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I just received notice that TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory and Write Your Story Capturing Character & Spirit won honorable mention for the San Francisco Book Festival competition for the best books of the spring in the how-to category!

 What more can I say? I’m absolutely thrilled about this honor!

 Well, The Story Woman has this to say, “When you write your very own short, true story about your mother or someone who made you feel like a daughter or a son—you’ll be thrilled, too!”

 “Dear_______,

My mother’s death last fall prompted a plethora of remembrances. Through the tears of sorrow, bright rays of sunlight streaked as my sister and I talked of things recalled—great memories we enjoyed and hope to keep alive within our family.

Invariably, when I spoke to friends or relatives at that time, their memories too were jogged. And they’d tell little stories. Sometimes about my mother, but more often than not, their stories were about their mothers.

I found each story interesting. They ran the gamut from hilarious, passionate, bitter-sweet or sad, to amazing. Some were educational, others full of wisdom. These were stories to remember, but I soon forgot most of them.

So I’m hoping to coax these stories out of you now. Tell me a story. A tidbit. A trifle. What unique anecdote do you want remembered about your mother (aunt, godmother, grandmother, sister)?

A vignette—a lesson, superstition, some wisdom, recipes for life (or the stomach), witchcraft, poetry, letters, instructions, ancient feminine echoes, a family ritual, herbs for what ails, maybe something you take for granted that would delight me. It doesn’t need to be profound or lengthy, just an original tale of a page or two. Thank you, and have fun remembering…”

 I asked people to answer one pertinent question in just a couple of written pages. It was a provocative question that immediately registered thoughtfulness on every face or a contemplative pause in conversation in those instances where we were face-to-face. The question went something like this, “If you could tell just one small story that would capture your mother’s character and keep her spirit alive what would it be?”Soon I got answers in the form of short, true stories that I called bio-vignettes. I planned to put a good number of them together in a book that I would call, TellTale Souls: Keeping Spirits Alive One Story at Time.  

And I did write my first book back then, after teaching memoir writing classes where the participants persisted in asking me to put my method down in writing. I needed something to do while I was collecting stories, after all, and I thought the process of writing memoir needed to be demystified, and, what’s more it should always start with mom.

It was a small guidebook, Give the Gift of Story: TellTale Souls Essential Guide to Tap Memory and Write Memoir (now out of print). It was a good little book, but not nearly as good as TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory and Write Your Story Capturing Character & Spirit, published 3-31-12. Why is this one better?  Two reasons. First of all, I now had a decade of experience behind me. Secondly, in this new book I’ve brought together 40 bio-vignettes from my collection of stories that now encompasses a wide variety of people with very different ways of mothering. The bio-vignettes are woven throughout the book as inspired examples to lend credence to my creative writing method of unique instruction, mindful prompts, and deep-thinking exercises.  The wonderful result is that now these TellTale Souls have their stories published in volume 1, and I couldn’t be more thrilled for them.  A choir of voices emerged from those interesting souls intent on “Keeping Spirits Alive.”

 The Story Woman continues asking daughters and sons to write compelling  stories about their  mothers.  You’re welcome to send yours to me. I’d love to read about how you see and depict the essence of your mother.

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 Who is she—your mother—deep down inside?

 How will she be remembered?    Why does it matter?

Join author Lynn Cook Henriksen on a compelling journey, as she shows you how to discover your mother’s individuality and write to tell about it.

 TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory and Write Your Story Capturing Character & Spirit has the power to move people and change awareness.

The book takes readers on a journey through emotional terrain to access the deepest spiritual truths of intimate relationships. By way of specific triggers, unexpected impressions will emerge and evolve as Henriksen shows daughters and sons how to discover their mother’s individuality and write to tell about it.

 “If you could tell just one small story that would capture your mother’s character and keep her spirit alive, what would it be?”

     You will find secrets to answering this question via intriguing prompts and exercises throughout the guide’s Five Acts—steps to success—interwoven with 40 inspired memoirs by TellTale Souls who have walked this path.

 From a new perspective, Henriksen guides you to that tender spot deep inside to locate striking memories, and then to move the hint of fragrance, the turn of a phrase, the hum of a tune, the flash of an eye, the back of a hand, or a fragment of family ritual into a remarkable short, true story about your mother. People new to writing will find the writing process demystified, and professional authors will encounter abundant food for thought and techniques to get their creative juices flowing.

Reviews: TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir

“Rarely does a book carve out a unique place for itself within the hallowed halls of writerly advice and wisdom, yet Ms. Henriksen has fearlessly stepped into uncharted, original waters with this book that brings to mind Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle… It is destined to be one of the classics required to complete the journey for writing the truth and writing it well.”

