Weaving Memoir with Kris Kneen

A world class two-day intensive workshop for writers of memoir at any skill stage in their career, with award-winning author Kris Kneen.

This workshop will free participants from traditional structures, timelines and methods of writing. Together we will experiment with non-linear writing and modular essay creation. By the end of the two days participants will leave with a first draft of a personal essay of interlinked fragments. They will gain writing and structuring skills that can be used for short form essays or expanded into the basis for structuring a longer work of memoir.

On the first day we will devise and create linked scenes using sensual writing techniques and discuss personal essays that work with the placement of modular scenes to create new meaning from material.

On the second day we will look at cutting up and rearranging the scenes, finding and highlighting connections, creating an essay that works with a reader to create new meanings from fragments due to the connecting devices and placement and timing of the scenes.

In this workshop you will

• have the written basis of a modular essay that can be worked and reworked after the workshop.

• have learned tools to write memoirs that use the senses to create an immediacy in the reading experience.

• have learned a technique which allows a writer to rearrange fragments of memoir into different essays with different nuances.

• have learned a technique that can be up-scaled for use in a larger or book length work.

Who is it for?

This workshop is designed to access at any stage of your writing process. It is a technique that is equally useful for the beginner, for intermediate writers, and for experienced writers looking for new ways to approach your work.

WHERE:  Byron Writers Festival HQ, 58 Centennial Circuit Byron Bay

WHEN:   Saturday 16 May 2026 | 10am - 4pm AND Sunday 17 May 2026 | 10am - 1pm

COST:     $380 General | $280 Festival Friend/Member 

+ booking fees

About Kris Kneen

Kris Kneen is an award-winning author of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. They have been shortlisted for many awards including the prestigious Stella Prize. Their poetry collection Eating My Grandmother won the Thomas Shapcott Prize. Their latest book Fat Girl Dancing was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, The Qld Premier’s Literary Award for a work of state significance and the South Australian Literary Award.  Their novel Rite of Spring will be published by Transit Lounge in July 2026.