Mental Health Week starts today and its theme is anxiety. This week gives us the chance to learn how anxiety can affect us, what external factors can trigger it and how we can manage it. Mental Health Week 2023 Mental Health Week and Mental Health Month (October) events put the spotlight on the mental health […]
Virginia Woolf once said, ’How does one write a biography?’ The famous writer struggled with how to write the biographies of other people as well as her own autobiography. She drafted her autobiography several times, but each version differed from its predecessor and sadly she ended her life before finishing what could have been her […]
One of the most challenging aspects of memoir writing is bringing characters to life. Taking a real-life person, getting inside them and truly knowing them. One of a life writer’s responsibilities is to reveal the gap between the mask a person wears and their secret self. But how can a life writer cut through to […]
Writing a memoir helps you find your voice, tell your story, and reach out to others. You start thinking about your memories, moments that make you feel young again, wondering: what is the legacy I’m leaving behind? But how to get started? I speak to many people who want to write their memoir, but they […]
There is an urgent need to introduce the writing of life stories into aged care facilities as part of the patient-centred care of our seniors and people living with dementia. Recording life stories includes writing memoirs and biographies, photo books and audio and video recording. Repeated research studies reveal that recording life stories has immense […]
Memoir Writing Involves Collecting Memories When writing a memoir for a client, I’m sometimes amazed at the clarity of their memories. Last week, I interviewed an 85-year-old grandfather who recalled precise details of the furniture, colour scheme, sounds and smells of his childhood home in Broken Hill. He even remembered the titles of the ‘78’ […]
In my memoir writing workshops, participants often say they struggle with writing in a way that evokes emotion. They worry their writing is flat and uninteresting. One way you can make your writing more compelling is to create vivid scenes full of sensory details. These scenes fuel a reader’s imagination and draw them into the […]
Practical advice for life story writers is often hard to find. The internet is flooded with blogs on writing, but for someone sitting at home in front of their computer looking at an empty page, it can be hard to action the advice. Everyone has fascinating untold stories to tell, whether or not you have […]
It can be daunting trying to craft a life story—sifting through a mountain of files, photos, letters and memorabilia and organising them into a coherent narrative. So overwhelming in fact that many potential memoirists procrastinate and may never end up writing their life story. Writing a life story or memoir is also one of the […]
Is life story writing on your mind? If so, there are 4 simple rules to follow. A life story or memoir is one of the most compelling and permanent ways to capture one’s life, complete with details of emotions and life events that have taken place throughout the years. Writing your story can be a self-orientated […]