—River Jordan, author of Praying for Strangers: An Adventure of the Human Spirit

  “Every writer should read this book, as its combination of the spiritual and the practical transcends other memoir writing guides. The gifted Lynn, a lyrical, perceptive writer and teacher, brings incisive advice and technique together with true stories for a carefully devised, matchless performance, in which the reader will play a major part. I wish I had read TellTale Souls years ago; it would have saved me a lot of trouble. It is a tour de force and bound to become a classic.”

—Ann Seymour, author of I’ve Always Loved You: A True Story of WW2 in the Pacific Battlefields, in California, and in the Imperial Palace, Tokyo

 About the Author:  Lynn Cook Henriksen discovered a profound way to keep our mothers’ spirits alive after witnessing Alzheimer’s disease ravage her mother’s mind. She has helped hundreds of daughters and sons capture in brief memoirs the memories and feelings they never thought they could record.

              An intuitive leader and writing coach of story salons and workshops, Lynn knows tapping memory and learning to write with honesty about intimate, sometimes trying, relationships is the most valuable form of writing. To demystify writing memoir and make the journey more available, she wrote the guidebook: TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory and Write Your Story Capturing Character & Spirit.      

The tears, laughter, unique voices, and thank-yous from the spirited writers she has come to know will forever reside in Lynn’s heart and soul. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Meg Waite Clayton introduces readers to the unforgettable characters, Betts, Mia, Laney, and Ginger, whose convincing actions answer these questions during a fateful weekend on Chesapeake Bay. They’ve unwittingly returned to the scene of a few crimes, in their attempt to support Betts, whose Supreme Court nomination has threatened to expose more than they ever wanted to reveal, as the press pokes about in the dark places of their collective pasts.

As the book progresses, the Ms. Bradwells’ memories are rekindled during this long weekend retreat on Chesapeake Bay in the home of Ginger’s recently deceased mother. While skinny dipping and playing the game of RISK, the four women, in turn, by guarded turn, begin to tell each other how their choices to hold fast to secrets from their younger days, starkly affected their lives. As they became aware of their needs to be good role models for their college-age daughters, they recognized that giving up secrets and turning to honesty is the only way women can squelch the double-standard, cultural perception that being bold, smart, and assertive marks men as studs, but women as sluts.

Boldly laying shame aside for self-respect, the Ms. Bradwells mount courage to ride truth into the naked light of day.

Bio: Meg Waite Clayton is the nationally bestselling author of The Four Ms. Bradwells, The Wednesday Sisters, the Bellwether Prize finalist for The Language of Light, all published by Random House’s Ballantine Books, and all of them are major national book club picks. Her novels have been published in six languages, and her shorter work has aired on public radio and appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The San Jose Mercury News, Writers Digest, Runners World and other print and online magazines and news sources. A graduate of the University Michigan Law School, she lives with her family in Palo Alto and is at work on a fourth novel, The Wednesday Daughters, to be published in 2013. 

Creative writing lesson for all TellTale Souls: When you want to learn how one bestselling author uses characterization to its full extent, read Meg Waite Clayton’s novels.

Authors and Writers

 “Speed-Dating” by the Bay at our 9^th Annual Signature Event

Back by popular demand:  Keynote Luncheon (see below)

MEET-THE-AGENTS & ACQUISITION EDITORS

Lynn Henriksen, Event Chair, lynn(at)telltalesouls.com 

Saturday, March 24^th, 2012 • 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Sinbad’s Restaurant, Pier 2, San Francisco

$50 WNBA member, $65 non-member, or $75 at the door

(Bonus:  Coffee and “How to Pitch Training” included from 8:00 to 9:00 am)

Space is limited (we sold out last year) – REGISTER SOON

Register via PayPal at www.wnba-sfchapter.org or mail your check made out to WNBA-SF to P.O. Box 244, Half Moon Bay, CA  94019

Meg Waite Clayton is the nationally bestselling author of The Four Ms. Bradwells, The Wednesday Sisters, and the Bellwether Prize finalist The Language of Light, all published by Random House’s Ballantine Books, and all major national book club picks. Her novels have been published in six languages, and her shorter work has aired on public radio and appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The San Jose Mercury News, Writers Digest, Runners World and other print and online magazines and news sources. A graduate of the University Michigan Law School, she lives with her family in Palo Alto, and is at work on a fourth novel, The Wednesday Daughters, to be published in 2013. www.megwaiteclayton.com

This year’s list of Agents and Acquisition Editors are posted on our website.

Event sponsor:  Women’s National Book Association – San Francisco

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.

501(c) (3). 4061 East Castro Valley Blvd., #193, Castro Valley, CA 94552

We’re deep into winter here in northern California, although not a Russian winter by any means. Winter evenings, when afternoon light fades earlier each day into cold, inky sky, I relish the extra time I guiltlessly take to read good books. Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay was one terrific novel I recently finished. It’s not a short read, but its complexity interwoven with love, loss, betrayal, dark secrets, intrigue, life-altering revelations, and redemption make for a true page turner.

