This course will consist of six two-week sessions. Each session will include online lectures (text-based) and recommended reading, along with a writing assignment related specifically to your memoir, which will be submitted to your instructor for private review at the end of the first week of each session. During the second week of each session, work will be posted for group review and feedback to class members who choose to participate. Throughout the course, you will be able to participate in asynchronous lecture discussion and encouraged to take advantage of ongoing informal discussions and posted self-directed writing exercises.
Session One: Assessing Where You Are in the Memoir Writing Process
Session Two: Right-Sizing Your Memoir
Session Three: Testing Your Story Arc
Session Four: Grounding Your Story in the Real World
Session Five: Dealing With the Muddle in the Middle
Session Six: Pulling the Pieces Together
What will you learn?
Who should attend?
Suggested Reading
Meet the instructor
Kelly Boyer Sagert
Kelly Boyer Sagert, a member of the prestigious American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), has sold thousands of pieces of her writing to magazines, newspapers, online sites, encyclopedias and literary journals. She was part of the Emmy-Award-nominated team that created the documentary Trail Magic: The Grandma Gatewood Story that appeared on PBS.
She received sole writing credits for the documentary. The same team created Victoria Woodhull: Shattering Glass Ceilings, which appeared at the prestigious Cleveland International Film Festival and is winning awards. Sagert served as the script writer and associated producer. Woodhull was the first woman to publicly address Congress (1870), the first to run for president of the United States (1872), and the first – along with her sister, Tennessee Claflin – to serve as a stockbroker on Wall Street, among other firsts for women.
Sagert has written eighteen books and contributed material to more than one dozen other books. She also also ghostwritten dozens of memoirs for clients. Â Her two books released in 2025 are Lorain County Family Recipes: History and Tradition From Pierogis to Plum Dumplings and Wells Waite Miller and Me: An 8th OVI Civil War Biography.
She has taught writing classes for Writers Digest University since the program’s inception in 2000.
Sagert served as managing editor of Northern Ohio’s Over the Back Fence for nearly four years (1997-2001). This magazine, which profiled the art, history, intriguing people and fascinating places along Lake Erie’s shores, was nominated by Writer’s Digest for their “Top 100 Award” in 1998 and 1999. She served as the contributing editor for the Southern Ohio edition of Over the Back Fence as well, and she also edited five trade magazines and numerous business directories, community guides and travel planners for the company.
Sagert currently works fulltime as a writer, editor, and speaker. She writes biographical and educational material for encyclopedias and other anthologies, including publications put out by Macmillan and Gale Group, Charles Scribner’s Sons, ME Sharpe, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press, University of Indiana Press and Facts on File. She also writes marketing materials and ghost blogs for a wide variety of companies.
She speaks regularly on communications issues at writer’s conferences and workshops, including the ASJA conference held in New York City, plus those held at The Ohio State University, Youngstown State, Kent State University, Bowling Green State University and Lorain County Community College. She has spoken at Jacobs Field (the Cleveland Indians stadium) and the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, and she appeared on an ESPN2 program called “The Top Five Reasons You Can’t Blame the Black Sox.”
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