Defining Moments

July 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Defining MomentsPersonal narratives performed by a theater group can be a surprisingly powerful experience. Last weekend I attended the Petaluma Readers Theatre’s presentation of selected stories from Tiny Lights Journal. This new collaboration of Susan Bono, editor and founder of Tiny Lights, is a treat for anyone who loves memoir and live performance.

Organized around the theme of “Defining Moments,” each one of the ten personal stories featured a life-changing experience or insight. Dramatic in nature, the narratives were further enhanced by the interpretive and acting skills of the ensemble of readers. Directed by Jennifer March, five readers took the stage in all black; moved in and out of stories, sometimes with all five or one or two in various combinations, to create dialogue, a shift in tone, or a synergy of emotion.

Adding to the ambiance was the studio setting of Murray Rockowitz, photographer. Off the main street in downtown Petaluma and up a wooden staircase, it provided the quiet, intimate space for a minimalist performance. There the simplicity of voice and memoir, the literature of personal experience, was immediate and touching.

I applaud the partnership and vision of Susan Bono’s Tiny Lights with the Petaluma Readers Theatre in producing this series. If you missed last weekend and are in the North Bay, you can still purchase tickets for upcoming performances: July 5, 6, 7 at 8:00 pm at 128 Petaluma Blvd North. Just click HERE.

The winning mix of memoir and readers theater makes me think that there is a modern need to hear story, up close and personal—a human sharing of life experience told well.

My only suggestion would be to post the stories on the Tiny Lights website or as an eBook so that the audience can read the collection of “Defining Moments” memoirs post-production.

~Posted by Kate Farrell

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Ties to the Past

June 22, 2012 By 9 Comments

By Sara Etgen-Baker, author of “Journey with Mother” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

When I think of aprons, the first image that comes to mind is one of my mother or my grandmother wearing an apron while cooking for the family. I realize that image is a bit old fashioned; yet, there was a time—and not so long ago—when every woman proudly wore her apron. Aprons were a given—a part of the feminine culture—for they were synonymous with woman’s domesticity and her wisdom.

I remember that my mother and both of my grandmothers put on their aprons as soon as they entered their kitchens and wore them throughout the day as they cooked, completed daily chores, and selflessly cared for their families. In fact, all three ladies made their own aprons and expressed their personalities and individuality with them. As I recall, my Grandmother Stainbrook made bright colored, bib-style aprons that tied in the back with deep pockets. My other grandmother preferred delicate, pastel colored half aprons that complemented her outfits and accentuated her tiny waist.

Bib Apron

Bib Apron

My mother—a stout and practical woman—used bib-style aprons for daily use that she created from fabric remnants. She generally wore her bib-style apron to protect the dress underneath saving her fancy half aprons with ribbon, lace, and appliqués for holidays and entertaining.

Half Apron

Half Apron

Mother used her bib apron for almost everything—dusting furniture, drying my tears, picking up hot pans from the oven, wiping the sweat from her brow, bringing in plums that had fallen from the trees, and carrying my ailing kitten from the backyard into the house. Her bib apron pockets were always full and housed such items as clothespins, handkerchiefs, band aids, rubber bands, loose change, Life Savers candy, my jacks, and my brother’s marbles.

In fact, the first garment I ever made was a half apron—my 8th grade sewing project in Home Economics at Austin Junior High in 1963. After buying the apron pattern for 65 cents, mother didn’t have enough money to purchase additional fabric. So, I was forced into using the remnants of kitchen curtain material that my mother had purchased at J.C. Penney—a white fabric covered in small yellow roses.

During that first semester’s apron project, I learned basic sewing how-tos, such as cutting out a pattern and correctly pinning it to the fabric; properly cutting the fabric; basting a garment; threading the sewing machine; using the foot pedal or knee pedal; gathering skirt material and attaching it to a waistband; making and attaching pockets; and hemming a garment.

