Laura Davis

This roundtable discussion will explore the ethical, practical and emotional issues that we face when we write about real people in our lives, all of whom are bound to have strong feelings about the way they are depicted on the page. Evaluating our own ethical and artistic choices, and coming to terms with their responses (as well as our fear of potential responses), becomes more pressing as we move from personal writing toward publication. 

Our Roundtable, with writing teacher and 7-time author, Laura Davis (The Courage to Heal, I Thought We’d Never Speak Again, Becoming the Parent You Want to Be) will address the following questions:

•  As a memoir writer, how much do I need to consider other people’s desire for privacy?

•  What, if anything, do I owe the people I write about?

•  How should I weigh the potential cost of telling my story with my strong desire to tell it?

•  What matters more–my relationships or my story?

•  What’s the one question you need to be able to answer before your memoir is published?

Laura Davis is the author of seven non-fiction books, including The Courage to Heal, Becoming the Parent You Want to Be and I Thought We’d Never Speak Again. Laura’s groundbreaking books have sold more than 1.8 million copies around the world. Laura has also worked as a columnist, talk show host, radio reporter, radio producer, blogger, editor, and speaker. 

Currently, Laura teaches writing workshops and memoir classes in Santa Cruz, California, and leads retreats at Esalen and other Northern California locations. Her “Write, Travel, Transform” retreats bring writers to a variety of international locations. Each spring, she leads a writing and yoga retreat to Bali. In August, she is taking a group to Scotland to write at a Victorian mansion in the Scottish Highlands. Future destinations will include Greece, and Vietnam & Cambodia.

You can also work with Laura online for free through her Writer’s Journey Roadmap community. If you sign up at www.lauradavis.net/roadmap, you will get an evocative weekly writing prompt in your inbox each week, along with an invitation to post your response as a member of her free, lively, supportive online writing community.

You can learn more about Laura’s retreats, classes and books at www.lauradavis.net. 

Links: for Scotland: http://www.lauradavis.net/cometoscotland

Bali: http://www.lauradavis.net/cometobali

THE WRITING RETREAT OF YOUR DREAMS GOES TO SCOTLAND–Join bestselling author Laura Davis for a transformative retreat in the heart of Scotland. Sink into the deep peace and unparalleled beauty of the enchanting Scottish Highlands. During your 10 days in this magical land, you will be immersed in the profound quiet necessary for deep writing. August 10-20, 2013. http:www.lauradavis.net/cometoscotland

We are pleased to have as our guest a non-native English speaker and writer who began writing a memoir with the burning desire to write his story. With the help of coaching, networking, and a lot of hard work, his book Lost Decency just became a finalist in the the prestigious Ben Franklin Awards competition for independently published books.

Atta Arghandiwal, Roundtable Speaker

From the terrifying moments of leaving my homeland after the Russian invasion in August of 1980, I had dreams of writing about an innocent nation that had fallen victim to invasions/oppression throughout its long history. After a busy immigrant life and many challenging years rescuing family and loved ones, I finally got a chance to commit to my life-long dream of writing. 

The next big challenge was my book project—deciding whether to write a general political story and how to reflect on the lives and innocence of millions of people who had nothing to do with the decisions of a few.

I turned to seeking support and feedback through family, friends, and a professional coach/mentor. I decided to self-publish and sought a designer and a publicist, creating a team. I want to share the lessons I learned as I built my author platform:

-          Process and timeline

-          Organization/discipline

-          Structure

-          Participating in conference calls

-          Publishing options

-          Distribution

-          Marketing

-          Networking

-          Collaboration with publicist

-          Social Media

Thanks to the incredible support and coaching while learning from experiences of others, Lost Decency has been named as a finalist in the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Awards competition.

Bio:

Atta Arghandiwal was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, but has spent over half his life in the West. His father was a prominent military officer and leader, and as one of ten children within a large military family, Arghandiwal spent his young life traveling and attending school.

After witnessing unexpected political changes with the 1978 Soviet Union invasion, Arghandiwal left his home country in August of 1980 and became a refugee in Germany. He immigrated to the United States in 1981, where he built a successful banking career as a senior vice president and regional manager.

With deep passion and pride in his heritage, Arghandiwal has written a true Afghan story to increase awareness about his country’s political upheaval, and the innocent people who have been caught in the chaos. He has remained an independent banking consultant while attending to his lifetime passion of writing.

Arghandiwal is married and lives with his wife and two children in Northern California.

Twitter: @lostdecency

Facebook: www.facebook.com/afghanstory

Website: www.lostdecency.com
L

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/attaarghandiwal

Free Roundtable

June 6, 2013

 

w/Atta Arghandiwal

 

Name:

 

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Judy L. Mandel 

Replacement Child – a memoir

Seal Press/Perseus

We are so pleased to welcome Judy Mandel to the National Association of Memoir Writers! Judy’s blog tour with Women on Writing has brought her to us today. We welcome her discussion on writing about her life–before she was born! Many memoir writers want to know more about this, and we will have another chance to talk about it when Judy joins us for our Free Roundtable discussion here on May 9. Please sign up to join us and to receive your free audio. But if you are on the call, you can talk with Judy about how she wrote her amazing memoir about a time before she was born, entering the hearts and souls of her family members.

Please comment below about her book, writing a memoir, researching the past, and techniques for writing from the point of view of family members.

About the book 

Judy Mandel is the replacement child for her sister who was killed in a tragic accident. It would be years before she would understand how the event, that happened before she was born, shaped her life.

A plane crashes into a family’s home. A two-year-old girl is critically burned and a mother is forced to make an impossible choice. The death of a child leaves a hole in the family that threatens to tear it apart.

