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Put your thoughtful words in writing – GivingThanks

11/19/2009 By 2 Comments
Turkey

This little turkey is taking a good look at all the reasons I have for GivingThanks. I won't subject you to my thankfulness list, but I'm asking you to gather your thoughts about your loved ones and thank them for all they've given you throughout the years. Maybe you'll thank them openly around the bountiful Thanksgiving table; better yet, put your thanks in writing.  WRITING MEMOIRS THAT CAPTURE THE CHARACTER & SPIRIT OF LOVED ONES IS THE ULTIMATE WAY TO SAY THANK YOU.   Will you let your “loved ones” simply be forgotten? Will you make sure that doesn’t happen? “If you don’t write it down, it will be gone. Wouldn’t that be a shame?” Writing memoirs about significant people in your life will be one of the most exhilarating encounters you’ll ever experience. And what writing a memoir will be for you is absolutely unique. There is no one else who has your particular memories, your familiarity or understanding of the people, places, incidents, and events

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Happy People Will Make You Healthier

11/10/2009 By 2 Comments
Happy Family

We may not need a "study" to tell us we will be healthier and happier if we surround ourselves with family and friends who are happy, but the following article is a good reminder. Remember when we were kids and we sang, "If you're happy and you know, then your face will surely show it?" Smile and read on... Good health can be both the cause and consequence of being happy. That's why two pioneering scientists wanted to see if they could actually measure how happiness works in groups. What they discovered took everyone by happy surprise -- the happiness of others, even those you don't know, has a direct influence on your happiness. The coauthor of this novel study on happiness, James Fowler, PhD, told me how the research was done. First his team combed through the records of 5,000 participants in the Framingham Heart Study, many of whom had identified one another as spouses, friends or neighbors. His team established a happiness baseline for these participants by checking

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All Saints Day – Halloween Vamps & Witches – Mother Memoir, anyone?

10/31/2009 By Leave a Comment
The Story Witch

The Story Woman stirs the cauldron. A friend called asking me if I were giving my “Tap Memoir & Write Memoir” workshop at Book Passage on November 1st because it was All Saints Day. Well, no. That timing had never occurred to me, but it’s an interesting tie, and it provoked a good chuckle between us. Many people are dwelling on Halloween this weekend: witches on broomsticks silhouetted by the moon – black cat, as faithful companion, along for the ride; monsters and superheroes; and ghouls, werewolves, and vampires. I know Macbeth doesn’t have anything to do with Halloween, but ever since I was one of the three Witches, just a ‘few’ years ago in our high school rendition of this Shakespearean tragedy, I find myself each Halloween reciting, “Double, double, toil and trouble, Fire burn, and caldron bubble. Fillet of a fenny snake, In the caldron boil and bake; Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder’s fork, and

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Tap Memory, Write Memoir – Book Passage Workshop

10/22/2009 By 2 Comments
2009 Fall Writing Workshops

  Sign up for the class at Book Passage

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National Reading Group Month at Book Passage

10/12/2009 By Leave a Comment

Book Passage to host three outstanding Women’s National Book Association authors C.W. Gortner, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, and Tanya Egan Gibson for our 3rd annual National Reading Group Month Event Thursday, October 15th, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. The San Francisco chapter of Women’s National Book Association is proud to announce a special event at Book Passage’s Corte Madera location, celebrating National Reading Group Month this October. Please join us for this exceptional reading group of three authors, all local members of Women’s National Book Association: C.W. Gortner (The Last Queen), Kathi Kamen Goldmark (And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You), and Tanya Egan Gibson (How to Buy a Love of Reading). C.W. Gortner will bring insight into his intriguing and highly adventurous historical novel, The Last Queen, and what’s next from him. Kathi will read about one fabulous character (her health-food-obsessed mom, Betty) from both a fictional and a nonfiction perspective.

