Intermediate Memoir:
From Pages to Manuscript
A six-month program facilitated by Debra Engle
January 12, 26, February 9, 23, March 23, April 6, 20,
May 4, 18, June 1, 15, 29, 2027
4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern (1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific)
Over the past six months, something has happened in Beginning Memoir that goes beyond learning the craft of writing. You’ve begun to see your story differently—and, in many cases, to see its value in a way you may not have when you started.
You're clearer about the theme that runs through your memoir and the message beneath the events themselves. You have a better sense of what you’re writing and why, which means you also have more direction about where to go next. And perhaps most importantly, you’ve found a safe place to write about experiences you may never have expected to put on the page.
You may find that the process has changed you. You've discovered things about your story and yourself through writing it, and you’re not ready to stop.
We want to help you keep going.
Beginning in early 2027, Story Summit will offer Intermediate Memoir: From Pages to Manuscript, a six-month experience with Deb Engle.
Between now and then, you’ll have the rest of 2026 to keep writing. You don’t need to worry about making everything fit together yet. Follow the direction you’ve found, keep creating scenes and chapters, and keep gathering the pieces of your story. Then you’ll come into Intermediate Memoir with more material to work with and a clearer sense of the book you’re creating.
Faculty
Deb is the Executive Director of Story Summit and the #1 bestselling author of The Only Little Prayer You Need, featuring a foreword by the Dalai Lama. In addition, she’s written three other books of nonfiction and a novel, Twenty, and is a two-time winner of the Nautilus Award, honoring better books for a better world.
Deb's newest book, The Writer's Miracle Method, is a month-long program addressing thirty of the most common fears that keep writers stuck.
Deb holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She has worked as the Creative Manager for The Des Moines Register; feature writer and book and magazine editor for Meredith Publishing; publications project manager for Fortune 500 companies; and owner of her own editing and mentoring company.
From Writing Pages to Shaping a Book
Beginning Memoir gave you the foundation and helped you find your way into your story. Intermediate Memoir will take you into the next stage: learning how to shape what you’ve written into a book.
This is where different questions begin to emerge:
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What makes your story stand out?
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How should you structure it?
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What’s the hook?
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Which scenes belong and which ones don’t?
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Where does the story need to move faster or go deeper?
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How do you make the reader care about people they’ve never met?
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How do you take individual pieces that work on their own and begin weaving them into a cohesive whole?
Deb will work with you on the craft, structure, and decision-making that can help turn a growing collection of pages into a compelling manuscript. Topics will include:
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Finding your hook — What makes your memoir distinctive, and how can you communicate what makes this story uniquely yours?
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Determining the right structure — Chronological? Thematic? Braided? Framed? What structure best serves the story you’re telling?
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Hitting the story beats — Where are the turning points, revelations, setbacks, climaxes, and moments of change that keep your story moving?
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Developing your characters — How do you bring the people in your life fully onto the page while remembering that you, too, are a character in your memoir?
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Making your reader care — How do you create the emotional connection that makes someone who has never met you want to keep reading?
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Making every word count — How do you tighten your prose and make your writing more precise, vivid, and powerful?
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Making everything earn its way in — A memory may be fascinating, funny, painful, or important to you, but does it belong in this particular book?
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Elevating the writing — How do you move beyond telling what happened to create writing that is layered, emotionally resonant, and memorable?
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Making all the pieces fit together — How do chapters, scenes, reflection, themes, and timelines begin to work together as one cohesive story?
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Writing a nonfiction book proposal — What goes into a professional proposal, and how do you present your book, audience, platform, and vision to agents and publishers?
These won’t simply be lessons about memoir in general. Deb will help you apply them to the book you’re actually writing, so one question will continue to guide the class: What does your book need now?
Your Memoir Has Its Own Timeline
You don’t need to arrive in January with a certain number of pages, and there’s no expectation that everyone will complete a manuscript during the next six months. Some writers may. Others may still have a long way to go. A memoir takes the time it takes, and each writer—and each book—will move at a different pace.
What matters is that you continue moving forward with greater clarity and intention. During these six months, you may write many new chapters, restructure material you already have, discover gaps that need to be filled, or realize that something you thought was essential to the book doesn’t belong after all. The goal is to deepen the writing, strengthen the manuscript, solve problems as they arise, and help you see more clearly what your book wants to become.