In a great act of hope, the parents give birth to a “replacement child,” born to heal wounds and provide a “salve for the burns.” The child unwittingly plays her role throughout childhood, riding the deep and hidden currents of the family tragedy.

In this powerful story of love and lies, hope and forgiveness, Judy Mandel discovers the truth that changes her life forever and forces her to confront the complex layers of her relationships with her father, mother, and sister. When she has her own child, her epiphany comes full circle.

http://www.replacementchild.com

Interview with Judy L. Mandel 

NAMW:

How long have you been thinking of writing this memoir, and what helped you get it done? How did you start?

JUDY:

This book had been on my mind for many years. Probably since I began writing as an undergrad in college and my parents entrusted me with their notes about the plane crash, and aftermath, that is the focus of the book. When my parents died within seven months of each other, I felt that it was time to write the story that they had always said they wanted me to write. And, that immediate understanding of my own mortality, with their death, certainly spurred me on to get it done. It occurred to me that I had better get started if I was ever going to do it!

I started with the stories I remembered, writing them as scenes. Along with that was a great deal of research into the actual plane crash, and also into the psychological aspects of grief and recovery.

NAMW:

You have a lot of scenes where you weren’t born yet –tell us how you got into the POV of your characters.

JUDY:

These characters are people I knew inside and out. It may sound trite to say I heard their voices in my head as I wrote, but I did. I could call up my mother’s tone, my father’s quips. They had a unique style of communicating. I remember distinctly sitting at the dinner table when they didn’t want my sister and me to understand a conversation, and my father would speak in Yiddish and my mother in Hungarian—and they would understand each other! I wrote a scene like that in the book—and it actually made me laugh as I wrote it. I also still had my sister Linda to confer with during the writing, for a touchstone of reality.

When I wrote scenes about my mother, and got out of the way of what was happening in the scene, it opened me up to understanding her depression. That was something I had not considered. And that helped me understand why having another child was so important for her. Likewise, writing about what my father went through after the accident, I gained an understanding of him that I never had. Their points of view emerged as I wrote about what happened. I really do believe if we write almost objectively about what took place, that the inner characters emerge.

NAMW:

Did you worry about writing fiction, not memoir, as you were writing this book, and how did you resolve that?

JUDY:

I did worry about that at first, and some people may take exception to my creating scenes I didn’t witness. But, when I look at the truth of those scenes, and the understanding I gained from my family’s letters and notes, and from news reports and other sources, I believe I portrayed the truth. The question has also never come up from anyone but myself. And, now you!

NAMW:

Continuing with that issue. You had to recreate scenes from your research and your family story, and yet this is memoir. What is the line between fiction and truth in memoir writing?

JUDY:

We hear a lot of discussion on that point. I believe if you portray your truth in your memoir that it makes little difference if we remember the exact words that were spoken, or the type of flowers that sat on the table. So, if I am writing a scene with my father that makes a difference in the story, to my character, it matters mostly that I relate the effect that scene had on my truth of the story. It helps, of course, if we include as many details as we can for setting and description of people. I think the line is when writers make of facts to support their theory, or wish, of what happened, as opposed to the reality of an event.

NAMW:

The research came from where? Newspapers and where else?

JUDY

I also had letters and notes from my family. I also interviewed a firefighter who remembered the crash and a retired reporter from the New York Times who covered the story. I also went to the scene where the accident happened, and the local library in that town.

But, I used the web quite a bit too. That’s how I found the FAA reports, which were very useful in tracking the actual event of the plane crash and the investigation. It’s also how I found a testimony from the daughter of the pilot of the plane who explained more details about her father and their family, and how her mother lost the child she was carrying when she saw the plane go down. They lived on the next block over from my parents.

My reading about grief and recovery was extensive as well. I used the web to target some of the books that would help me, and then ordered the books and combed through them looking for clues.  So I read Freud and Jung, but also memoirs of bereaved parents. The replacement child information came from web research into Holocaust survivors, since I knew that this was a tragedy in which certainly many families grieved for their lost children.

NAMW:

How did you define the truth?

JUDY

Well, it’s not Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men in his famous line: “You can’t handle the truth!” We can, and must, handle the truth in order to understand the human condition as best we can, and to understand ourselves.

Finding my own truth of my family and our story came from the facts of what happened and the feelings and emotions wrapped up in the relationships and events of our lives. When I reconstructed the scene of my father arriving at his home to find it in flames and his family gone, and knowing the facts about that scene and that day from both news reports and his letters, I understood his truth enough to portray it. When I thought about my mother first trying to nurse her new baby, who looked so much like her first, and knowing her and having insight from my readings about grief, I knew the truth of what she went through.

But, it’s not only memoir and biography that mines the truth. It is also told eloquently through fiction, so I don’t want to discount that. If you’ve read William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice, for just one example, you know that the layers of truth in his fictional masterpiece are deep. Good fiction unveils truth just as much, and sometimes more, than memoir and biography.  I love this quote from Oscar Wilde that speaks to this:

            “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth.”

My mask as I wrote Replacement Child was to consider myself as a character in the story in order to distance myself. That’s one piece of advice that I can pass along, especially to memoir writers writing about painful material.

Picasso said, “Art is a lie that helps you tell the truth.”

About Judy L. Mandel

Judy L. Mandel made her living as a marketing professional for over 20 years before writing her first book, Replacement Child. She grew up in New Jersey, but when she went to college in Connecticut, she knew she had found her home.

Her writing life began as a newspaper reporter. She later worked in public relations and advertising and somehow found herself in corporate communications at various insurance companies. Her memoir grew out of early essays and the promise she made to her family to tell their story.

Judy now balances her business writing for clients with writing fiction, nonfiction and articles.