At semester’s end, I was overjoyed when I completed my apron; yet, I must confess that I felt a wee bit like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, for—like Scarlet—I looked as if I were wearing a curtain. Perhaps my adding the green and yellow rickrack to the waistband, pockets, and hem gave my apron that just hung in the window appearance.  Who knows! Still, I proudly wore my apron second semester whenever we cooked or completed chores in home economics class.

In 1963 I understood and accepted that aprons were a part of being a wise homemaker. However, sometime in the late 60s aprons took a wrong turn, as they became symbols of feminine oppression.  As the women’s movement took hold, aprons seemingly disappeared from favor and the feminine landscape.  I, too, cast off my apron as I left home, attended college, and joined the workforce.

Now, I find myself fascinated with aprons, for they reflect how my foremothers saw themselves; how they functioned in society; and how culture viewed them.  Each apron intrigues me, for I see that each one has a unique story to tell with its own wisdom and ties to the past.

By Sara Etgen-Baker, author of “Journey with Mother” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

Filed Under: Anthology, Legacy Tagged With: , , , , ,

How I Wrote about My Dying Mother

June 7, 2012 By 14 Comments

By Marilyn J. Curry, author of “The Deal We Made” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

I remember taking my first writing class in the late 90’s and the instructor advised us to steer away from topics, such as “your dying mothers.”  The class laughed. But a couple of years later I started writing about my dying mother. It was 2002 and she was 78 and I was 52.  She first told me about the cancer diagnosis on the phone.  She couldn’t finish the sentence that included treatment but no cure.  And then my sister in law got on the phone and said the facts, multiple myeloma, an incurable blood cancer, and stage 2. She was good with stuff like that.

In the first six months of my mother’s illness I made three trips to her home in Queens, New York.  After the first visit I wrote about planting tomato plants in her yard so she would have a reason to leave her dark cool house and go out into the yard. And we would have something to talk about on the phone besides the cancer when I was back in San Francisco. She complained about those tomato plants all summer. The water can was heavy; the plants were not thriving; and it would be cheaper to buy a tomato.

Later I wrote about driving her to her appointments in Manhattan at Sloan Kettering Hospital in her old Chevy across the Queensboro Bridge. She had reluctantly handed over the driving to me. I had never driven in New York and my mother was used to doing her own thing; giving directions was not her forte. One night driving in the dark in the rain, we had a terrible fight in the car when she asked me to make a turn at the last minute and I grew frustrated. She wouldn’t talk to me for the rest of the night. And I wrote about that.

Then I wrote about the block that my mother lived on, and how the women who were her friends never questioned where my husband was or what was happening with my job.  As far as they were concerned I should have never left the neighborhood. As I continued to visit our time together became more precious, and my mother and I both felt redeemed, relieved. We had figured how to get along under the same roof, before it was too late. And I wrote about that.

Marilyn J. Curry

Marilyn J. Curry

And after she died, and we had emptied and sold the house I went back to the block in Queens New York where I no longer had a home or a mother for the first time in 58 years. When I walked down the familiar residential street, I felt as if I were on LSD and the sidewalk was going to crumble underneath my feet. And I wrote about that.

When I told people that I was writing about my relationship with my mother who had died recently and many said, “Oh, that must be very therapeutic.”  I thought, “No, it’s not therapy; it’s writing.” But the truth is, it was therapeutic for me to write about my relationship with my mother. I know it gave me a chance to hold onto her, to hear her voice in my mind, and to remember how hard we tried and how strong we were in our connection to each other. And it also gave the writer in me a challenge to make it interesting to others, something the writing instructor couldn’t have imagined.

By Marilyn J. Curry, author of “The Deal We Made” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

Filed Under: Anthology Tagged With: , , , ,

June 7th Roundtable Discussion: National Association of Memoir Writers

May 22, 2012 By 4 Comments

Linda Joy Myers

Editing the Wisdom Has a Voice anthology was an extraordinary experience for me. On June 7th I get the chance to talk about it.  Linda Joy Myers, founder of National Association of Memoir Writers, will lead our conversation in a Roundtable Discussion.

