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How Your Life Story Can Benefit Your Family

How Your Life Story Can Benefit Your Family

Most people believe their lives are ordinary and their experiences are of no interest to anyone else. This is untrue. Future generations of your family, your children, grandchildren and generations to come will benefit from seeing that your journey is part of the foundation for their own. Recording your life story is more than documenting […]

Preserve your Life Legacy with a Professional Writer

Preserve your Life Legacy with a Professional Writer

The most engaging story you know is the one about your own life and a professional writer can help you preserve your story as a life legacy. You don’t have to have lived a full life to tell your heartfelt story.  Your life story grows, develops and changes throughout your life–it may feel complicated but […]

2025 LSA Conference

2025 LSA Conference

At the recent 2025 Life Stories Australia (LSA) Conference in Melbourne, members had the pleasure of listening to Keynote speaker Katia Ariel, author of The Ferryman and The Swift Dark Tide. Her latest book was shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize and won the 2024 Society of Women Writers NSW Non-fiction Prize. Katia shared her […]

The Seven Sins of Memory

The Seven Sins of Memory

by Dr Bruce Powell Humans are not video recorders. We are more like storytellers, great at shaping memorable stories and prone to bending the facts. Two decades ago, Daniel Schacter a Harvard Psychologist grouped memory’s failings into seven “sins”. Human beings like a neat numbered list. Helps us remember it. I really like the surname […]

Keeping Memoir Human

Keeping Memoir Human

by Mike Cavanagh In a world increasingly turning to artificial intelligence, is there a role for AI in memoir writing? Well, the way I see it, memoirs are our voices carrying across time, speaking to those who remain even after we’ve gone. The great opportunity and challenge of writing a memoir is to be heard […]

Assisting Dementia Patients in Sharing Their Life Story

Assisting Dementia Patients in Sharing Their Life Story

Felicity Lenehan from A Way With Words has a specific mission with her life story work. She believes everyone’s story matters and that it should be recorded — and that includes those people living with dementia. Felicity has done many stories for people living with this upsetting illness. Their stories are not just important — they’re essential. […]

The Family Vine: Gathering Our Stories While We Can

The Family Vine: Gathering Our Stories While We Can

by Louise Rosati Since moving into our new home late last year, I’ve found myself strolling unfamiliar streets on my daily walks. Each day brings new scents, new sounds, and my senses are awakened in each hidden corner of our new neighbourhood. On our street, towering eucalypts stand alongside whispering she-oaks, while birch, ginkgo, and […]

2025 Clunes Booktown Festival showcasing life stories

2025 Clunes Booktown Festival showcasing life stories

We had a fantastic showing at the Clunes Booktown Festival again this year with an engaging stall and sold-out workshop. LSA members Susan Pierotti and Michelle Scheibner led a successful workshop focused on uncovering and writing about family trauma to thirty-six aspiring life story writers. The workshop was a resounding success, and many participants visited […]

The Gift of Presence: Listening and Sharing Stories This Holiday Season

The Gift of Presence: Listening and Sharing Stories This Holiday Season

by Louise Rosati For those who celebrate Christmas or other meaningful end-of-year gatherings, this time of year invites us to pause and reconnect – with our loved ones and with ourselves. As the year winds down and we gather around festive tables, the air buzzes with laughter, conversation, and the clinking of glasses. It’s a […]

Blink and it may be gone

Blink and it may be gone

by Mike Cavanagh My dear old mum used to tell me ‘blink and it’s gone, Michael.’ Like a lot of parental advice that I deemed of little interest to me at the time, as years passed my parents strangely grew in their wisdom. Now they’ve both gone and I look back on all the times […]