Follow Judy on:

Psychology Today:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/replacement-child

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/judymandel

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/replacementchild

Her blog:

http://www.judymandel.com/blog

Sharon Lippincott

May 24, 2013

11 AM PDT   12 PM MDT 1 PM CDT  2 PM EDT

 Sharon Lippincott, our May Member Teleseminar presenter, will illuminate  us with tips about how to write great and compelling descriptions–a skill that makes our writing shine. Please join us!

Have you ever felt like your writing is a little flat and drab and not known how to fix it? You might have tried amping up adjectives and slipping in similes, but even that wasn’t enough. Don’t be discouraged. This teleseminar will help you start transforming blah stories to brilliant ones.

Few people think beyond adjectives, similes and metaphor when they think of description. Some realize the importance of including sensory description, so they add taste, smell and tactile sensations to the more standard sounds and visual cues, but it takes more to keep readers glued to the page.

I’ve written dozens of blog posts through the years, many covering elements outside this narrow description, but even I was surprised when I began lacing forty-eight of those posts into my recently released anthology, The Heart and Craft of Writing Compelling Description, and a larger picture emerged.

I can’t wait to tell you more about it. Join me for the May Member Teleseminar and discover

• An expanded understanding of the elements of description
• How to create a stronger emotional connection with readers
• How the right noun can add extra dimension to your story
• Secrets of strong similes
• How to use a public resource to strengthen description skills

Look through a few old stories before the call to get ideas on questions to ask about how you can write more compelling description yourself. 

About Sharon Lippincott

Sharon Lippincott is a lifestory writing instructor and coach, and the author of The Heart and Craft of Writing Compelling Description, The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing , The Albuquerque Years, and several hundred vignettes, essays and stories about her life, many of which have been published. Her blog, The Heart and Craft of Life Writing, has been inspiring readers with writing tips, ideas, and insights since 2007.

Sharon serves on the advisory board of National Association of Memoir Writers. She serves on the faculties of the Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh Osher Program and leads writing workshops online and locally in southwestern Pennsylvania. She serves as an advisor to lifestory writing groups in Allegheny County Libraries and is founder of We Write!@(our library) Creative Writing University.

Whether you’re nearing completion of your memoir, or are still in the throes of actually writing it,  consider searching for a copyeditor with whom you truly resonate. The importance of having your manuscript polished by a professional copyeditor (line editor, content editor) cannot be overestimated. 

Working closely with a copyeditor who is right for you can make all the difference in the quality of your final manuscript.  You could end up with a so-so memoir that has room for improvement because there are obvious missing pieces, or there is too much written about a particular topic, or there are misspellings, grammatical errors, inaccuracies, or questionable logic in the narrative.  Or you could end up with a compelling piece of writing that will keep your readers enthralled from beginning to end.  

When you finally discover a copyeditor with whom you resonate — in personality, values, outlook, and (most important) sense of humor — a happy day has arrived! A good copyeditor will help make your writing succinct, lively, and interesting by pointing out where synonyms might be substituted for overused words, where the text might be expanded, or tightened, where there are inconsistencies in verb tense, tone, or mood.

An empathic copyeditor will understand what you’re driving at, but will still ask you tough questions to get at the heart of your meaning. A great copyeditor will honor your vision, respect your passion,  and keep your authentic voice intact.

One of the most helpful things a copyeditor can do for a memoir writer is to teach her how to ask the right questions as she writes. It’s so important to single out the most important things to include in your memoir, from the vast array of possibilities. 

Which memories are most important — to you, and ultimately, to your readers?  Which scenes and conversations do you really want to include?  Which topics should be touched on, and which should be developed at length?  Are there definite themes that run throughout your life?  What are they, and how could they be traced? Is it important to separate the memoir into decades, to zero in on certain years (or months, or days), to divide the text into periods  — when you lived in a particular city or country, or worked at a certain company, or were either single or married?

An experienced content editor has the knowledge to look at the big picture and help a memoir writer decide, figuratively, what colors will contribute to her creating a most beautiful painting of her life.

How do you find a copyeditor who’s in sync with your ideas?  One way is through organizations such as BAIPA  www.baipa.org – Bay Area Independent Publishers Association, which has monthly meetings and a website directory listing members’ specialties.  There is also BAEF  www.editorsforum.org  — Bay Area Editors’ Forum, which categorizes editors by their genres and specialties.  If you read others’ published memoirs, see if there is a copyeditor listed in the Acknowledgments.  Ask around for referrals of excellent copyeditors. 

As a book manuscript copyeditor, one of the most meaningful testimonials I’ve received is from first-time author Stacy Ebert.  Last year I copyedited Stacy’s book  It’s You — The Poignant Story of Two Cousins Reunited after a Shocking Diagnosis.   She said that I “worked alongside her to keep her original vision, and committed the time and heart I was looking for in an editor.” 

A good memoir writer/copyeditor relationship fairly sings, when it’s right!

To learn more about editing your memoir, join us at the NAMW  April Member Teleseminar!

                                                                                                                * * *

Linda Jay Geldens is a true publishing professional.  Decades ago, she started her career as an advertising copywriter in the Trade Book Department of Little, Brown Publishers in Boston, then worked at Houghton Mifflin Publishers.  Nowadays, she is still a promotional copywriter — creating back cover copy for books, press releases, website text, blog posts, magazine profiles and features stories.  But primarily she is a book manuscript copyeditor, specializing in the genres of memoirs, novels, spirituality, fantasy, business, and academic topics.  Linda, who works with authors all over the U.S. and in other countries, is comfortable editing manuscripts written by authors whose second language is English.  Her tagline represents her philosophy:  Helping clients communicate their message with style.  LindaJay@aol.com — www.LindaJayGeldens.com .

