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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\u2019t care if it ever got published. She wasn\u2019t a published writer but had been journaling for many years. <\/p>\n
She began reading what she wrote about her husband\u2019s 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: \u201cMake sure to put the main character on the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019t have to add much.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been teaching memoir writing for more than three decades, and it started with my passion for hearing other people\u2019s stories. Ever since I was a little girl, when my mother took me on weekly trips to the local library, I\u2019ve always gravitated toward biographies.<\/p>\n
The first one I read was about Florence Nightingale, and perhaps it\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
With my nursing education, I turned the book into what I coined a \u201cself-help memoir,\u201d and my three subsequent memoirs were similar in that they were all rooted in one of my many turning points.<\/p>\n
I believe that so much of who we become as adults is rooted in our childhoods. I\u2019m 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\u2019s phone number in case I needed anything. Thus, my books and my journals became my best friends.<\/p>\n
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\u2019ve become.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n A memoir isn\u2019t about a whole life. It\u2019s about a slice of life. It has a theme.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n A memoir isn\u2019t about a whole life. It\u2019s about a slice of life. It has a theme. Students often tell me that they have so many stories to tell that they aren\u2019t sure which one to choose for their memoir. I love helping them figure this out. <\/p>\n I believe the first chapter is very important in the memoir. My second memoir, Regina\u2019s Closet<\/em>, began with my grandmother\u2019s suicide when I was 10 years old. Right away, I pulled the reader into that graphic scene. My latest memoir, Hummingbird<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n Teaching memoir isn\u2019t 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\u2019t been thought about in years. Sometimes there are many unresolved issues that only get worked out at the time of writing.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s life, and I encourage students to notice and possibly write about the themes in their own lives.<\/p>\n My background as a nurse and psychological researcher helps others navigate their memoir-writing journey. I\u2019m a good listener, and when critiquing, I refer to the writer as the narrator so that the writer doesn\u2019t feel attacked. <\/p>\n I\u2019m good at holding space for all the excavation that occurs during the writing process, and I hope that students who critique other participants\u2019 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.<\/p>\n \u00abRELATED READ\u00bb<\/strong> WHEN LIFE BREAKS YOU OPEN: Finding the silver lining in the midst of clouds\u00bb<\/strong><\/p>\n image: Pixabay<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The woman was in her late sixties. 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Patterns, themes and universal truth<\/h2>\n
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