Archive for October, 2009
All Saints Day – Halloween Vamps & Witches – Mother Memoir, anyone?
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 blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing –
For a charm of pow’rful trouble
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”
Back to All Saints Day: My passion in encouraging and teaching folks to Give the Gift of Story by “Keeping Spirits Alive One Story at a Time” is all about writing a short, true tale that captures the character and spirit of their mothers’ or another person significant in their lives, as no photograph could ever do.
It is not about memorializing our mothers or others as “saints,” by any stretch of the imagination. The main characters in our bio-vignettes often come with warts and wrinkles rather than haloes and wings. I’ve listened to and read many a story where, from the daughters’ memories, one would think their mothers vamped the blood right out of them. However, 90% of the bio-vignettes in my TellTale Souls collection are heartfelt slices of life. Anyway you look at it, through the dark, the light, and the gray shades, memoirs connect us with the truth about what it means to be human.
Here is a portion of the Wikipedia article on All Saints Day: The feast of All Saints achieved great prominence in the ninth century, in the reign of the Byzantine Emperor, Leo VI “the Wise” (886–911). His wife, Empress Theophano—commemorated on December 16—lived a devout life. After her death, her husband built a church, intending to dedicate it to her. When he was forbidden to do so, he decided to dedicate it to “All Saints,” so that if his wife were in fact one of the righteous, she would also be honored whenever the feast was celebrated.
Now is the time to remember and recognize, with a Gift of Story, a significant person in your life: Tap Memory & Write Memoir.
All Saints Day workshop at Book Passage with The Story Witch.
You may also purchase Give the Gift of Story: TellTale Souls’ Essential Guide to Tap Memory & Write Memoir at Book Passage, Corte Madera.
National Reading Group Month at Book Passage
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
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. Kathi warns, “Bring your own wheat grass juice.” Tanya will read and talk about writing her critically acclaimed debut novel, How to Buy a Love of Reading, where you’re sure to fall in love with reading all over again. We aren’t suggesting the love of reading is something to be bought, but we know you’ll be inspired to buy these authors’ praise-worthy books.
The Women’s National Book Association launched National Reading Group Month in October of 2007 to celebrate the organization’s ninetieth birthday. This year, WNBA will continue its tradition of promoting women and the book and literacy in general by hosting events in their chapter cities: Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.
WNBA-SF is a non-profit organization that fosters professional development and exposure of our members through a variety of book-related programs, workshops, and hands-on opportunities to make valuable contacts and connections that are beneficial at any stage of one’s career. WNBA-SF is part of a National network promoting the value of books and reading since 1917 throughout ten chapters stretching from coast to coast. Annual Membership is $45.
Many thanks to our partner for this event, Whole Foods Market, for providing specialty foods.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Kathi Kamen Goldmark is the author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, a novel; co-author of The Great Rock & Roll Joke Book, and Mid-Life Confidential: the Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude; and has contributed essays to several anthologies—including Feed Me! (edited by Harriet Brown). With her husband, Sam Barry, she writes a monthly aspiring-writer-advice column in BookPage called “The Author Enablers.” A 2007 San Francisco Library Laureate and winner of the 2008 National Women’s Book Association award, Kathi is the founder and a member of the all-author rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders, president and janitor of “Don’t Quit Your Day Job” Records, Author Liaison for many high-profile literary events—including Book Group Expo and the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library annual Laureates Dinner—and the producer of the nationally-distributed radio show West Coast Live.
Tanya Egan Gibson was born and raised on Long Island’s south shore, the“Egg”-less side of the island Fitzgerald didn’t write about. She earned a B.A. in English from Cornell University and an M.A. from the University of Washington. She began writing How to Buy a Love of Reading ten years ago, while teaching high school English. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children.
C. W. Gortner is the author of The Last Queen (Ballantine Books). This book takes a look at the life of Juana of Castile, the last queen of Spanish blood to inherit her country’s throne, and it is highly praised by Publisher’s Weekly. Half-Spanish by birth, Gortner holds an M.F.A. in writing, with an emphasis on historical studies, from the New College of California and has taught university courses on women of power in the Renaissance. He was raised in Málaga, Spain, and now lives in California. He is currently at work on his next book, which is about Catherine de Medici and will be released by Ballantine Books in 2010.
Women’s National Book Association – San Francisco
The Story Woman asks you to write a bio-vignette capturing the character and spirit of a significant person in your life and become a TellTale Soul.
Beside Suicide’s Door
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 committed suicide, leaving a gaggle of preschoolers behind to grow up with a void where a mother’s love should have been. But I’m sure I’ve met a number of them over the course of my life. I may even be acquainted with such a woman right now.
And therein lies the rub.
We who share this terrible sisterhood tend to keep it hidden. The subject of suicide brings up strong feelings not just for the person who broaches the subject, but also for those listening. To merely tell the truth about my mother means I have to consider not just my own emotions, but also the discomfort it stirs up in those I tell. As a child, this was not something I could handle. Being secretive became habitual.
Which brings me to my silent mother, Mary Agnes, whom I knew throughout my childhood as a black and white photograph on top of my grandfather’s bedroom dresser. With her suicide, she slammed an impenetrable door in my face. On this side are questions without answers reverberating endlessly, leaving slivers in my soul, festering too far beneath the surface to reach. Suicide. What a cowardly act, I think, but then I reproach myself for my lack of compassion. I know not the extent of my mother’s misery; I cannot judge; she left no note, no clues.
Some wise people say we should be grateful for all the experiences life has brought us—good and bad. I am grateful that my mother gave me life and that she didn’t decide to take my sisters and me with her into death. But the fact of her leaving with such force and permanence, no, that’s still not cool with me.
And I fear that when my book is published, I’ll be doing a meet and greet in a bookstore someday, or visiting a book group, and I’ll feel off key as a read a passage or two and answer questions. Why dredge all this up when life in the present is so good? I’ll wonder. I hope that when those feelings hit me I’ll remember how writing that book set the lost girl inside of me free, and it is her mission to speak to the hearts of those kind enough to listen to the story of one long-ago abandoned child.
Maybe her story will help some future parent discard the thought of suicide should it come to mind during a particularly trying time. And who knows? Maybe on the other side of that door, my mother will be listening too, for, you see, I know the door will never open, but I will forever be longing to connect.
Thank you, Lynn, for asking me to join the conversation at The Story Woman blog.
Laura McHale Holland is a writer, editor and occasional storyteller living and working amid the beauty of Sonoma County, Calif. Her memoir, Reversible Skirt, is under contract with RockWay Press. For more information, please visit http://lauramchaleholland.com.
The Story Woman encourages all daughters and sons to write a “Mother Memoir” to become TellTale Souls.