4 PM PDT   5 PM MDT  6 PM CDT  7 PM EDT

For a large part of the story of Replacement Child, I was not present, or even alive yet. A crucial portion of the story, including the plane crash that took my sister’s life, happened two years before I was born.

This posed an immediate problem for me as I began to write, as I know it does for other memoir writers who struggle with how to convey parts of their story that they did not witness or participate in personally.

Join me for our Roundtable Discussion of how to handle this inherent issue for many memoir writers, including:

• When is it okay to re-create a scene for your memoir, and still have it considered as memoir?
• How can you develop dialogue for scenes you did not witness?
• How can research play a role in truthfully re-creating pivotal information, even if you were not there?
• What is the line between fiction and truth in memoir writing?What about “fictional memoir?”(Ala, Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses)Discussion of the classic memoir, Mary Karr’s, The Liars’ Club, as it pertains to strict truth telling in memoir.

We expect, and look forward to, more questions along these lines that we can discuss further.

About Judy L. Mandel

Judy L. Mandel made her living as a marketing professional for over 20 years before writing her first book, Replacement Child. She grew up in New Jersey, but when she went to college in Connecticut, she knew she had found her home.

Her writing life began as a newspaper reporter. She later worked in public relations and advertising and somehow found herself in corporate communications at various insurance companies. Her memoir grew out of early essays and the promise she made to her family to tell their story.

Judy now balances her business writing for clients with writing fiction, nonfiction and articles. She writes an ongoing blog on PsychologyToday.com.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/replacement-child

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/judymandel

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/replacementchild

Blog: http://www.judymandel.com/blog

About Replacement Child

Judy Mandel is the replacement child for her sister who was killed in a tragic accident. It would be years before she would understand how the event, that happened before she was born, shaped her life.

A plane crashes into a family’s home. A two-year-old girl is critically burned and a mother is forced to make an impossible choice. The death of a child leaves a hole in the family that threatens to tear it apart.

In a great act of hope, the parents give birth to a “replacement child,” born to heal wounds and provide a “salve for the burns.” The child unwittingly plays her role throughout childhood, riding the deep and hidden currents of the family tragedy.

In this powerful story of love and lies, hope and forgiveness, Judy Mandel discovers the truth that changes her life forever and forces her to confront the complex layers of her relationships with her father, mother, and sister. When she has her own child, her epiphany comes full circle.

http://www.replacementchild.com

May 9, 2013 FREE Roundtable Event with Judy Mandel

 

Name:

 

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In this blog post, we’re pleased to have Susan Weidener share with us her process of writing a sequel to her first memoir in our Roundtable discussion on April 11. In the moving story that she shares with us below, we learn how writing her sequel helped her to see her mother through new lenses and with more compassion. Even when we think we are complete with a piece or even a whole book, we find out there is much more to say–and to learn. Join us for the Roundtable discussion at NAMW! Sign up here!

Writing About My Mother for Morning at Wellington Square

When I first began writing about my mother for my memoir, Morning at Wellington Square, I had no idea what would occur.  How could I have known that as I mined her story, I would unearth my own, as well?

My feelings about my mother felt confusing and contradictory.  I both loved and derided her.  Although I knew she had a good heart, I viewed her as a petulant and selfish child. She enjoyed – no, she demanded – being the center of attention and bringing others into her orb of misery.

Gertrude was born in 1916 into a generation of women often silenced by the culture and social mores of the time. Her father, a humorless autocrat of German descent, never encouraged her to attend college. Early on he decided she would get married, have children and become a housewife.  So, predictably, Mother entered into marriage at the age of 23.  She became a mother and a housewife.  She stayed married to my father for 55 years, until he died at the age of 80.

During my adolescence and into my college years, I had a contentious relationship with my mother. We rarely agreed – whether the discussion centered on a woman becoming president of the United States, reproductive rights and freedom, or why I didn’t act more “ladylike” . . . code for her distaste for “outspoken” women like me who preferred slacks and sneakers to dresses and high heels. 

It infuriated me that my own mother was so unsupportive, rigid and what I felt was anti-feminist.  Coming of age in the late 60s, I was influenced by a generation and its mantra that a woman could “have it all.”   So cruelly, and with the impetuosity of youth, I held my mother in low esteem for not being able to forge a career and path outside her husband. Of course, there was also her incessant complaining, which further eroded my respect. More subliminally, I perceived her frustration and anger with life as a direct assault on me, her only daughter.   Was it jealousy that I had traveled to Europe when I was 21, when she hadn’t gotten there until she was in her mid-50s? Was it because I was college-educated and felt free to speak my mind and she didn’t?  Where was the support and encouragement I so desperately needed, indeed, the support every girl needs from the most important woman in her life? 

By the time she was 49, Mother had been diagnosed with anxiety and depressive disorders.

When I began writing Morning at Wellington Square, my mother had been dead for a year, after suffering a stroke at the age of 92.  For  13 years prior to that, I had been her power-of-attorney and sole caretaker, visiting her weekly, sometimes more, at the assisted living community where she complained about life’s unfairness and vented her bitterness at having married a man who cheated on her during one fateful summer I was a junior in college.  I would end up writing about that summer and his affair, a “turning point” in my life when I realized that my father was not the perfect and noble man I had always believed him to be. 

Writing that story also revealed to me this truth – we can never know the heart of another, not even those we love as dearly as I did my father. Writing that story also helped me forgive him for seeking out a woman who I realized admired him, unlike his wife who often criticized him and his lack of earning power.  It helped me see, too, how naïve and childlike my mother had always been and feel her pain of unimaginable betrayal, especially since she was the last to learn about his infidelity.

