Schedule: Friday from 7:30 PM to Sunday 12:30 PM
Location: Calistoga, CA
28 CEU units available!

Reserve your space now–retreat limited to 10 participants!

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D.

With Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D.

If you have been writing for a while and enjoy the process of understanding yourself through memoir writing, then this course is a great fit for you.

6 CEU’s Available!

MONDAY Course Meeting Dates: September 20, September 27, October 4, October 18, October 25, November 1, November 8, November 15, November 29
MONDAY Meeting Time: 11 AM PDT | 12 PM MDT | 1 PM CDT | 2 PM EDT

OR

TUESDAY Course Meeting Dates: September 21, September 28, October 5, October 19, October 26, November 2, November 9
TUESDAY Meeting Time: 3 PM PDT | 4 PM MDT | 5 PM CDT | 6 PM EDT

OR

FRIDAY Course Meeting Dates: September 10, September 17, September 14, October 1, October 8, October 22, October 29, November 12, November 19
FRIDAY Meeting Time: 9 AM PDT | 10 AM MDT | 11 AM CDT | 12 PM EDT

Level: Intermediate to Advanced Workshops — 9 Sessions on Either Monday, Tuesday or Friday

The format: write your story for that week, email it to the workshop members. Write your feedback to each participant, and email it to them. Gather on the conference call once a week to discuss the work, get feedback from Linda and others on the call, and develop new ideas for your stories. Handouts are sent by email for new writing prompts or lessons.

NAMW is excited to announce 2 Summer Memoir Writing & NonFiction Writing Tele-Workshops! We know how busy you are during the summer months, so we’ve designed 2 different courses as short as 3 sessions in length or sessions that run the length of the summer, but take a few weeks off around holidays such as the 4th of July.

Summer Teleworkshop #1

The Writer’s Survival Kit with Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., NAMW President

The Writer’s Survival Kit is a great course for Memoir Writers as well as NonFiction Writers in general.  If you’ve started your memoir or nonfiction writing project—freewriting, journaling, and collecting stories, ideas and outlines and as you write, questions develop that need your attention and solutions.   This two part series entitled, the Writer’s Survival Kit, will help you continue to move forward! [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR SIGN UP ONLINE]

Part 1: June 22-July 13     Part 2: July 13-July 27      Time: 3:00 PM PDT | 6:00 PM EDT

NAMW Lifetime Member: $85 for each Part NAMWAnnual Member: $95 for each Part NAMW-Non-Member: $135 for each Part

Save $10 by signing up for both Parts!

Click Here to Learn More or Sign up for 1 or Both Parts of the Workshop!

Want to receive a Discount on this workshop?  Become a Member today!

Summer Teleworkshop #2

Advanced Healing Memoir Writing & Spiritual Autobiography Monday OR Friday Summer Tele-Workshops, with Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., NAMW President

If you have been writing for a while and enjoy the process of understanding yourself through memoir writing, then this course is a great fit for you.

MONDAY Course Meeting Dates:  June 28, July 12, July 19, July 26, August 2 & August 9
MONDAY Meeting Time:  3 PM PDT | 4 PM MDT | 5 PM CDT | 6 PM EDT

OR

FRIDAY Course Meeting Dates: July 2, July  9, July 16, July 23, July 30 & August 6

FRIDAY Meeting Time: 8 AM PDT | 9 AM MDT |  10 AM CDT | 11 AM EDT

Level: Intermediate to Advanced Workshops  — 6 Sessions on Either Monday or Friday

The format: write your story for that week, email it to the workshop members. Write your feedback to each participant, and email it to them. Gather on the conference call once a week to discuss the work, get feedback from Linda and others on the call, and develop new ideas for your stories. Handouts are sent by email for new writing prompts or lessons.

