WRITING FROM MEMORY
Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo presents an intimate writing workshop with Micah Perks exploring memory as material for personal narrative and the ways in which lived experience can be transformed through writing.
About the Workshop
Join award-winning writer and Professor of Creative Writing Micah Perks in Venice, Italy for a generative memoir writing workshop focusing on the theme of loss. Arguably, all writing is a form of memorialization of what has been lost, whether that loss is large or small, whether that loss be a person, a place or a time. Each workshop session will include generative creative writing exercises, short craft lessons on the art of memoir, small group and larger group workshops providing respectful and generous feedback, and readings and discussions of professional work as inspiration. Our goal is to create autobiographical life writing that is meaningful to you, and through a focus on craft, writing that becomes meaningful to others as well. We will also learn about the particular values and history of the memoir genre. Although our theme is loss, I hope we will create in a community that encompasses joy and laughter as well as sadness.
Those who want to can attend the foundation’s Art of Grief Conference free of charge and give a short reading of the work you produced during our workshop. There will also be visits from professional writers as well as optional morning excursions to sites of literary interest in Venice. Our workshops will be held in the gorgeous, completely renovated Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo.
Venice will be cool and enchantingly foggy at this time of year, and you will also have the opportunity to explore the last days of the famed Venice Biennale without the crowds of summer.
About Micah Perks
Micah Perks is the author of five books and many essays and stories. She is the winner of a Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher’s Book Awards, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and recipient of MacDowell, Blue Mountain Center and Berlin’s TAKT artist residencies. Her last novel was named one of the Top Ten Books about the Apocalypse by The Guardian. She is a Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at University of California, Santa Cruz, where she has taught for thirty years. Her newest novel, The Wood Between the Worlds, comes out in 2027, and Micah is currently working on a book length essay about care, loss and transformation in the lives of three older women who fall in love with a baby loon on a pond in the wilderness.
Event Information
Date: November 7-11, 2026 (14:00-18:00 daily)
Location: Fondazione Maddalena Di Giacomo, Palazzo Valier, San Polo 1022, Venice
Capacity: Limited
Admission: Fee upon request. Includes optional attendance and the opportunity to read your writing at the Art of Grief Conference on November 12 and 13, following the workshop. Transportation and accommodation are not included. Venetian cicchetti and beverages will be provided by the Fondazione during the lunch break and are included in the participation fee.
Booking: Reservation required
Salon de la Memoire
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Applicants are selected from individuals for whom art is a central pillar of their lives, including collectors, curators, art professionals, and passionate advocates of artistic exploration.
By fostering a community of like-minded individuals, the Salon offers a unique opportunity to engage in profound cultural exchanges and build meaningful connections.