As I perused black and white photographs of my mother taken in her youth, I was struck by the ephemeral beauty of the young Gertrude.  Her dark hair cascaded freely around her shoulders and her luminous brown eyes and smile seemed almost carefree  . . . hardly the woman I thought I knew so well. I began asking myself; what were her dreams, her desires? Who might she have been if not relegated to submissive, almost second-class status by a society and husband who preferred books to romance? How had she been silenced as a woman?  As I wrote about her, I tried to see view her through the prism of her perspective, which, of course, led to the question: who was I to my mother? 

By the time I finished writing her story, I saw how unkind and often unfair I had been.  I understood she had given me an appreciation for beauty; her joy of bringing in fresh cut zinnias from her garden and artfully arranging them in colorful vases throughout the house, something I do now . . . her love of music and animals; her stylish dress; her cutting, but keen sense of humor.  Mostly, I appreciated how her commitment to her family translated into my own commitment to my family.  Every night she had dinner on the table for my father, my brother and me, lunches packed for school . . . and, if not always a listening ear, then a feminine flair and presence in our home; a mother’s touch as best she could.  The writing served as a confession to my mother, one that I was unable to articulate when she was alive.  That confession is simple. I see now, Mom.  I understand.

Susan G. Weidener’s bio: A former journalist with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Susan is the author of two memoirs: Again In a Heartbeat and its sequel, Morning at Wellington Square. “I wrote my first book 13 years after my husband’s death from cancer. I write about the journey of moving forward after pain and loss, and the search for love . . . this quest for passion, renewal and magic, which is the heart of any romantic. As a former journalist, I try telling a story in a way that makes my books page turners.” Susan leads writing workshops and started the Women’s Writing Circle, a support and critique group for writers in suburban Philadelphia. For more information about the Women’s Writing Circle and how to order Susan’s memoirs, go to www.susanweidener.com

Much of the work I do with memoir writers is to help them tune into their own voice and story and learn how to read the signs of how a story might develop, from the budding of themes, to the development of deeply rooted chapters, plot lines, and the arc of the book. I love tapping into the creative process with people—it’s such a pleasure to be connected on a deep level to the rhythms of the planet and its own deep wisdom. Our creativity is connected to that of all living things—we can learn from the birds, the cycles of life, the way spring unfolds. We learn that we need to trust the process, that it will unfold in its own time, and that we are part of it. Even when the inner critic starts assailing us with voices of doubt and uncertainty, we can know that it’s part of the process too. Our work includes not getting stuck in our beliefs of limitation, and to trust that even in moments of feeling stuck and not writing, that there will be a way out, a new arising of our creative energy. 

One of the solutions to being stuck is to write—something—the beginning of a chapter, a list of scenes, a freewrite of memories. The idea is to keep writing, to even write nonsense as we create the famous “shitty first draft” that Anne Lamott talks about in her book Bird by Bird.  This means that we don’t stop and critic and edit our work, we just throw up on the page, dump out what’s in our brain, and move on with the writing until we have completed a first draft.

I love the way that Brenda Ueland in her book If You Want to Write encourages people to write, to trust, to blow past the voices of doubt:

“Everyone is talented, original, and has something to say.” She says that if we are human, we are talented and have something to express.  We are original, if we tell the truth, and speak from our true selves.

The best antidote to being stuck is to read those two books, write in your journal, and write your morning pages as suggested by Julia Cameron in the Artist’s Way. On the site “750 words” you can request an invitation to write 750 words, equivalent to the three pages in Artist’s Way, at any time you designate. It will open to a private page where you can spill whatever is on your mind, a place where you can doodle, dream, and create the first sentences of your next chapter. I have enjoyed the site as a way to get some writing done, and recommend it as one way to out of a writing rut, and return to the invitation to be creative and write. 

• What is your creative process?
• Do you have a support team?
• Do you have a writing buddy?
• How do you get unstuck?

You can join us on the open National Association of Memoir Writers Facebook page and talk about what you’re writing about, where you’re stuck, or what books you are reading. We all need a community of support as we tune into our stories. Every month you can join our free Roundtable discussions and get the audio download if you sign up, and we have many free articles and resources on site. Members have access to over 100 audios and more articles about memoir writing, free e-Books, and other benefits.

Workshops and Events

New Spring Workshop Writing a Healing Memoir/Spiritual Autobiography

9 weeks starting April 4, 2013

I’m offering a new workshop Writing a Healing Memoir/Spiritual Autobiography. We meet on the phone for an hour a week, and share our writing through email for feedback each week. This is a small group that invites you to share your raw writing, and work toward your first draft, or it might be a group where you smooth your work into a more developed draft, supported by the feedback of the group and me, your workshop leader. 

In this workshop, we silence the noise of everyday life and dig into memories, tune into writing our stories, and learn the skills needed to write a satisfying memoir—to get all the way to “The End.” 

It’s important to write freely without worrying about your inner critic or being published just yet—though that may be your ultimate goal. In order to get your memoir done, you need to feed your creative spirit, and have accountability to help get your stories on the page in a first draft.

The workshop:

1. Send that week’s story to your classmates through email.
2. Workshop members read and write feedback through email—reflecting on what works; offering feedback about what could be different or clarified.
3. At class time, we gather by phone to talk about the stories—discussing what comes up as you write, your inner critic, doubts and dreams about your stories, and questions about structure. Find out in person on the call what you want to know from the group that will help you continue and develop your work.
4. I guide the group, offer writing tips, and teach techniques that help you keep writing and learn how to grow as a writer.

 Learn more here.