Keeping the Community You've Created
One of the most important things to come out of Beginning Memoir has been the sense of safety and trust within the group. That safety has allowed writers to open up to their stories in ways they may not have anticipated when the class began. You’ve shared difficult material, taken risks on the page, supported one another, and discovered the extraordinary experience of having other people not only read your story but understand why it matters.
Those relationships have been especially strong within the small groups, and there’s no reason to leave them behind.
As part of Intermediate Memoir, you’ll continue meeting in small groups. We’ll keep as many groups intact as possible, but depending on registration, the shape of the groups may change a bit.
At times, Deb may give your group a question, exercise, or manuscript challenge to explore together. At other times, the group will simply continue to be what it has become: a place to share work, exchange feedback, encourage one another, and keep each other writing.
SPACE IS LIMITED! ENROLL TODAY.
What the Six Months Will Include
Two Intermediate Memoir sessions each month. Deb will combine advanced memoir craft with discussion and manuscript problem-solving, focusing on the issues that emerge as you begin shaping a larger body of work. Instead of following a beginning-level curriculum, the teaching will respond more directly to the questions that come up when you’re working on a book. And there will be more workshopping within the large group.
Your continuing small group. You’ll be able to keep meeting with the writers you’ve spent the past six months getting to know and trust, continuing the feedback, encouragement, accountability, and sense of safety you’ve already created together.
Two individual sessions with Deb. Twice during the six months, you’ll meet privately with Deb to focus entirely on your memoir. You might look at structure, talk through a section that isn’t working, figure out what’s missing, consider what needs to be cut, look at where the emotional energy rises or falls, or step back and consider where the book is now and where it needs to go next.
Staying With the Story
If Beginning Memoir has shown you anything, we hope it’s that your story has value. The experiences you’ve lived through, the meaning you’ve made from them, and the perspective you can bring to them now can become something that matters not only to you, but to a reader.
Writing a memoir is also a process that can change the person doing the writing. Many of you have already experienced that. You understand your story differently than you did six months ago, and you understand yourself differently because you’ve been willing to look at your life closely and put it into words.
Intermediate Memoir gives you a place to continue that process. There’s no need to race toward a finished manuscript or measure your progress against anyone else’s. The important thing is to stay with the story, keep becoming a stronger writer, and continue making the choices that will bring your book closer to what you know it can be.
Where Could Your Story Be Six Months from Now?
Think about where you were when Beginning Memoir started and where you are now. You know more about the craft, certainly, but you also know more about the story you’re telling. You’re clearer about its themes and its message. You have more direction. You’ve discovered the value of your own experiences, and you’ve seen what can happen when you give yourself a safe place and enough time to write about them.
You have the rest of 2026 to keep writing and see where that new clarity takes you. Then, after the first of the year, Intermediate Memoir will give you the guidance, craft, community, and time to take everything you’ve discovered and begin shaping it into the book it can become.
Intermediate Memoir Program Dates
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January 12, 26
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February 9, 23
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March 23
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April 6, 20
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May 4, 18
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June 1, 15, 29
Register Now!
The program will include two group sessions each month, your continuing small-group experience, two individual sessions with Deb, and ongoing advanced craft, manuscript guidance, accountability, and community.
Founding Cohort Tuition: $1,497
Or payment plans
You’ll continue to receive the personal guidance and supportive environment that have been such an important part of Beginning Memoir.
Please note: Our sessions are designed specifically for live participation, so your attendance is important. If you need to miss a session for any reason, you’ll receive a passcode-protected link to watch the recordings after the course is over.
Cancellation and Refund Policy
A full cash refund will be made (less processing fees of 7.5%) if you notify us at least two weeks before the start of the entire series. If less than two weeks, the refund can be applied as a credit for another future class. This applies to all payment methods, including payment plans.
Due to the commitment required for the Six Month-Long Program, no refunds will be made after the program starts. The only exception is for family or medical circumstances that make it impossible to continue. In that event, you will be refunded a pro-rated amount, based on the number of big group sessions taken. A 7.5% transaction fee will also apply to the amount due to you. Deposits to save your spot are not eligible for a refund but can be used as credit toward another program, valid for one year.
If a student violates the trust or privacy outlined in the Virtuous Circle, Story Summit reserves the right to dismiss that student from the program and provide a refund pro-rated based on the number of big group sessions taken. There will be no transaction fee refund.
Please note that all refunds are processed within a 30-day window.
