If you’re in the East coast, you may still be getting snow, but we out here in sunny California are experiencing spring with flowers, sweet scents, and warm temperatures. Just think if you and your children are writing memoirs, this winter will no doubt provide some stories to tell. Every moment that you experience can become part of a flash memoir or a short story. Or you might string together many moments that have meaning, offer a legacy, or present a new insight about your experience that will make a great memoir. We have a lot of courses here at NAMW this spring to help inspire you and offer you new skills.
We’re happy here at the National Association of Memoir Writers to be offering some workshops that can help you begin and develop your memoir. The focus for two of the workshops is writing as a path of healing, a free workshop offered by Mark Matousek, and my workshop Writing a Healing/Spiritual Memoir–a 9 week course. Coming in April: another course by our popular Jerry Waxler that will help you find the structure of your story, and of course our free Roundtable discussion Self-Publish Your Book on a Shoestring with Sharon Lippincott and Boyd Lemon, experienced self-publishers. Brooke Warner and I will teach another best seller: The Glass Castle in April–a 4 week workshop.
Our popular and free Memoir Telesummit is coming up May 9th. Learn from experts about writing, plotting, and marketing memoirs, in long form and flash structures. On March 21st–the first day of spring, join us for our March Member Teleseminar with Dawn Herring about journaling for inspiration–see below.
Have a great month, and keep on writing, learning, and being inspired!
March Member Teleseminar
Do you need a fresh approach toward discovering who you are and appreciating what you bring to this world? Are you looking for a fresh perspective in all of your life dimensions and want to express your creativity, thus increasing the quality of your life? Are you looking for a way to set appropriate boundaries in order to thrive and live life authentically? Read more here. Topic: Journaling for the Empowering Discovery of Who You Are
Expert: Dawn Herring
Date: March 21, 2014
Time: 11 AM PDT 12 PM MDT 1 PM CDT 2 PM EDT
Upcoming Workshops
Story Structure for Memoir Writers | A 4-week Memoir Intensive
Workshop Leader: Jerry Waxler
Date: April 1 – 22, 2014, 4 weeks (Tuesdays)
Time: 4 PST, 5 MST, 6 CST, 7 EST
To write a memoir, you need to translate unstructured memories into the structure called “Story.” In this four session teleclass, Jerry Waxler will break the form of a Story into simple elements. Then we’ll walk together step by step through the process of translating your life experience into a form that readers won’t want to put down.What you will learn
- Importance of a protagonist and how you will become one in your memoir
- The importance of the inner as well as the outer story
- How to set up the beginning of a story so the reader wants to know the end
- How to energize the middle so it drives the reader to the next page
- How to create a satisfying ending
- How to turn life lessons into a crucial element of a good story
Learn more here.
Write a Healing Memoir/Spiritual Autobiography WorkshopWorkshop Leader: Linda Joy Myers
Date: 9 Sessions (Thursdays) Starting April 3, 2014
Time: 3 PM PST/6 PM EST
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.” This is a process writing workshop, where digging into your memories, finding the threads of what you remember and writing into what you need to say or explore is what it’s all about. We welcome your first draft, first thoughts in this workshop.To get a memoir done, we must do this early writing first. We enter into the doorway of memory with our writing, and let it flow out.
The group is a witness and a support to your writing and the stories you have to tell. This is not a critique group, it’s a supportive group of fellow seekers and writers who ask useful questions to help you get to the core of your stories and share their own process and raw drafts.
Read more here.
Discover the Healing Power of Writing
Sometimes life can be really challenging. “Bad” things, big and small, can and do happen. But, it’s equally true that it’s what you make of life’s challenges that matters. The question then becomes not why but how – how do you get freedom from a loss, a trauma, wound, or just the existential challenges of life, to be able to arrive and move forward from it blessed by the experience?
One powerful answer: writing. In fact, there is remarkable new science that shows that intimate journaling, if done in the right way, can help us metabolize the past (or the present) in a way that frees our attention to focus on our service.
If you are in struggle with an experience and are seeking to create freedom and joy in your life, I have a very special invitation for you:
Mark Matousek is an award-winning author and a vulnerable, heartfelt, penetratingly wise soul who knows how to help you feel through the deeper levels of wounding you might have experienced, to begin to unveil the more luminous core – the healing gift it can bring for your own life. Mark is going to be sharing his process on a free virtual teleseminar, Thursday, March 20th at 5:30pm Pacific called: How to Use Writing to Heal: Embracing the Blessing in the Wound
Learn more and reserve your FREE access pass by clicking here (a recording will be provided to all registered participants)
During this virtual workshop with Mark, you’ll learn how to:
- Use writing to sense and feel different edges and dimensions of your wounds and how they live in your body
- Develop your witnessing capacity so you can work with the feelings more objectively
- Create a safe space in your writing to express “unallowable” thoughts and emotions – without dwelling in them
We all have wounds calling us to heal them. This call will be a joyful step on your healing journey.
Save your seat now by clicking here.
