Write Your Truth:
Memoir as a Door to Self-Knowledge
A Six-Week Online Writing to Awaken Class
June 8 – July 20, 2026

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“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.”

~ Joan Didion
Memoir is a gateway to self-understanding, a portal to your interior world. Within you exists a landscape of felt experience that comes to life only when you’re able to write it into being, using your singular voice and perspective.
This interactive online writing course will guide you through six essential elements of personal narrative and how to put them into practice. Whether you’re writing for publication, legacy, or self-discovery, these lessons can help strengthen your powers of perception, deepen personal insights, and reveal fresh sources of meaning. You’ll learn how storytelling can transform raw experience into literature, and how language can be used to help heal the past. Used in this way, self-expression alleviates victimization, makes memoir writing a powerful ally in living a more conscious, creative life.

“I’ve come away from Mark’s courses with more insight, more self-understanding, and a deepened conviction that writing is my path. Working with him has been a gift.”

~ Marybeth, U.K.
Mark’s penetrating insights into the power of memoir will shed new light on your creative life, challenge your assumptions about personal writing, and provide tools for your continued practice long after you have completed this course.

CLASS OBJECTIVES

This course will help you:
~ Discover and Shape Your Narrative Voice:
Mark’s penetrating insights into the power of memoir will shed new light on your creative life, challenge your assumptions about personal writing, and provide tools for your continued practice long after you have completed this course.

~ Uncover Motivation and Meaning:
Explore the deeper “why” behind your experiences, and translate your desires, choices, and life events into meaningful narrative.

~ Write with Honesty, Depth, and Complexity:
Gain the skills to examine both your strengths and shadow sides, allowing you to tell more truthful, layered, and credible stories.

~ Harness the Conflicts that Drive Your Story:
Identify inner and outer tensions—your “demons and daimons” — and use them to create drama, movement, and emotional impact in your writing.

~ Embrace Ambiguity in Your Narrative:
Understand that meaningful memoir doesn’t require neat endings—embracing paradox, uncertainty, and unresolved questions adds authenticity and depth.

“Mark Matousek unveils a path of writing as revelation. His teaching inspires writers, and really all of us, to take the pen in hand and look deeply into the human heart and into the world.”

~ Roshi Joan Halifax
This interactive online format provides an excellent opportunity for self-inquiry — and honing your life-writing skills — in an atmosphere of mutual support and safety. Known for his insightful questions, Mark brings decades of experience to the topic of storytelling and self-inquiry as an award-winning memoir writer and author of Writing to Awaken: A Journey of Truth, Transformation, and Self-Discovery
Who will benefit from this course:
~ Aspiring writers and storytellers
~ People in transition or at a crossroads
~ Those interested in self-reflection and personal growth
~ Helpers, healers, and creatives in adjacent fields

LESSON OVERVIEW

 

This course will deepen your understanding of what motivates you, and how your self-created story determines the quality of your life.

Week One: The Shape of You
This first lesson focuses on character — the narrator you “play” on the page — and how that personality drives your story. Acquaintance with your “I” (in all its complexity) is critical for impactful personal writing.
Week Two: Reasons to Live
In this second lesson, you explore motivation — the engine of desire that drives your character — and how this determines your path in the world. Knowing your why is essential in revealing what your experiences mean to you, and how to put them into language.
Week Three: Secrets and Lies
Creating a character calls for deception, as you will learn this third lesson. Every “self” is a study in nipping and tucking, in concealing, exaggerating, and polishing appearance. Recognizing our character’s shadow parts, and how to reveal them skillfully, helps bring depth and credibility to your writing.
Week Four: Demons and Daimons
In this lesson, we locate the sources of conflict that drive your narrative. Every character is a mass of contradictions seeking wholeness, endowed with nemeses and saboteurs that try to stop it, as well as protecting angels and muses. Acquaintance with these character parts helps you tap into the story’s drama.
Week Five: Changing Stories
This week, you’ll limn your character’s evolution and the ways that she has changed over time. For memoir to be effective, it must include transformation, a trajectory from here to there. By taking the aerial view — the witness perspective — you discern the narrative arc of the journey, how life events have impacted the character on the page.
Week Six: The Myth of Closure
In this final lesson, you’ll focus on paradox as an essential quality in life writing. For memoir to matter, it must mirror self-knowledge, including the awareness of ambiguity, loose ends, unanswered questions, and unsolved problems. No character is ever complete, no wound finally healed. This is the enigma at the heart of memoir, lends vitality, and authenticity to your storytelling.

HOW THE ONLINE CLASS WORKS

In the week prior to the start of the class, you will receive an invitation to create an account on Mark’s website where the weekly lessons, written responses, and Mark’s feedback will be posted. This format allows the class to read, comment and support each other’s work in a positive and nurturing environment.
Each Monday, for the duration of the class, a new written lesson will be posted to the Online Class Group. Students post their responses to the Group by the following Saturday evening. Assignments should be no more than 1,000 words.
On Sunday and Monday, Mark responds to each submission in writing. His comments are focused on insight, authenticity of voice, and emotional honesty not writing technique, prose style, or grammar. His responses offer additional prompts for deeper exploration of the subject. Students who wish not to share with the group can send their work privately to Mark.
Three one hour group Zoom sessions are scheduled to provide an opportunity for students to ask questions and talk about the work. These sessions are recorded and posted to the Group the following day.
Zoom Session 1: Saturday, June 20 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern
Zoom Session 2: Saturday, July 11 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern
 
This class opens the door to courageous truth-telling, passionate storytelling, and transforming your life stories into memoir. You’ll see how story shapes (and misshapes) your existence and helps you make sense of who you are.  These six powerful lessons will guide you to the authentic story hidden inside your life situation.

Registration

Early Registration Special: $397
Register before May 17

Full Online Class Tuition: $447
After May 17

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TESTIMONIALS

“Mark is one of the most skilled, experienced, and knowledgeable teachers I’ve ever known. He creates a thoroughly safe environment and is one hundred percent  present with every participant. I left this workshop feeling transformed. Remarkable!”
~ David USA
“I cannot commend Mark Matousek enough to anyone who is serious about their healing and transformation. He is profoundly wise and insightful and you feel at once confident that you have finally found a path that will lead you home to the fullness of who you really are.”
~ Sheryl, New Zealand
“Simply put –- if you’re looking to make a change, reach beyond your comfort zone and see the world and your life through fresh eyes – take a seminar with Mark Matousek who is a truly great teacher as well as a great writer.”
~ Mary Jo, USA
“Brace yourself if you work with Mark! You might have to leave your comfort zone and learn more about yourself than you had expected. The assignments are like roadmaps leading you to where you need to go. And then, when you have worked through them and you think you have come up with all the wisdom you were able to find deep within yourself, Mark will come up with more questions for you in his response and you will get to dig even deeper. I think this is the greatest gift Mark offers. He LISTENS. I mean, he really listens. And he gets is. He knows just when and how to ask the questions that will crack you open!”
~ Saskia, Germany

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