To participate and listen in, visit the NAMW website and sign up–just click here.

I am especially pleased to be sharing the Roundtable with two of the contributing authors, Angela Tung and Laura McHale Holland. We will talk about creating an anthology—why, how, and what you need to know.

As a memoir writer, there are benefits to being published in an anthology. We will discuss how to:

  • Follow the guidelines in the Call for Submissions—each item is important and will determine who is selected
  • Write a memoir, not a bio-vignette
  • Learn about the selection process
  • Be willing to be edited, not just proofread
  • Participation in promotion post-publication and its benefit to you

As an editor, producing an anthology that is focused around a particular theme can be a life changing adventure. Reviewing, selecting, and editing a variety of submissions provides new, sometimes unexpected perspectives on universal themes. Well written memoirs, even short personal narratives, can provide penetrating insights.

Working with the material in Wisdom Has a Voice increased my understanding of the powerful and influential relationship between Mother and daughter. I am grateful to the authors who participated in the editing process with authenticity and commitment to their vision. So, it’s a real pleasure to share the enriching work of a memoir anthology in the upcoming Roundtable Discussion.

If a themed memoir anthology is a genre that interests you, please join us on June 7th.

Filed Under: Anthology, Craft Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Deep in the Heart of Texas

April 17, 2012 By 5 Comments

Hotel hallways crowded with women writers set in motion the Story Circle Memoir Conference in Austin, TX last weekend, April 13-15.

Famous for their wide friendly smiles, women—mostly from the South and Southwest—encouraged one another to express their deep down wisdom in well- crafted memoir. Women of all ages bent their heads over paper and laptops to refine their writing skills and find their unique voice. Better than a quilting party.

The supportive surround of the Story Circle culture created ease in our work. I felt invigorated by the workshop sessions rather than enduring the burn out that can often occur in a weekend writing marathon.

From the start our radiant keynote speaker, Gail Straub from New York, called us to our task with a spirited talk and an innovative workshop. Author of the award-winning memoir, Returning to My Mother’s House: Taking Back the Wisdom of the Feminine, she told of her journey in writing the book. Her original publishing contract was to write a self-help book about her decision not to have children. But she hit a block, sensing the presence of her mother who had died prematurely when Straub was ­­­in her early twenties.

Straub soon realized that the book had to be written about her mother—that impulse became a vital calling to nourish her own spirit and eventually that of others.

Following up the next morning, Straub’s workshop on the intersection of fact and imagination was stunningly incisive as she directed us to cut through left-brain dominance to a new way of knowing. It’s almost giddy how easy it is to access right brain and create a new sense of the same experience. Yet we seldom use this powerful combination of symbol and fact, emotion and intellect—all part of the treasures Straub found in her mother’s house.

Within the Story Circle context of non-competitive discovery, I even enjoyed facilitating my own workshop, “Pearls of Wisdom: Memoirs about Mother.”

I felt more like a participant than a presenter as we explored the common threads of mother wisdom through personal stories. Some of those quick pieces were stunning in haunting imagery, the brilliance of feminine wisdom.

Adding to my joy in being at the conference was sharing it with my fellow Californians and presenters: Amber Lea Starfire, Linda Joy Myers, Suzanne Sherman, and B. Lynn Goodwin.

Back in Northern California today, I sense the ongoing work of my fellow women writers, the sound of their voices, the impact of what they know.

