The Heart and Craft of Memoir Writing
with Linda Joy Myers
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Mill Valley Public Library
FREE
When you write a memoir, you must bring everything you have to it—your past, your present and the shadow. You put your heart on the page, create a world for the reader, and offer a universal message. In this presentation, we’ll investigate the skills that memoir writers need to create a world that the reader can enter, including theme, powerful scenes, dialogue, and characterization. To write a heartful memoir, you need to dig deep and at the same time, take care of yourself. Some memories are painful. And in the end, what does the reader learn from you that they can apply to their own lives?
Linda Joy Myers, founder of the National Association of Memoir Writers, is the author of award-winning memoirs Don’t Call Me Mother and Song of the Plains, and two books on craft The Power of Memoir, & Journey of Memoir. She co-authored Breaking Ground on Your Memoir and Magic of Memoir & co-teaches Write Your Memoir in Six Months with Brooke Warner. Linda is teaching a new course, The Craft of Writing a Successful Memoir, an ongoing class with Carla King. A memoir coach for 30 years, she helps memoir writers find their voice and get their story into the world. Linda has just ventured into novel writing land, and her first novel, The Forger of Marseille, a WWII historical fiction novel won four awards in historical fiction and is published by She Writes Press. http://namw.org