Bay Area Writing Workshop with Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild

The National Association of Memoir Writers is co-sponsoring a workshop with Cheryl Strayed June 1, 2013 in Petaluma, CA. Click the link to sign up for the great opportunity to work with Cheryl. Learn from the New York Times bestseller about how to write a successful memoir! Her memoir is a classic, and her workshops are always sold out. We’re happy to be one of the sponsors for her workshop. Come and meet us, learn from Cheryl, and enjoy an amazing day focused on memoir writing.

Read more about Cheryl here: http://www.cherylstrayed.com

Blog post about using Wild to help you write your memoir at http://memoriesandmemoirs.com

Free Roundtable Discussion April 11, 2013

4 PM PDT  5 PM MDT  6 PM CDT  7 PM EDT

Why Write A Sequel To Your Memoir? with Susan Weidener

You’re feeling good because you finally wrote and published your first memoir. Perhaps you feel complete and think you’re finished writing about your life. Many of us think that we are complete, but life goes on, and the book you wrote takes on a life of its own—thanks to your readers and audience. You find yourself thinking about another book.

Write two books on my life? Will anyone be interested? It’s easy to stop ourselves with these worries.

Susan Weidener has done just that, as have many famous authors like Mary Karr and Frank McCourt. Most of us have more than one story to tell. In this Roundtable discussion, Linda Joy and Susan are going to talk about writing a sequel to your first memoir. Linda Joy added an Afterword to her first edition, while Susan wrote a sequel to her first memoir. Mary Karr wrote three memoirs. You’re in good company here!

Sign up here.

NAMW Member Teleseminar April 26

As I work with memoir writers, I am privileged to see two sides of them as writers—the part that is eager to write, loves the story, and can’t wait to get their unique message out to the world. Then there’s the other part—the one who does NOT want to be edited, feels violated by an editor taking a look at the” gold” there on the pages, and who would rather hike 10 miles in the snow than submit anything to an editor.

The second part of you really has to shift into a new mode—if you want to become a professional writer. Editing is about creating something beautiful and easy to read, and let’s face it—our first efforts, even our 10^th or 20^th, aren’t likely to give the reader that experience.

In this member teleseminar with an experienced editor, David Colin Carr, we will discuss how you can more about editing—what it is and isn’t, and learn how to become a good editor for yourself.

• What do editors do, anyway?
• Tips for self-editing and becoming your own editor.
• What support can you find for free to help you create your best manuscript?
• How do you work with the demons that writers face?
• What to expect from the relationship between you and your editor.
• Tips for self-editing and preparing the manuscript for an editor

Learn more here.

Free  Memoir Telesummit–Memoir in the New Millennium

May 3, 2013

10 AM-4 PM

An All Day Teleconference with Experts in Memoir, Marketing, and Publishing 

Memoirs are more popular today than ever—an evolving a grass roots movement where ordinary people, not just the rich and infamous, write and publish their stories. Memoirs are more popular now than fiction. Why? There seems to be a revolution in the personal story world, where thousands of people connect to the worlds of other people, and witness the lives of others. Concurrent with the publishing revolution still in progress, for the first time in history, anyone can write and publish their personal history, memoir, or spiritual autobiography. Of course, it’s important to know how to best present your work as a professional writer, to gain the skills to know what is expected in the book world, how to write and edit your work, and to be familiar with other books in your genre. 

We are pleased to present our 10^th  Memoir Telesummit—a free teleconference with experts in the areas of writing, publishing, blogging, and platform building.  Join us for a great day of learning, exploring, and sharing our passion about the ways that memoir writing and reading memoir has united people, and changed how literature and publishing are viewed.

Jerry Waxler

The Memoir Revolution

10:00 AM PDT  11:00 AM MDT  12 PM CDT  1 PM  EDT

Denis LeDoux

A Grass Roots Movement: Memoir over the Last Two Decades

11:15 PDT  12:15 MDT  1:15 CDT  2:15 EDT

Stephanie Chandler

Own Your Niche on the Internet and Beyond: Simple Strategies to Build Your Audience and Sell More Books

12:30 PDT  1:30 MDT  2:30 CDT 3:30 EDT

Joel Friedlander

Publishing Strategies for Self-Publishers 

1:45 PDT 2:45 MDT  3:45 CDT  4:45 EDT

Matilda Butler

Walls Come Tumbling Down: Impact of Change on Publishing, Marketing, and Writing

3 PM PDT  4 P MDT   5 PM CDT  6 PM CDT

Sign up for our Spring Telesummit here and receive your downloadable audio of the all day event.

Publishing Opportunities 

Call for Personal Stories of Survival, Inspired by Gloria Gaynor’s Song “I Will Survive”

Have you survived an illness, personal tragedy, abusive relationship, financial ruin, or other life experience that brought you to your knees? Did the song “I Will Survive,” by Grammy Award-winning songstress Gloria Gaynor, inspire you to rise, survive, and move forward? If so, we’d love to share your story in a new book of personal narrative essays that tell the story of how you survived the experience and how the song influenced your life (essential). We’re looking for real-life stories that read like fiction—similar to the stories in the Cup of Comfort book series, compiled and edited by Colleen Sell. The book will include 50 stories of 1,000-1,500 words each. For each essay selected for publication in the book, the author will receive $75, a complimentary copy of the book signed by Gloria Gaynor, and a signed photo of Ms. Gaynor. Submit by April 30, 2013, to glolo2004@me.com  or susancarswell@aol.com

Poets and Writers—in the back of this online magazine, you can find literary magazines searching for new work to publish. http://www.pw.org 

WriterAdvice seeks flash fiction, memoir, and creative non-fiction running 750 words or less. Enlighten, dazzle, and delight us. Finalists receive responses from all judges.