Submitted by Kate Farrell

 

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Story Circle Memoir Conference

March 26, 2012 By 2 Comments

This mid-April, I am honored to be a presenter at:

Story Circle Network
Sixth National Women’s Memoir Conference
April 13-15, 2012
Wyndham Hotel, Austin, Texas

My session echoes the themes of the Wisdom Has a Voice project and the memoirs in the anthology:

Pearls of Wisdom: Memoirs about Mother

Presenter: Kate Farrell
A mother-daughter relationship is often the closest of all, like the two sides of an oyster shell. In the best of times, the sheen of the inner shell encases their bond, but often an irritant within or without creates a pearl. Layer upon layer of experience produces a lustrous wisdom that is frequently untold, too closely held. A memoir about Mother is the perfect way to express the pearl of experienced truths.

In this workshop, we will explore techniques to describe and distill the stories about Mother and to share their value with others: a string of pearls, a legacy of feminine wisdom. We’ll select key experiences and produce two pieces of writing: one reflective commentary and one a story, the elements of memoir. We’ll read our works, discuss the process, and review next steps in writing.

About the conference:

Stories from the Heart VI will bring women from around the country to celebrate our stories and our lives. Through writing, reading, listening, and sharing, we will discover how personal narrative is a healing art, how we can gather our memories, how we can tell our stories. We welcome readers, writers, storytellers, and any woman with a past, present, and future. There will be opportunities to explore difficult or hidden issues, expand our relationships with other women, and discover different modes and media—such as art, dance, and drama—for sharing our stories. Come, learn, share, celebrate with us as we honor our stories!

For more information, click: Sixth National Women’s Memoir Conference

 

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Writing for My Mother

February 25, 2012 By 14 Comments

By Angela Tung, author of “Puo-puo” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

“Women, show your fiction to your mothers, not your lovers.” Mary Gordon

“Don’t tell outsiders the ugly things that happened at home.” Chinese idiom

When I set out to write “Puo-puo,” an elegy to my grandmother who passed away in November 2010, my aim was to write something that my mother could read. I’d write about my grandmother’s amazing life, how she lived through the Sino-Japanese War and the Communist Revolution, how she, my grandfather, and their children fled from China to Taiwan. How despite poverty they raised five children who all ended up going to grad school in the United States. How she ruled the roost with her tough love, loud laugh, and amazing cooking.

But the essay turned out to be more than that.

I don’t usually let my mother read my writing. I tend to write about very personal things: divorce, infidelity, sex, and relationships. While some women can talk to their mothers about such things, I cannot. My mother knows about my divorce and that my ex-husband cheated, but I’d prefer not to give her the chance to say once again, “You should have told us right away,” instead of three months after we had already separated, “You should have left him right away,” instead of almost a year after his confession, and “You shouldn’t have been with him in the first place.”

I write to understand the past; my mother only seeks to undo it.

As I wrote “Puo-puo,” I found writing about my tumultuous relationship with my mother to be inevitable. Her mother’s opinion, always old-fashioned, sometimes backwards, and so important, often clouded her judgment. How dare I want to become a teacher! Didn’t I remember my grandfather earned so little as a teacher in Taiwan? Could I lose some weight before Puo-puo’s visit? Couldn’t I date a guy who was taller and better looking?

I found myself having to admit that my grandmother, like my relationship with my mother, was far from perfect. I found myself having to mention my divorce and my ex-husband’s infidelity, which most of my mother’s friends, seven years later, still don’t know about. The reasons she hasn’t told them are strikingly similar to the reasons I didn’t tell my parents for so long: they don’t want to get blamed. How could you not see what was going in your daughter’s life? Their friends might say. How could you not stop it? Why did you let her marry him in the first place?

And why my mother would need to share “Puo-puo” with her friends is another story. Her children’s achievements aren’t real until they’ve been acknowledged by friends and relatives. This is why our diplomas hang in the room where they play mah-jongg, why when I was a child, my mother would strewn around the house, as though by accident, my elaborately designed book reports. I imagine she’d have wanted to display copies of Wisdom Has a Voice on the coffee table, where a friend might idly pick it up, leaf through it, and either spot my name or ask, “Ay, Ai Li, why do you have this book?” and she’d say, in her best humble bragging voice, “Oh, my daughter has a story published in it.” But I still have yet to send her the book.