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Beside Suicide’s Door

10/08/2009 By 6 Comments

Today I’m posting a guest blog by Laura McHale Holland because she has so much to share with us. Suicide is something hard for most of us to talk about. We don't want to even go there - especially when it involves the mother of young children. I appreciate Laura's honesty, and I am sorry for her pain, although I cannot know what she feels. Her poignant mother memoir speaks for itself.   I was a two year old waddling behind my sisters when we came home from a neighbor’s Halloween party and found our mother hanging from a basement beam. Several decades later, I wrote a memoir, Reversible Skirt, about my formative years. Except for the epilogue, the book is written from a child’s point of view. My objectives were to give voice to a little girl whose very identity was stolen by events following my mother’s demise and to enable readers to experience what it was like to grow up in the shadow of such a tragedy.  Except for my sisters, I don’t know women whose mothers

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COMMON SENSE Win Cash and Tap Memory Book

09/29/2009 By 4 Comments

Update: Some people are emailing their comments, so that works, too, if you'd rather: lynn(at)telltalesouls(dot)com. Tell me how Using COMMON SENSE Makes Perfect Sense THE STORY WOMAN'S TWO-PART COMMON SENSE CONTEST  Social, Intellectual, Religious, Political– you name it! Winner of Part 1 receives my “how-to” book, Give the Gift of Story: TellTale Souls’ Essential Guide to Tap Memory & Write Memoir in Five Acts, since learning to capture the character of a loved one in story makes Perfect Sense. Winner of Part 2 receives $25 USD from The Story Woman™, since my Common Sense tells me people like cash; it’s as simple as that. Threads of Common Sense run throughout the Mother Memoirs of TellTale Souls, but collecting pieces, examples, or bits of Common Sense is not the purpose of the bio-vignettes that daughters and sons write about their mothers.   However, the purpose of this contest is to do just that. This is a very simple contest with very simple rules

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Obsession, Passion, & Transformation Make for Accordion Dreams

09/26/2009 By Leave a Comment
Accordion Dreams

I was lured into Blair Kilpatrick’s memoir, Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music, the moment I saw the charming cover depicting a happy little girl holding her accordion, although I was surprisingly unprepared for the extent of the adventure she’d lead me on in this extraordinary musical memoir. Before I even opened the book, a small voice in the recesses of my mind encouraged me to find my BeauSoleil album, Bayou Cadillac, which I hadn’t listened to for ages. Find it I did, and as the first beats of Bon Temps Rouler resounded,  I settled back in a comfortable chair and darn near didn’t get up until I’d read this entire, enchanting book. To my delight, within the first dozen pages, Kilpatrick talked about how she had excitedly ripped the plastic from her newly purchased BeauSoleil cassette, which shows off the battered red Cadillac convertible, upended in a swamp. Now the hook in me worked itself deeper and deeper. Her compelling, obsessive journey

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Captivating Throne of Passion, Juana la Loca of Spain

09/18/2009 By 4 Comments
The Last Queen

I'm posting this book review on an historical novel by C.W. Gortner because I think The Last Queen is a great read and highlights the difficulties women have had throughout history attempting to be taken seriously whether they are royalty or not.  Gortner will be honored this October 15th at an event for National Reading Group Month by Women's National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter. See links below for more information. Juana’s courage, strength, and passion amazed me as The Last Queen came of age so vividly under C.W. Gortner’s admirable pen. This historical novel is fraught with crushing battles of power and chilling intrigue throughout the courts of her parents, Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, and of her husband, Philip of Flanders, as the Infanta of Spain attempts to take her rightful place on the thrown she inherited from her mother. My soul was struck as I witnessed, through Gortner’s well paced story, the agony Juana endured as her

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Love Made of Heart Strikes a Universal Chord

09/13/2009 By 2 Comments
Love Made of Heart

Teresa LeYung Ryan's, Love Made of Heart, is a stirring look at the intricacies of familial relationships, including mental illness and abuse, that for Ruby Lin, the narrator, have taken the bright, clear color from her world as she struggles to grow up as an American girl drowning in a sea of distinctly Asian values. Although the intricacies of the mother-daughter bond are the overall theme of this heartfelt story, there is a convoluted push and pull in Ruby's psyche as she clashes with her father, her Chinese husband, and in-laws, while leaning heavily on the powerful goodness and understanding she discovers in her sister and an adopted Jewish grandmother who has become her beacon in this violent coming of age saga. LeYung Ryan has Ruby slowly awaken through self-reflection to a universal truth as she works over time with her psychologist. Dr. Thatcher encourages her to unravel the conflicts and mysteries within by speaking with a clarity that resonated with Ruby (as it does

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