AMHERST, Mass.  What makes a life worth writing about? How do writers transform memory, family, relationships, and ordinary experiences into compelling literature? This fall, the Yiddish Book Center will explore these questions in “Memoir Writing Then and Now: Reading and Writing with Rokhl Feygenberg’s The Winding Road,” a new online culture course that brings together close reading of translated Yiddish literature and hands-on writing. The Zoom class will be offered on Tuesdays, Oct. 6, 13, 20, and 27 from 7-8:30 p.m.

The four-session course centers on the work of Feygenberg, a major Yiddish writer and journalist whose autobiographical writing offers an intimate look at the complicated intersections of creativity, family, work, and identity. Feygenberg began writing at a young age and became a literary and journalistic figure in both Yiddish and Hebrew.

Through reading and writing exercises, participants will consider how memoirists choose what to remember, what to leave out, and how to turn personal experience into narrative. The course will also ask questions about the relationship between memory and truth, the boundaries between autobiography and fiction, and the ways writers can find meaning in the seemingly ordinary details of a life.

The course will be taught by Rokhl Kafrissen, a writer and teacher whose work explores Yiddish literature, Jewish culture, and contemporary life.

Participants do not need to know Yiddish to take part.

Recordings are available to all registrants.

Information and registration may be obtained on the Yiddish Book Center’s Online Culture Courses page.