ONLINE Truth, Memory and Invention: Where to Draw the Line
One-Day Workshop | Monday, March 2, 2026
5pm-8pm PT | 6pm-9pm MT | 7pm-10pm CT | 8pm-11pm ET | 9pm-12am AT
Instructor: Shara Cooper
MEMBER PRICE: $60.00
NON-MEMBER PRICE: $80.00
Memory is slippery. Truth is complex. As a bridge, invention in creative nonfiction, can be a tool and an ethical trap.
This workshop explores the blurry spaces between fact, remembered experience, and artistic shaping. We’ll look at real examples of selective compression, reconstructed dialogue, composite characters, and imagined scenes, and examine how these choices affect reader trust and narrative impact.
Through discussion and examples, participants will practice identifying where their own work stretches or compresses reality and learn techniques for doing so transparently and ethically — without sacrificing voice or artistry.
This class takes place online using Zoom.
Shara Cooper is an Edmonton-based editor and writer with a background in journalism. As an editor she loves working with writers in the early days of a manuscript and helping the author find their voice, working on structural components, and fine-tuning sentences.
As a writer, she is currently pitching a picture book, finishing a memoir, and can’t wait to have time to work on a YA novel idea that is based in Alberta in the 1960s. Her most recent publications are op-eds that have appeared in the Toronto Star.
Shara has completed an MA in Creative Writing, a Graduate Certificate in Instructional Design, a BA in English, a Bachelor of Journalism, and a 4/5ths of an editing certificate. In the spring of 2026 she will graduate with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of King’s College in Halifax.
Perhaps most importantly, Shara is raising two witty, empathetic, and neurodiverse daughters. As someone with ADHD herself, she knows what it’s like to walk in a neurotypical world as a neurodiverse person and believes in a creative and compassionate world.
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We are a community that thrives on support and encouragement. Based on the philosophy of "no writer left behind", the J. Michael Fay Subsidy Program is available to anyone who finds themselves in financial need but really wants or needs to participate in one our programs are classes. Click link above for more details and to apply.
