November 14 2026 10.30am-12.45pm
This workshop will take place at Quaker Meeting House, Beckspool Road, Frenchay, Bristol BS16 1NT (opposite Village Hall).
We can gather at the White Lion on the common afterwards. The bus service from the centre to Frenchay Quaker Meeting House is No.50.
Lily Dunn
Join Dr Lily Dunn for a workshop and discussion on the transformative power of writing and crafting memoir
Drawing from her two most recent books, Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling, and Into Being: the radical craft of memoir and its power to transform Lily Dunn will talk about how the process of writing Sins of My Father helped her transcend the original experience that had motivated it: her experience of an emotionally unavailable and solipsistic father.
She realised the process of writing memoir could be both artful and therapeutic. What followed was a craft book about the transformative experience of writing and publishing memoir, Into Being.
In this workshop, Lily Dunn will introduce us to the concept of ‘moments of being’ borrowed from Virginia Woolf’s essay and personal writing: A Sketch of the Past. She will guide us through the difference between a memory and a moment. Identifying and then writing into ‘moments’ – resonant of something greater than the memory itself – which are the perfect antidote to the blank page. This workshop will not only help us find our way into writing, but also help us identify why certain memories stay with us more than others. So much about writing is learning to pay attention, and to listen to the messages and meaning that are revealed to us through our persistent memories.
There will be texts to analyse, writing exercises and lots of discussion. Everyone is welcome, whether an experienced or aspiring writer.
Dr Lily Dunn grew up in Islington, London, in the 1970-80s to publisher and writer parents. When she was six years old her father abruptly left the family to travel to India to meet the notorious guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. When he returned 6 months later, dressed in the colours of the sunrise, he told them he had been reborn. So started a daughter’s pilgrimage to better understand her father, and a life that was driven by selfish impulses and ended prematurely in addiction. Lily learned early that writing was a salve for her confused feelings, and she grew up to be a novelist and then to love everything about memoir. She teaches and mentors privately and through The Arvon Foundation, and is a teaching fellow at Bath Spa University.
Books by Dr Lily Dunn:
Shadowing the Sun (2008 Portobello Books)
‘A heart-rending account of a young girl’s loss of innocence… told in limpid prose, seeped in the prickly heat of a Tuscan summer.’ Time Out magazine
‘The sins of the father are mercilessly explored in Lily Dunn’s impressive and confident first novel.’ The Sunday Times
Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling (2022 Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
One of the Guardian and the New Statesman nonfiction books of the year. ‘as vivid an account of addiction as I can remember reading.’ The Guardian: Book of the Day
‘An astonishing and valuable memoir.’ The Spectator
'A superb memoir.’ The Daily Mail: Book of the Week.
Into Being: The radical craft of memoir and its power to transform (2025 Manchester University Press)
‘Lily Dunn is one of our best teachers and theorists of autobiographical writing and Into being is an inspiring, philosophical and helpful guide.‘ Amy Liptrot, The Outrun
‘Into Being is a startlingly beautiful book that unpacks the craft of memoir with compassion and vast wisdom.’ Elissa Altman, author of Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create