The Goal of our Workshops
The goal of these workshops is to deepen your progress with your memoir, and to develop fictional techniques such as dialogue, scenes, point of view and structure. Developing new writing skills and getting support for your ongoing learning is a good reason to take an online workshop. Perhaps you have written some vignettes and now are ready for feedback.  [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OR SIGN UP ONLINE]

Mondays starting 6/28 at 3PM PDT | 6PM EDT or Fridays starting 7/2 at 8AM PDT|11AM EDT

Length:  6 Sessions

NAMW Lifetime Members: $239 NAMW Annual Members:  $290 NAMW Non-Member: $390

Click Here to Learn More or Sign up for 1 or Both Parts of the Workshop!

Want to receive a Discount on this workshop?  Become a Member today!

If you have any questions about these courses, please let us know.  If you are already a member of NAMW, thank you.  And if you are considering membership and have questions, please contact us at info@namw.org or you can reach Staci in our Member Benefits Department via telephone at (952) 210-7657.  Either way you choose to contact us, we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have.

Be Brave.  Write Your Story!

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D.

With Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D.

If you have been writing for a while and enjoy the process of understanding yourself through memoir writing, then this course is a great fit for you.

6 CEU’s Available!

MONDAY Course Meeting Dates:  June 28, July 12, July 19, July 26, August 2 & August 9
MONDAY Meeting Time:  3 PM PDT | 4 PM MDT | 5 PM CDT | 6 PM EDT

OR

FRIDAY Course Meeting Dates: July 2, July  9, July 16, July 23, July 30 & August 6

FRIDAY Meeting Time: 8 AM PDT | 9 AM MDT |  10 AM CDT | 11 AM EDT

Level: Intermediate to Advanced Workshops  — 6 Sessions on Either Monday or Friday

The format: write your story for that week, email it to the workshop members. Write your feedback to each participant, and email it to them. Gather on the conference call once a week to discuss the work, get feedback from Linda and others on the call, and develop new ideas for your stories. Handouts are sent by email for new writing prompts or lessons.

Presented by:  Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., NAMW President

NAMW is excited to announce our summer Memoir Writing & NonFiction Tele-Workshops! We know how busy you are during the summer months, so we’ve broken this course down into two separate sessions: Part 1 & Part 2.  Attend one or both Sessions, as your schedule permits.  And as with all NAMW workshops, if you can’t attend all of the dates, you can download an audio recording of each class when you sign up to participate in the session!

Scroll down to the bottom of this page to sign up for Part 1, Part 2 or Both!

Session 1, Part One Dates:

Tuesday June 22

Tuesday June 29

Tuesday July 6

Time:  3:00 PM PDT | 4:00 PM MDT | 5:00 PM CDT | 6:00 PM EDT

Session 2, Part Two Dates:

Tuesday July 13

Tuesday July 20

Tuesday July 27

Time:  3:00 PM PDT | 4:00 PM MDT | 5:00 PM CDT | 6:00 PM EDT

You’ve started your memoir or nonfiction writing project—freewriting, journaling, and collecting stories, ideas and outlines. As you write, questions develop that need your attention and solutions.   These two part series entitled, the Writer’s Survival Kit, will help you continue to move forward!

Part One

Discuss the basics of writing memoir and nonfiction.

The skills for writing nonfiction are the same as for memoir—to write about a subject in such a way that it grabs readers and keeps them turning the pages. Story is one way that readers stay engaged. Story is composed of several components. The most important of these are scenes, theme, narrative arc, and sensual details.

Topics that will be discussed include:

• Do I really need to write scenes, and why? We will discuss this and learn about using sensual details, dialogue, and setting.
• How do I find the themes in my work? The themes of your work are a thread that continues throughout the piece, a path through the forest of ideas and words.
• What is a narrative arc of story and do I need it? The narrative voice, narrative arc, and plot are tools that create a structure for your work.

In part one of this workshop, we will discuss these important tools for writers.   You’ll also be able to post comments and have discussions within the NAMW Forum Classroom.

Part Two

As you work on your project, you discover the need to understand certain conventions about using real people as examples in your nonfiction, or as characters in your memoir. You discover that you need to keep track of several threads of the stories, and to capture scenes in a complete way. Examples will be used to show you how other authors use these skills in their writing. And, last but not least, if you are a writer, you have tons of paper, files, and misnamed documents where it’s hard to find what you have written and a challenge to keep track. Being a writer means having a system for your files and ideas, which helps you to develop your projects in a flow that enhances creativity.

