Archive for June, 2009

Porch-talk, Storytelling, & Memoir Writing

A couple of days ago, I went to a memorial service at St. Stephen’s Episcopal in Belvedere for a beautiful, remarkable soul, Elizabeth “Betty” McKegney. She was 99 years old. She would have been 100 on September 9^th. I heard it uttered that it was too bad she hadn’t reach the milestone of 100 years of age.  Well, to me, it just seemed right for her to take the poetic route: born 9-09-09, she took her leave at 99. Nice.

 The church was packed because Betty was significant in so many people’s lives as well as the one of the last of the “old guard.” I’m sure many of you know what I mean. This woman represented an era now past, the nostalgia of which is instilled in my heart. She lived in a house they say was graced by 150 cats, at one time or another, that was the first left turn just past our house and about 150 yards down one of the last gravel roads in town. This gravel road was fitting, too, as the last vestige of the past in an otherwise so current town.

Now Betty wasn’t a timid, sweet little old lady (she was an early 20^th Century woman with a degree in physics, after all). The range of her temperament and strength was legendary, and that’s specifically why she will be so utterly missed. Those who said a few words in the front of the church had interesting things to say that made her come alive through their stories about her. I loved what her son, Lowell, had to say about remembering his mom sitting out on the porch with her grandmother talking about everything under the sun, reminiscing, and learning about life through the telling of stories – he called it porch-talk.

Then a girl rose to the pulpit and began to speak about knowing Betty and Betty knowing her. And the girl spoke of the camera always around Betty’s neck, capturing the history of families and our small town one click at a time (she called her one of the first paparazzi), and how Betty treated the books in ‘her’ library as entities that could transport you to a world unknown – but you’d better treat the books right and return them on time – and  how Betty always made you feel in each moment you were with her like you were the one, the only one, whom Betty wanted to know, to talk to, to ask questions of and listen to, even if you were only 7 years old, or 11 or 50. And then the girl became a woman who writes bestsellers and keeps on loving Betty, and she was there that day in St. Stephen’s as the porch-talk storyteller who made the sun shine and the fog dance for Betty once again in our hearts and minds.

This girl who talked on through womanhood was Anne Lamott. Her talking-tribute to Betty that day is the perfect example of the bio-vignettes I encourage folks to write for TellTale Souls, and Anne’s mirroring of Betty made me believe Anne was talking just to me – the same feeling I get when I read her books. She didn’t say it outright, but you caught the drift of Anne giving Betty credit for believing in her and instilling in her the very strength of character and resilience that Anne has called forth throughout her life as a survivor and a giver. (Read Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.)

Anne Lamott sat next to Lowell and the rest of Betty’s family in the first pew in the church, my husband, who gave a reading for Betty, and I were seating just behind them. And the whole time I thought there is something about Anne that reminds me of my mother as I remember Mom when I was young (yes, a long time ago, and Anne is much younger than I, and my mom didn’t have dreads), and it brought a lump in my throat and made my eyes sting. But it’s strange to contemplate how many realities seem to coexist in very different planes, and spaces, and times, and how the turn of a word or the soft curve of a cheek, of a lip can remind you of someone altogether different. Or are they really?

The Story Woman asks you to write “Mother Memoir” and join the ranks of all TellTale Souls.

First Mine for gold, then Write Memoir

Hello, all you writers and authors and artists from across the board.  I recently read a great little book by Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir, so I wanted to share my thoughts with you about this book and add it to my new Book Review blog category.

By the way, my reviews aren’t confined to the memoir genre. From the inception of my blog, which wasn’t that long ago, one of my main purposes was to give voice to a wide range of nonfiction and fiction writers as well as artists in general who have caught my eye and my spirit. If you’d like me to post a blog about you and your work, please contact me and we’ll go from there.

I believe the inspiration we get from each connection we make with art, whether through books, paintings, sculptures, theatre, dance, or music breathes life into our beings as we discover new ways to view our world.

Abigail Thomas’ book, Thinking About Memoir, is oriented towards crafting the story of one’s own life, whereas my guide book, Give the Gift of Story: TellTale Souls’ Essential Guide to Tap Memory & Write Memoir in Five Acts (yes, that’s a mouth full!) is all about looking at someone other than oneself – it’s about honoring a loved one with a bio-vignette that captures that loved one’s character. Both of our books, however, are meaningful guides to writing in general; they speak to a wider audience than memoirists to be sure.

Book Review: Great things come in small packages, so Abigail Thomas gets kudos for a job well done. She is honest, funny, and tells on herself, which, I believe, is the best way to teach.

Thomas’ rambling style of instruction isn’t so much about technique as it is about giving us stimulating exercises that sometimes seem to come out of nowhere, but result in remarkable insight on how to write memoir well.
The guide, at just 108 pages, is so packed with activities that a writing instructor could use it for a semester-long course and still not exhausted all of Thomas’ unique ideas. Let’s suffice it to say she’s a delightful task master. From the beginning when she asks us to write three word sentences so we have nowhere to hide and our writing won’t take up extra space to asking us to write two pages of what we don’t remember sheds a lot of light on her brand of Thinking about Memoir.

