Rooted in Writing: Turning Life into Fiction with Carolyn Holbrook
Through Rooted in Writing, we will offer 1-3 single-session classes each season through the library’s systemwide catalog.
This is a new program with our long-time partner, Hennepin County Library and is funded with money from Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Workshop description: There’s no doubt that your life has been full of interesting, fun or painful events that you have wanted to write about. Maybe you want to reveal names, dates or places — but maybe you fear that you might hurt someone or worse, that you may be sued. Should our stories be written as truthful essays or memoirs, or as fiction? Toni Morrison said “Teaching is about taking things apart; writing is about putting things together.” In this class we will play with writing your story as both memoir and fiction. The point is to help you consider which genre(s) you are most comfortable telling your truths in.
Carolyn Holbrook’s memoir, Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify, won the 2021 Minnesota Book Award in memoir/creative nonfiction. She is co-editor with David Mura of the anthology, We Are Meant to Rise: Voices for Justice from Minneapolis to the World (UMN Press) and is co-author with Dr. Josie Johnson and Arleta Little of Hope in the Struggle (UMN Press). Her essays have been published in anthologies including A Good Time For the Truth and Blues Vision: African American Writing from Minnesota. Her 2022 TEDx talk, The Life you Live is the Legacy You will Leave, was presented at Concordia College in Moorhead, She is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including the 2025 McKnight Distinguished Artist.