Topics that will be discussed include:

• Real people—managing truth telling, secrets, and naming.
• Deepening skills—integrating thoughts, action, dialogue, and reaction. Layering.
• Being a writer—keeping track, organizing files, revision, editing, writing time and groups.

	Session 1	Session 2	Session 1 & Session 2
NAMW Lifetime Member Price	$85.00 Login & Click Here for Lifetime Member Pricing	$85.00 Login & Click Here for Lifetime Member Pricing	$160 (SAVE $10.00 by enrolling in both sessions NOW) Login & Click Here for Lifetime Member Pricing
NAMW Annual Member Price	$95.00 Login & Click Here for Annual Member Pricing	$95.00 Login & Click Here for Annual Member Pricing	$180 (SAVE $10.00 by enrolling in both sessions NOW) Login & Click Here for Annual Member Pricing
Non-NAMW Member Price	$135	$135	$260 (SAVE $10.00 by enrolling in both sessions NOW)

About Linda Joy:

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., MFT, is the President and Founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers.  For the last thirty years Linda Joy has been a therapist in Berkeley, California. She is the author of The Power of Memoir: How to Write Your Healing Story, Don’t Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother Daughter Abandonment & Becoming Whole: Writing Your Healing Story.

Linda’s prize-winning nonfiction and poetry has been published in various literary journals. Her novel excerpt, Secret Music, a novel about the kindertransport, was a finalist in the San Francisco Writing Conference contest. Her memoir piece Aunt Edith’s Lemon Meringue Pie can be read here: http://www.themonthly.com/feature6-07-07.html

Linda is past-president of The California Writers Club, Marin branch, was co-President on the board of the Women’s National Book Association, and is currently on the board of Story Circle Network.

Linda received her MFA at Mills College, and has taught Marriage and Family Therapy. In addition to her degrees in psychology, Linda has a B.S. in Music Education from the University of Illinois, and a B.A. in Art from the University of California, Berkeley.

with Mary Mackey, New York Times Best Selling Author

Date:     Friday August 13, 2010

Time: 11 AM PDT |12 PM MDT | 1 PM CDT |2 PM EDT

Cost: FREE FOR NAMW MEMBERS (NAMW Members, the Call-In Details will be posted in the Member Area as the date approaches.  Please be sure to login to see the details below as the date approaches).

Not Available for the Live Call? NAMW members can access a link in the NAMW member area within a week of the teleseminar to download the audio mp3 of this call!

Not already a member of NAMW? Click here to become a member now!

In this teleseminar, Mary will talk about the role poetry can play in developing and contributing to memoir. Some of her talking points will include how to use poetry to find your personal voice, choose your narrative style, set the emotional tone of your memoir, summon up the past, and make your prose come alive.

Topics that will be discussed include:

• How writing poetry can help you write your memoir, even if you have never written poetry before.
• What is so liberating about writing poetry?
• How poetry helps recover forgotten parts of the past.
• Personal voice and how writing poetry helps us find it.
• The four most important techniques for making writing come alive
• Poets who write poems based on memoir

About Mary:  Mary Mackey received her B.A. magna cum laude from Harvard and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. One of the founders of the Graduate Creative Writing Program at California State, University, Sacramento, she has taught memoir writing for many years on both the graduate and undergraduate level.

Related to Mark Twain through her father’s family, she lived in the rain forests of Costa Rica in her early twenties. For a number of years, she has been traveling to Brazil and incorporating her experiences into her fiction and poetry.   In 2005 she took a boat up the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon, travelling over two thousand miles through flooded jungle. In June 2009, she made another trip to one of the headwaters of the Amazon on the Rio Tocantins

Mackey is the author of five collections of poetry including Breaking The Fever (Marsh Hawk Press), and twelve novels including The Widow’s War which recently appeared on the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list. Mackey’s works, which have also made the New York Times bestseller list, have been translated into eleven languages, and sold over a million and a half copies. At present she lives with her husband in northern California. To learn more about her and sample her writing, you are invited to visit her website: www.marymackey.com

I Have a Memoir, Now What?

with Susan Daffron, Author & Publisher

Date:  Friday July 16, 2010
Time: 11 AM PDT |12 PM MDT | 1 PM CDT |2 PM EDT
Cost: FREE FOR NAMW MEMBERS (NAMW Members, the Call-In Details are posted below for current NAMW members who are logged into the site.  Be sure to login to see them).

