Writing Classes and Memoir Workshops by Kimberly Garts Crum

Write your true story. Learn the craft. Join the Shape & Flow writing community.

Welcome to my virtual home! I am Kimberly Crum, owner and instructor at the Shape & Flow Writing studio at Louisville’s repurposed slaughterhouse, Mellwood Arts Center.

I enjoyed a social work career before getting my MFA in creative nonfiction in mid-life. Listening to stories has been my lifelong interest. Now, I guide aspiring writers in the retelling of true stories, for publication or posterity. All are welcome in this place—the young at heart as well as the old souls!

Please check out a book for which I am co-editor and contributor with writer Bonnie Omer Johnson—The Boom Project: Voices of a Generation.

Workshops

I want to improve my craft within a writing community.

Coaching

I want one-on-one help for my writing project.

Editing

I want an editor to help me develop and polish a manuscript.

Musings

Consider the Lowly Hermit Crab

by Kimberly Crum, posted in Uncategorized

I first read about the hermit crab in Barbara Kingsolver’s essay collection, High Tide in Tucson. In this true story about a stowaway crustacean, Kingsolver creates a lively lyrical first person narrative, in which the crab becomes a metaphor for how creatures habituate to their environments. Indeed, the hermit crab makes good metaphor. When you feel cramped, find a new shell to call … Continue reading Consider the Lowly Hermit Crab

Of Madeleines, Monuments and Memoir

by Kimberly Crum, posted in Uncategorized

A man at a party praised my husband for his determination to read all three volumes of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past — a literary tome, which “[in]several thousand pages, retraces the course of [the Frenchman’s] adolescence and adulthood, democratically dividing his experiences among the narrator and a sprawling cast of characters.” “Remembrance of Things … Continue reading Of Madeleines, Monuments and Memoir

It’s a Beautiful Day for a Neighbor

by Kimberly Crum, posted in Musings

Fred Rogers and his neighborhood exposed my secret skeptic. Perhaps it is the Virgo in me, or a tendency learned in my family of origin. But I am a doubting Tomasina. Will trust.  Must verify. No one can be that nice, I thought, while watching Liz watch Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. My preschool daughter kept her appointment each weekday … Continue reading It’s a Beautiful Day for a Neighbor

More Musings

Testimonials

“The workshop is an enjoyable, stimulating way to learn and develop writing skills with a wonderful instructor and inspired women.”

“I have learned how creating scenes, using dialogue to move the story along, and integrating the setting with the characters can make your writing more engaging.”

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