Daphne Kalotay crafts a magnificent novel rooted in well-researched historical facts with characters who compel attention. The personality of the ballet, life in Stalinist Russia and in Boston, and the exquisite depth of amber are superimposed on an interesting array of characters adroitly depicted by Kalotay in Russian Winter. Love affairs, lies, and political beliefs essentially trap humans in their tracks every bit as much as a spider finds herself forever suspended in time, emerging egg sack and all. That is until the urgency of fear on one hand and the promise of fulfillment on the other allow the determined to escape oppression and the resilient to open to trust and new beginnings. The intricacies of personality, politics, and personal choice, along with an attraction to fine jewelry and dance are absorbing—you won’t want to put this book down even after you’ve read the last word. And you’re sure to learn a great deal about the effects of political oppression along the way. Beware of what you hope for; it could come back as the end of freedom as you know it.

Memory plays a big part in this novel. In fact, you could say the plot revolves around memories secreted away. The Story Woman and all TellTale Souls understand the power of deeply seated memory. Have some fun with Russian Winter. For some of you, it may tempt the telling of tales you’d thought were secure!

Let this book spur you into action. Teresa LeYung Ryan opens the door and guides you directly into the world all writers and authors must negotiate if they want their work to be known. But she doesn’t stop there; rather than tell you what to do, she lets you do it for yourself. In a clear, affirming voice, LeYung Ryan takes you securely by the hand and shows you exactly how to Build Your Writer’s Platform & Fanbase in 22 Days. The focused series of exercises that make up this workbook build on each other and really work. With her finger on the pulse of the community and media interaction, she’ll have you drilling down to the basics while reaching for the stars, the blogosphere, and beyond. You want success?  Coach Teresa’s got it all figured out, let her show you the way.

Book also review on Amazon (click title) by Lynn Henriksen, The Story Woman, for TellTale Souls everywhere.

Whether or not one believes the choices this family made in Zoe Carter’s memoir, Imperfect Endings, are right or wrong, Carter is an undeniably powerful writer, who has an easy way with words on a complex, but timely issue. She has taken the difficult, to say the least, subject of life and death and crafted it into an unforgettable personal story laced with wit, wisdom, humor, compassion, insight, and abundant food for thought. To be honest, when I first picked it up I wondered if I wanted to “go there.” I’m glad I did—I found it incredibly moving.

I know it took more than a little courage for Zoe Carter to write this provocative slice of life. Imperfect Endings meant paring familial façade to the bone and sucking out the marrow, which she did unabashedly.

How does a daughter say, “Yes, Mom, I’ll watch you die slowly by your own hand.”  I’ll be a party to your staged sit-in with death.

Hauntingly beautiful are the two words that washed over my soul when I finished reading Zoe Carter’s Imperfect Endings. A true page turner, brought together through a dynamic flow of the highs of love and tenderness, and the lows of anger and sadness, revealing what it takes to be, at once, a mother and a daughter.

I could see both sides as the drama unfolded: the mother’s perspective, as she desired to make her exit —actually to direct it, while maintaining a modicum of dignity; and the three daughters’ reluctance to come to terms with their mother’s wishes and say goodbye to Momma. Throughout much of the memoir, a cloak of angry sadness hung from Zoe’s shoulders—she was deemed the caretaker, ever flying from coast to coast, always at her mother’s beck and call, while growing numb by degrees to her mother’s flirtatious and ever changing dates with death. Zoe was the “good” daughter—but also a woman conflicted by daughterly duties over shadowing those of being a wife to a man trying not to lose his patience, and mother to young daughters of her own, needing her attention.

Fluctuating between flashbacks of childhood memories and present day dilemmas, Zoe creates authentic scenes that strip away allusion to expose the raw reality of the family’s intimate workings. The three daughters’ angst for their parent’s past transgressions and weaknesses was palpable, and their reckoning of their mother’s pretenses and denial, although heartbreakingly understood, at least by two of the sisters, stayed unresolved.

But, in the final days, as their mother, Margaret, slipped away, the atmosphere rang clear with tenderness and acceptance as Zoe’s arms, gently enfolded a feather of a woman as the parade passed by, and songs from her lips sent Momma’s soul soaring.

THE STORY WOMAN REMINDS YOU TO WRITE A TRUE AND TELLING TALE ABOUT YOUR MOTHER.

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 who 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?

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.  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 want to tell 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.

There’s a gift within this gift of story for you, too, as you will find the experience of writing “Mother Memoir” stimulating, poignant, cathartic, giving, and uniting.

 The Story Woman^TM asks daughters and sons to write “Mother Memoir” to make it real.