[Content protected for Namw members only]

Not Available for the Live Call? NAMW members can access a link in the NAMW Member Area within a week of the teleseminar to download the audio mp3 of this call!

Not already a member of NAMW? Click here to become a member now!

After you’ve finished your book manuscript, producing a book doesn’t have to be a complicated process. However, it helps to understand issues related to publishing, printing, and editorial work so you can make good decisions about your book project. In this teleseminar, Susan Daffron walks you through the book production process, so you end up with a memoir you are proud to show friends, families, and colleagues.

Susan Daffron is the President of Logical Expressions, Inc., which is a small book publishing company that also offers book production services to authors and other publishers. She is the author of the multiple-award-winning book, Publishize: How to Quickly and Affordably Self-Publish a Book That Promotes Your Expertise.

In the teleseminar, Susan will explain:

• Why you must carefully examine your publishing goals before you make any final decisions about how to produce your book.
• The publishing numbers and acronyms you need to know when you decide to self-publish a book.
• The areas of the publishing process you can outsource, depending on your skills (and one you definitely should).
• Some of the confusing printing terminology you may encounter, so you can compare “apples to apples.”
• How to affordably publish your book and achieve good online distribution, yet avoid the stigma and expenses associated with subsidy/vanity presses.

About Susan:  Susan Daffron is the award-winning author of 12 books (ten of which were self-published). She has a unique perspective on the ever changing print-on-demand and book publishing industries, with a background in writing, editing, graphic design, and Web site development. Susan has been in publishing since 1988.

NAMW Members, be sure to learn more about the Memoir Cover Design and Memoir Interior Layout Discount Susan is offering to NAMW Members!  Not already an NAMW Member?  Become a Member Today!

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D.

Healing Memoir and Spiritual Autobiography LIVE Workshop with Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D.

Time: 10am-1pm PDT
Length: 6 Sessions

Class Schedule: June 26th,  July 10th, July 17th, July 24th, July 31st &  August 7th

Do you live in Marin, the East Bay or San Francisco? Take advantage of this unique opportunity to work in person with with Linda Joy Myers within a course structure that is highly customizable based on your writing needs. This course has been at capacity for over 2 years, but due to relocation of two participants, there are currently openings! Pricing for this workshop is at a fraction of the cost of Linda Joy’s private coaching sessions and will provide you with the opportunity to receive safe and confidential feedback from a small group of writers. Contact info@namw.org if you are interested in learning more. This class is limited to 7 participants and always reaches capacity very quickly!

As a group, we write about the important moments in our lives–childhood memories, careers, love and family, and spiritual quests. Some writers use poetry and prose to capture memories and to explore the richness of life. We write about important turning points–the lighter, humorous moments along with the dark nights of the soul. There is laughter and a few tears, and most of all the witnessing of our stories, an important part of transformational writing. People of every age learn from each other’s experiences and inspires each other to keep writing insightful and thoughtful true stories. You will learn how to choose your scenes, how to use fictional tools, and ways to keep the inner critic at bay. We write during class, and share our work in a supportive atmosphere.

Saturdays in Berkeley: 6 Week Healing & Spiritual Autobiography LIVE Workshop!

Saturdays in Berkeley

NAMW Lifetime Member	$365.00 (special Lifetime member-only pricing)	Click here to visit the Members Discounts page
NAMW Annual Member	$390.00 (special Annual Member-only Pricing)	Click here to visit the Members Discounts page
Non-NAMW Member	$525.00 | Do you want to receive a discount for this class? Become a member of NAMW and enjoy a discount on this and other workshops!

Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed. ~Muriel Rukeyser

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. ~Pablo Picasso

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
–Wendell Berry