DEADLINE: Submit to the 8th WriterAdvice Flash Prose Contest by April 18, 2013. http://www.writeradvice.com

Workshop and Book Events with Linda Joy Myers 

Day of the Book

John F. Kennedy University

April 20, 2013

10:20 AM – 4:00 PM

Pleasant Hill – Main Campus

100 Ellinwood Way

Pleasant Hill, CA 94523-4817

What’s Your Story? The Heart and Craft of Memoir Writing—Linda Joy Myers

Memoir Workshop

The Three Stages of Memoir Writing

Linda Joy Myers

Keplers Books

Menlo Park, CA

Saturday, May 11th, 1-4pm

Writing a memoir is a journey, from the snapshots of memory to a story that offers the reader powerful themes and messages that are entertaining and life changing. And what a journey it is, starting with your passion to write your story, making your way through the “Muddy Middle,” and finally getting to “The End.” 

Memoir writers need answers to these kinds of questions:

• Where do I begin?
• What about my family?
• What is my truth and dare I write it?
• How do I structure my memoir?

Learn more here.
 

SheWrites Press Launch Celebration and Panel Discussion   

Women on the Publishing Frontier

May 2, 2013   7-9:30 PM  

Bancroft Hotel Berkeley, CA

Admission: FREE

Join us for a panel featuring ten She Writes Press authors as they discuss their new books and their paths to publishing. Moderated by She Writes Publisher, Brooke Warner, “Women on the Publishing Frontier” will be a lively conversation about the new era of publishing with ten indie authors of memoir and fiction.

If you’re interested in the changes happening in publishing, this evening is a must. And if you’re a female writer interested in the ways women are supporting one another to fulfill their publishing aspirations, then these ten authors will inspire.

Linda Joy and 9 other authors and the publishers at SheWrites Press will talk about the brave new world of publishing and the contributions they are all making.

Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA          

Book Release Celebration                                      

May 19, 2013  4 PM

Women Writing Their Lives–A Celebration and Memoir Discussion with Three Memoir Writers

Three memoir writers Linda Joy Myers, Don’t Call Me Mother, Judy Mandel, Replacement Child, and Judith Newton, Tasting Home will talk about their inspiration and process of writing their memoirs. Truth and secrets, the arc of writing a long work, and the transformational journey of writing a memoir will be discussed. Please come and bring your friends to this inspirational memoir writing event and book reading.

In the News

How My Life Came Full Circle

Linda Joy Myers is a blogger on the Huffington Post 50, and her post “How My Life Came Full Circle” has just been published with a slide show of family pictures. The article is about story that her memoir Don’t Call me Mother tells in book length form. Click this link to read the post.

 Read more about the book here.

May 3, 2013    10 AM-4 PM PDT

An All Day Teleconference with Experts in Memoir, Marketing, and Publishing

 Sign up to get your audio download for this free event.

Memoirs are more popular today than ever—an evolving a grass roots movement where ordinary people, not just the rich and infamous, write and publish their stories. Memoirs are more popular now than fiction. Why? There seems to be a revolution in the personal story world, where thousands of people connect to the worlds of other people, and witness the lives of others. Concurrent with the publishing revolution still in progress, for the first time in history, anyone can write and publish their personal history, memoir, or spiritual autobiography. Of course, it’s important to know how to best present your work as a professional writer, to gain the skills to know what is expected in the book world, how to write and edit your work, and to be familiar with other books in your genre. 

We are pleased to present our 10^th  Memoir Telesummit—a free teleconference with experts in the areas of writing, publishing, blogging, and platform building.  Join us for a great day of learning, exploring, and sharing our passion about the ways that memoir writing and reading memoir has united people, and changed how literature and publishing are viewed. 

Denis Ledoux

A Grass Roots Movement: Memoir over the Last Two Decades–and Into the Future

10:00 AM PDT  11:00 AM MDT  12 PM CDT  1 PM  EDT

Denis Ledoux was one of the first creators of a structured memoir course with workbooks, guidebook, a training manual, and affiliates. As one of the long term believers in memoir writing, Denis will talk about the opportunities memoir presents for self development, leaving a legacy, creating meaning and messages through the generations, and how writing and teaching memoir can change the world, one story at a time. 

Denis Ledoux grew up in a three-generation home with paternal grandparents who lived upstairs. Stories have always played an important role in Denis’ life. As a child, he heard tales of his extended family and their history recounted by the family storyteller, his memere. He directs the Soleil Lifestory Network, an international group of life story writing teachers who use his method and materials to lead the popular Turning Memories® and Photo Scribe® workshops and programs

Denis holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. He has taught Franco studies at the university level and has been a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities on the subjects of cultural diversity and Franco North American culture and history. As a short story writer, he drew on family characters, settings, and stories for his fiction. In 1989, he won the Maine Fiction Award for Mountain Dance & Other Stories. His other titles include What Became of Them and Other Stories from Franco-America, and Lives in Translation: An Anthology of Contemporary Franco-American Writings which he edited. Denis’ short fiction has twice been honored with the Maine Writing Fellowship Award (1991, 1996), an NEA-based merit award. www.turningmemories.com

Jerry Waxler

The Memoir Revolution

11:15 AM PDT  12:15 PM MDT  1:15 PM CDT  2:15 PM  EDT

Lessons from the Memoir Revolution

In the 21st century, many of us have begun to learn our own stories and share them with others. In this talk, Jerry Waxler, author of Memoir Revolution: Write Your Story, Change the World, shows how this new cultural awareness works, and how you can tap into it. Weaving together the literary requirements of the form, and its implications for personal development and social responsibility, the Memoir Revolution motivates and informs your effort to apply the power of Story to your life.