Mother and Angela

I tell myself hiding my writing is to protect my mother, but really it’s to protect me.

Recently I told my mother something I’ve yet to write about. I hid it for the same old reasons: I didn’t want her to be hurt; I didn’t want her to be blaming me for what went wrong. Finally, during a visit, I decided I had to ‘fess up.

Surprisingly she was happy. Not happy about what happened but that I had shared this intimate part of my life with her.

This week I finally put a copy of Wisdom Has a Voice in the mail for my mother. I hope she likes it, but even if she doesn’t, I’ll keep writing.

By Angela Tung, author of “Puo-puo” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

Filed Under: Anthology, Legacy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Like Mother, Like Daughter

January 29, 2012 By 9 Comments

By Nancy LaTurner, author of “Motherless Child” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

Katrina Norfleet’s earlier blog post “Uncovering what’s Universal,” (November 7, 2011) struck a harmonious chord in me. The mother-daughter-mother triangle rings true in my life too. My mother always encouraged me to pursue my dreams and I’ve carried that legacy on with my own children.

In fact, when I signed up for my first writing class I did it for my daughter’s sake. I intended to learn enough to help my daughter achieve her writing goals, not mine. I had no writing goals — I was not a writer.

The listing in the university course catalog said it all, “How to write and publish a children’s picture book.” I imagined that I would go to class, take extensive notes, and relay the information to my daughter, who liked the idea of writing children’s books but didn’t want to leave her newborn son to attend lectures. We agreed that she, always the writer in our family, would do the homework assignments.

Fired up with enthusiasm, I marched into the classroom, claimed a seat in the front row, and poised my pen over the first page of a fresh new notebook. The instructor, Elsie Karr Kreischer, an older woman with an impressive list of published children’s books to her credit, introduced herself and immediately turned my world upside down.

I stared like a robot at the blank paper in front of me as I heard the words, “writing prompt,” “thirty minutes to write,” and “read your work aloud.” My feet shifted forward, ready to carry me out of the classroom in disgrace.

Perhaps I felt too exposed in the spotlight of that front row seat to get up and leave. Or maybe dread had actually paralyzed me. Whatever the reason, I remained in my place and courageously scribbled along with the other fourteen students for a very long thirty minutes.

That life-changing moment altered my reality. Over the next several weeks I learned that I was a writer too. With Elsie Karr Kreischer’s encouragement I submitted stories and essays to contests and responded to calls for submissions, winning awards in both the SouthWest Writers and the Writer’s Digest annual contests as well as publication in the Albuquerque Almanac and the SouthWest Sage.

Over the next several months, I took classes from Eileen Stanton, popular newspaper humorist and radio talk show host; and from Robert Gish, prolific author of fiction, memoir, and literary biographies. As I flexed my new writing muscles, I realized that I wanted to write a book — not a children’s book, but a memoir book.

Using National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) as a springboard, I launched myself into a daily writing habit and finished the first draft of my book in the following two months. Several revisions later, I emerged from my spare bedroom writing space with a final manuscript.

The call for submissions for the Wisdom Has a Voice anthology came with perfect timing. What a marvelous home that anthology would be, I thought, for the chapter I wrote about losing my mother.

And what a wonderful honor to have my piece selected! With the sensitive and gentle guidance of editor Kate Farrell, I moved beyond mere excerpt and combined two chapters of my memoir into an adaptation that afforded even more opportunity to explore and reflect upon my mother’s influence in my life.

When I read the contributions of the other authors, I felt another surge of pride to be among this particular group of women, each with a different story to tell but all united in our belief in the timeless power of the relationship between mothers and daughters.

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I’m glad to say that shortly after Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother came out, I published my memoir, Voluntary Nomads: A Mother’s Memories of Foreign Service Family Life, and soon after that my daughter finished her first novel, Stars in Sticks.

