The woman was in her late sixties. She said she started writing a memoir about the story of her deceased husband. She claimed she was writing the memoir as a gift to her family and didn’t care if it ever got published. She wasn’t a published writer but had been journaling for many years.
She began reading what she wrote about her husband’s life and subsequent motorcycle accident. The workshop participants and I listened in awe. Her words were strung together like a fine string of pearls. She brought the reader into the scene and did what I advocate in my memoir workshops: “Make sure to put the main character on the stage.”
I asked the group for comments, always suggesting that they first say what they loved about the piece before following up with ideas for improvement or where more information could be added. I allowed all the participants to speak and then I chimed in, as needed. I often find that most participants are quite astute and there are times when I don’t have to add much.
A lifelong love of stories
I’ve been teaching memoir writing for more than three decades, and it started with my passion for hearing other people’s stories. Ever since I was a little girl, when my mother took me on weekly trips to the local library, I’ve always gravitated toward biographies.
The first one I read was about Florence Nightingale, and perhaps it’s no surprise that many years later, I became a registered nurse. Unfortunately, I worked for a short period of time before having to go on bed rest with my first daughter.
As someone who makes the best out of situations, I wrote my first memoir while on bed rest. My husband, an engineer, built me a table to house my typewriter above my expanding belly. It was so original and so perfect for my situation. There was only so much reading and knitting I could do, so I ended up chronicling my nine-month journey.
With my nursing education, I turned the book into what I coined a “self-help memoir,” and my three subsequent memoirs were similar in that they were all rooted in one of my many turning points.
I believe that so much of who we become as adults is rooted in our childhoods. I’m an only child of immigrants who came to the United States in the 1940s to begin a life for themselves. They were hard-working, and when I was old enough, I was often left at home alone with my neighbour’s phone number in case I needed anything. Thus, my books and my journals became my best friends.
At the age of 12, I held journaling sessions for the neighborhood children in my backyard. Teaching, books and writing constituted the fabric of who I was and who I’ve become.
The unique experience of teaching memoir
When I became a registered nurse in the 1980s, I managed a nursing home where I held on-site training programs for nurses. While raising my three children, I was a freelance journalist, and when they grew up and left home, I started attending writing conferences. I was then asked to serve on panels discussing the art of writing. Intuitively, I fell into teaching memoir writing while working on a few memoirs of my own.
A memoir isn’t about a whole life. It’s about a slice of life. It has a theme.
A memoir isn’t about a whole life. It’s about a slice of life. It has a theme. Students often tell me that they have so many stories to tell that they aren’t sure which one to choose for their memoir. I love helping them figure this out.
I believe the first chapter is very important in the memoir. My second memoir, Regina’s Closet, began with my grandmother’s suicide when I was 10 years old. Right away, I pulled the reader into that graphic scene. My latest memoir, Hummingbird, opens with a hummingbird visiting outside my writing studio, which I believed was a sign that let me know my grandmother was visiting to give me a message.
Memoir is more than reportage. Its strength comes from telling our stories, then looking back and reflecting on how our experiences made us who we are today. Writing a memoir is also about integration, a reckoning, and healing; most often, this happens during the writing process.
Teaching memoir isn’t always easy, because people often write about tender experiences. As such, many tend to get emotional about their lives. In some cases, they decide to write about parts of their lives that were very painful or traumatic. At times, those incidents hadn’t been thought about in years. Sometimes there are many unresolved issues that only get worked out at the time of writing.
Patterns, themes and universal truth
There are often waiting lists for my workshops because I inspire and encourage seasoned and emerging writers. I tell my students that sharing their story will help others navigate their own lives, but there needs to be a universal, relatable truth as the backbone of their story. Sometimes we don’t know what this is until we begin the writing process. This is one of the many reasons I always have a box of tissues in my workshops.
I never thought about the rewards of teaching memoir writing, but the more I teach, the more I realize how much I love it. I notice patterns and themes in each person’s life, and I encourage students to notice and possibly write about the themes in their own lives.
My background as a nurse and psychological researcher helps others navigate their memoir-writing journey. I’m a good listener, and when critiquing, I refer to the writer as the narrator so that the writer doesn’t feel attacked.
I’m good at holding space for all the excavation that occurs during the writing process, and I hope that students who critique other participants’ work in the workshop will hold space for the others in the same way. The truth is, the rewards are big for both the student and the teacher.
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