The Power of Memoir: How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go Home for the Holidays Workshop

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D.

The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go Home for the Holidays
Workshop

Linda Joy Myers, Author of The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Healing Story

Date: June 19, 2010
Time: 9:30 AM to 4 PM
Location: Off Center Stage, 315 Richardson St., Grass Valley, CA 95945
Ticket Price: $60 / $80 CEUs
Note: CEU credits available through the Center for the Arts.

Writing a memoir is a powerful way to explore who you are, where you came from, and what you have learned, a legacy for your descendants. It can also help to heal old wounds and grudges, and it can be a path to greater freedom and creativity. It has been proven that writing helps to change the brain and create new neural pathways to help us move toward a positive and more healed present and future.

We have so many stories we want—and need—to write, but the voices come to interrupt, “What will the family say? They’ll get mad at me for including them…or for not including them. What about all the honest, but not so nice things I was thinking/doing?”

These voices can interrupt your inspirational flow, your creativity, and your writing goals. But there are ways to solve these problems, and the other issues that memoir writers face. Or perhaps you want to write your story in fictional form. We will talk about that possibility as well. Most first novels are thinly disguised memoirs.

In this workshop you will

1. Learn how to write powerful scenes that bring your memories alive
2. Explore both the dark and lighter memories
3. Learn about how writing helps to heal
4. Write a few turning point stories

Those who want to take the workshop for CEU units will learn more about how to introduce writing to clients, how to decide if you have a writing group or a therapy group, and more about the current research in the field of writing and healing.

Bio:

Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., MFT, is author of The Power of Memoir—How to Write Your Healing Story. She’s the President and founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, and has been an MFT therapist in Berkeley for thirty years. A prize-winning author of Don’t Call Me Mother and Becoming Whole, Linda Joy is a speaker, editor, and writing coach, and offers online teleseminars and workshops at www.namw.org