If we aren’t afraid to dig deep, zero in on details, write an honest account, make a habit out of writing, and learn to invent our own structure, this book is a gold mine.

Link to Abigail Thomas.

The Story Woman asks you to write a bio-vignette about a loved one to honor someone other than yourself.

Yup, here is a terrific new novel by Tanya Egan Gibson – How to Buy a Love of Reading, and the book is every bit as engaging as the title. She a new writer of fiction living here in Northern California. I attended her very first reading the other night at Book Passage in Corte Madera, cheered her on, bought an autographed copy, and read and read and read some more. This book is a huge chunk of change – I think it was ten years in the making - full of emotion and passion, reality shows, and protagonists in search of love and self with a surprisingly fresh twist.

I would characterize Tanya Egan Gibson’s delicious debut novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, as love stories between three couples even though ‘love story’ isn’t the premise of her book. Or is it?  But these love stories come with a twist, wherein the power of choice prevails as the characters literally rewrite their stories, their lives, and their fate. Actually there are three tales of love within two parallel stories.

In this is complex novel Gibson’s characters are very much alive, but, after all is said and done, it is not the people, but rather the story or stories themselves that become the power brokers in Gibson’s artistic hands.

Gibson is a word wizard with an uncanny knack for building character to the extent that the couples, Carley and Hunter and Bree and Justin (Rock Star), walk right out of the pages and pull us into their lives where the bonds of convoluted love link them as though they have no choice.

Within How to Buy a Love of Reading there is a story being written by the unsuccessful author, Bree McEnroy, for the main protagonist, Carley Wells, after Bree, is ‘bought’ by Carley’s mega-wealthy parents to write a book just for her in the hope that she’ll never again say that she has never met a book she liked. This inner story, conceived by Bree as a 21^st Century reality television show based in a Medieval world, portrays a third couple, Buck and Jules, as they struggle with the challenges of love, reality vs. fantasy, and choice, essentially mirroring the main story of the present-day connection between Carley with Hunter and Bree with Justin, and, for that matter, the stories of love and lovers throughout time.

Gibson demands one’s attention through her energy, wit, and irony and then asks the reader to read between the lines to get the point – all the while navigating a rapid river.  Great read, great work out!

The Story Woman ask sons and daughters to write Mother Memoir to keep spirits alive one story at a time.

Links to Tanya Egan Gibson and Book Passage

4 Reasons to Give the Gift of Story

Yes, she’s your mother, maybe your grandmother, or another woman to whom you felt like a daughter or a son. Have you ever actually stopped to think about whom she really is as an individual, as a woman unto herself? What aspect of her being, what quality, action, or anecdote could you draw upon to bring the essence of her character to light in a short memoir, a bio-vignette, which would give someone reading your story a pretty good idea of what she is like as seen through your eyes?

At times she is mysterious, other times transparent. But of this you can be sure, she’s not the same woman to anyone other than you. For our purposes here, we’re not going to get philosophical, and we’ll leave the psychoanalysis to the docs. Her character is multifaceted, her inner make up complex, but for you there are certain aspects of her spirit that stand out, those qualities through which her character comes to life.

What do you most remember about her and want others to know about her? What significant parts of her character seem to be hers and hers alone?  Seize that little gem you’ve conjured up in your mind’s eye. Take hold of it, round it out, and polish it as you develop it into a true story that captures her character.    

To capture the essence of the character of your mother can be daunting, but another way to think of it is that this is your opportunity to let her know you find it valuable to take the time to look at her as an individual – there’s no better gift or no better way for you to honor her than to write a true tale about her.

Give the Gift of Story to preserve the spirit of a woman you want remembered for generations to come. How will your great grandchildren get a glimpse of the treasures you know and feel about her if you don’t safeguard them with a bio-vignette that only you can write?

• Keep our mothers’ spirits alive. There is nothing like paying tribute to a loved one with a simple written record. A photograph captures a look at best, whereas a bio-vignette captures character and spirit. 

• Discover the secrets of women from different walks of life. Possibilities for embracing life unfold before us when we read true stories about mothers different from our own. Shared wisdom compels compassion, understanding, and unity. 

• Create catharsis. The outcome of writing a short, true story about one’s mother often results in emotional or psychological healing, when the relationship between the mother and daughter/son was at times difficult or rocky. 

• Become richer from the experience of actually writing a bio-vignette. Those of us who have embarked on this journey reach the other side more thoughtful, more knowing, and more satisfied.

Mother memoirs are:

Stimulating                                    

Enthralling

Poignant

Cathartic

Uniting 

Photograph of Jarvis Jones to compliment the memoir her daughter, Nique, wrote.

The Story Woman^TM asks daughters and sons to write mother memoir to keep spirits alive.