Our experience feels like living proof of a universal truth: as our mothers pass away and we grow into the mother role, we must strive to continue our maternal legacy and, at the same time, provide even more powerful examples of womanhood that will enrich our children’s lives. Like mother, like daughter, again and stronger.

 

By Nancy LaTurner, author of “Motherless Child” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

Filed Under: Anthology Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Motherhood – The Hardest Job

January 16, 2012 By 17 Comments

By Mariana Swann, author of “Finding You Again in Bolivia” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother

In January last year, while shopping at my local supermarket in Wokingham, England, I saw a tiny little advert on a writing magazine asking for contributions to an anthology of stories about mothers and daughters. I was immediately interested, as I had already written (and translated from Spanish) the piece that appears in “our” book. In October the previous year, 2010, I had visited my country of birth, Bolivia.

While walking around the streets of La Paz, I felt that my mother’s spirit accompanied me everywhere I went. It was seven years since her death, and I missed her terribly. She had been a loving mother and a strong and vivacious woman. Of course, she was not perfect, but I had loved her totally despite our occasional disagreements.

After visiting her house, I starting writing her a letter, remembering some of the things we did together and some of the many things I learned from her. That letter became the essay that was published in the Wisdom Has a Voice anthology.

Being a mother: the most difficult job I have ever had. Now, where did I last see that manual on How to Be a Perfect Parent? I must have lost it the day after my first child was born, and I’ve committed several parenting crimes ever since. I’ve failed at being an excellent mother. Society expects a lot of mothers. We want them to have a PhD in Excellent Parenting; we want them to be perfect all the time and in every situation—to satisfy their children’s every need.

So many misery memoirs have been published that sometimes it seems that the most common type of mother is a cruel and damaging one. But I knew there were also good mothers out there and I wanted to pay homage to them.

Since I started walking in my mother’s shoes I’ve come to understand her better. Remembering her life always fills me with compassion as well as joy.

Mariana Swann

I am so glad I was given the opportunity to take part in this collection of “mother-and-daughter” stories, and of singing the praises of my flawed yet good and wise mother.

By Mariana Swann, author of “Finding You Again in Bolivia” in Wisdom Has a Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories of Mother.

 

Filed Under: Anthology, Legacy Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Keepsake Memoir about Mother: Online Class

December 28, 2011 By 1 Comment

Story Circle NetworkStory Circle Network

This January I am thrilled to teach an online course as faculty of Story Circle Network. SCN has been a pioneer women’s literary network for 15 years. Based in Austin, Texas, it now has an international outreach.

In brief, the Story Circle Network offers the only life-writing program designed exclusively for women. Since 1997, this nonprofit organization has provided learning/writing opportunities in memoir, reminiscence, journaling, poetry, family stories, kitchen table stories, writing-as-healing, writing for personal growth and spiritual development, poetry, blogging, and other areas.

My online class is a mini-course.

Class Title: Keepsake Memoir about Mother

Instructor: Kate Farrell

Class Term: January 9-January 30, 2012

Remembering Mother

Synopsis: The New Year is a good time to remember and celebrate our mothers, our beginnings! What better way to preserve her legacy than with a well-written keepsake memoir? You will weave together a life experience and its meaning into an enduring work.

Class Description: “Keepsake Memoir about Mother” is a three-week course to recall and write a key memory about mother (or mother figure) that is both a compelling story and a powerful message, one that reflects a continuing legacy.

At the end of the course, students will be able to recall an authentic key memory of mother and tell it using a basic story structure, distill the meaning of the memory, and relate its personal truth to combine experience and meaning into a keepsake memoir of mother.

Weekly lessons and prompts will be provided via Yahoo Group site. Students will read assigned material and complete the exercises using templates as suggestions and will upload their written work into files for instructor’s feedback.

To sign up for this and other classes SCN is currently offering, click here!

 

Filed Under: Craft, Legacy, Workshops Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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