worked with the writers who join Sanmingzhi workshops, and I feel responsible for presenting new ways of looking at concepts, creativity, and the craft of writing. If I taught Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion for a class in desire, I wouldn’t take you any place new. In this class, I want to use two of Winterson’s books to inspire you, which brings me to my third reason. Winterson has written her life story twice. Her debut novel Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, published when she was 26 years old, and her memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, published 26 years later in 2011, both tell the story of Winterson’s childhood and growing up with her adoptive parents in Accrington, England.
Reading selections from Winterson’s two books will teach us how to use our memories in our writing, when and why to turn to fiction and/or nonfiction, and how to become the narrator and the protagonist of our stories.
三明治: But why are we reading fiction in a memoir class?
Nazlı: There’s no writer who does not use her life experiences when she writes. It doesn’t matter if we write fiction or nonfiction, a story or a memoir, turning our life experiences into stories is what we do. Processes of selection, organizing, and distillation without simplification are used in both genres. Studying fiction, where every detail is invented as the need for it rises, will help us select the necessary detail among a plethora of others when we write nonfiction, as a memoir is a narrative of our memories, not a mirror image of our lives.
三明治: When should one write a memoir?
Nazlı: Memoir used to be the last book an author wrote, after a life of achievements, and right before his death. That is no longer the case. People write their memoirs when they are much younger, and write multiple memoirs, which we happily read. I think one should write a memoir when one wants to find the already existing meaning in one's life.
One of the first writing classes I ever took was on writing the memoir, and I quickly learned that writing a memoir is a constant practice in self-discovery. I can tell you that not all the discoveries I made were pleasant, but they all helped me become a more complete version of myself. We think I write about myself, who can know me better? It turns out our understanding of ourselves is layered, our knowledge of self may be hidden beneath beliefs or fears, and our memories are constantly revising themselves. I invite you to join me to explore the memoir, its form and potential, discover a few more things about yourself, and learn how your memories work in the Margins of Memory class.
三明治: Are we going to do any writing exercises?
Nazlı: Yes, we will. However, in previous classes, I noticed not all the participants did the writing exercises, which I interpreted to mean that I had to improve the exercises. In this class, we will do writing exercises based on Virginia Woolf's works, and they will help you sketch parts of your memoir week by week. There will be additional exercises to choose from, and a challenge sheet to help you tweak the exercises when you want.
三明治: What will we learn in this class?
Nazlı: First and foremost, you will learn how to work with your memories, how to write a memoir, and how to troubleshoot some of the most common issues a writer encounters in nonfiction. From Winterson’s Why Be Happy? you will learn how to recreate the past with vivid detail, write reflective passages, and think about unconventional structures for your own memoirs. From Woolf’s Moments of Being, you will learn how to explore your experiences philosophically, how to find and use the connection between the mundane and the profound, and how to weave together your artistic sensibilities and memories. Simply by reading such great works by great writers, you will learn how to think and write with a greater vision and creativity. And I know, you will also learn about yourself more than you imagine when entering the class.
三明治: Who should take this class?
Nazlı: Anybody with memories should come! Every single one of you has a story, and it is my job and pleasure to help you bring it to life. This class is for writers of all levels, and you do not have to have taken the first City, Memory, Desire class to join us now. Join us if you love Virginia Woolf or if you’re afraid of her. Join us if you’re a fan of Jeanette Winterson or if you’ve never read her. Join us if you’d love to write a memoir, or if you’ve never given it a try. Join us if you want to write your first English piece, or if you’ve long been writing in English. In every class I’ve offered in Sanmingzhi, I enjoyed reading your stories and essays, thinking about and responding to them in my workshop letters, and getting a chance to speak with you about your writing. I can’t wait to discover all that you’ll create this time!
I was lucky enough to meet Jeanette Winterson when I was a grad student. Her book The Passion was life changing for me, and I broke down in tears when she signed my book. She hugged and kissed me to make me feel better. Memories, memories.
Testimonials from some of the writers I've had the good luck to work with over the years
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You may sign up for the Margins of Memory - Winterson & Woolf here!
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