We will discuss: 

1. How the memoir revolution invites memoir writers to band together to develop skills and stories.
2. Powerful literary stories have always explored the psychology of their main characters. By writing a memoir, you become  such a character yourself, increasing your understanding of your power as an individual.
3. The internet and self-publishing gives us the ability to find our own niche, providing us with a new, powerful way to understand social presence through our stories.
4. The Memoir Revolution breaks taboos. We turn mistakes, regrets, failures into lessons. Regret and humiliation changes from shame which isolates to authenticity which connects.
5. Life makes more sense in story than in memory.
6. Learning to construct a Story is a valuable life skill.
7. A groundswell of social awareness is shifting our collective attitude about the past, from the regret of lost stories to the joy of found ones.

Jerry Waxler teaches memoir writing at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania as well as online and around the country. His Memory Writers Network blog offers hundreds of essays, reviews, and interviews about reading and writing memoirs. His book Memoir Revolution explores the importance of memoirs in our times. He is on the board of the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference and National Association of Memoir Writers and holds a BA in Physics and an MS in Counseling Psychology.

Stephanie Chandler

12:30 PDT  1:30 MDT  2:30 CDT 3:30 EDT

Own Your Niche on the Internet and Beyond: Simple Strategies to Build Your Audience and Sell More Books

Before self-publishing her first book, Stephanie Chandler decided to build an audience online. The success of that effort led to book contracts with several traditional publishers, corporate sponsorships, major media coverage, product sales, and a variety of other opportunities. In this content-rich presentation, she shares the lessons that authors can use to effectively build an audience online. 

You will learn how to:

• Identify and attract your ideal audience online
• Create an effective website and optimize it for the search engines
• Leverage blogging to increase traffic and increase sales
• Conduct interviews with internet media sources
• Use articles, podcasts, videos, and content marketing tactics to boost traffic
• Expand revenues with information products
• Utilize Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest—all without a big time commitment (really!) 

With so much competition in the publishing field, it is critical that publishers and authors find innovative ways to promote their work. Whether you already have one, two or twenty books to your credit or you are just getting started; effective internet marketing strategies can have a dramatic impact on your publishing success.

Stephanie Chandler is the author of several books including Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business, Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business. Stephanie is also founder and CEO of http://AuthorityPublishing.com, specializing in custom publishing for nonfiction books and social media marketing services. A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, BusinessWeek, Inc.com, Wired magazine, and she is a contributing blogger for Forbes. For author and speaker information, visit http://StephanieChandler.com.

Joel Friedlander

Publishing Strategies for Self-Publishers 

1:45 PDT 2:45 MDT  3:45 CDT  4:45 EDT

Many authors are taking advantage of the tools to publish their own books, and that means also taking responsibility for their own publishing career. But with all the choices available, how do you know how to produce a book that will get you where you want to go? In this teleseminar we’ll look at a number of publishing paths memoir writers can take to get their books into print. Whether you’re writing to sell as many books as possible, or for more personal reasons, you’ll learn how to navigate these critical decisions.

• Savvy strategies for personal and private publishers
• Getting your books to your readers: distribution options for self-published memoirs
• The crucial connection of marketing, distribution and production

Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) is an award-winning book designer, a blogger, and the author of A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish. He’s been launching the careers of self-publishers since 1994 and writes TheBookDesigner.com, a popular blog on book design, book marketing and the future of the book. Joel is also the founder of the online training course, The Self-Publishing Roadmap, and the new site BookDesignTemplates.com.

Matilda Butler

Walls Come Tumbling Down: Impact of Change on Publishing, Marketing, and Writing

3 PM PDT  4 PM MDT   5 PM CDT  6 PM EDT 

As a wrap-up to the NAMW Telesummit, Matilda Butler, co-founder of www.WomensMemoirs.com, will talk about the changing face of the entire publishing industry and how we, as writers, need to know when to embrace it and when to stand firm.

 In her comments, Matilda will look at: 

- Four pillars of memoir writing

- Areas writers can easily embrace

- Ways to shore up the most important wall of all 

Matilda Butler and her co-author, Kendra Bonnett, have recently published Writing Alchemy: How to Write Fast and Deep, the result of four years of researching, teaching, and fine-tuning a new process for writing. The second edition of their previously published collective memoir, Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story, has just been released. 

@WritingAlchemy   @WomensMemoirs

11 AM PDT  12 PM MDT  1 PM CDT  2 PM EDT

As I work with memoir writers, I am privileged to see two sides of them as writers—the part that is eager to write, loves the story, and can’t wait to get their unique message out to the world. Then there’s the other part—the one who does NOT want to be edited, feels violated by an editor taking a look at the “gold” there on the pages, and who would rather hike 10 miles in the snow than submit anything to an editor.

The second part of you really has to shift into a new mode—if you want to become a professional writer. Editing is about creating something beautiful and easy to read, and let’s face it—our first efforts, even our 10^th or 20^th, aren’t likely to give the reader that experience.

In this member teleseminar with an experienced editor, David Colin Carr, we will discuss how you can more about editing—what it is and isn’t, and learn how to become a good editor for yourself.

• What do editors do, anyway?
• What support can you find for free to help you create your best manuscript?
• How do you work with the demons that writers face?
• What to expect from the relationship between you and your editor.
• Tips for self-editing and preparing the manuscript for an editor

Editor David Colin Carr has been editing fiction, non-fiction, and dissertations since 1988 with writers as far flung as China and Thailand. He works collaboratively with clients to bring forth their passion – with clarity, coherence, while preserving their distinctive voice. He is dedicated to projects that value, expand, and connect our human hearts – offering his own heart, counseling experience, and creativity to bring forth the brilliance of both the writing and the collaborative relationship. www.DavidColinCarr.com