“My mother worked on a highly secret military project during the Second World War, as my father flew Spitfires overhead and headed into battle.” “I’m a descendant of the Duke of Northumberland (‘on the wrong side of the sheets’, as they say), or so I’ve been led to believe.” “My grandmother had a shipbuilding empire […]
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 […]
When writing memoirs for my clients 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’ records his father played on the […]
PSST! I MIGHT HAVE CRACKED THE CODE FOR WRITING A MEMOIR. WHAT DO YOU THINK? It’s 5Ws+1H. And I’ll even share the interpretation of the code ;-). My theory is that if you ponder these questions with curiosity and patience, you’ll come up with a strong framework for writing your story. You don’t need to […]
The other night, my partner said, ‘The thing I like about Malcolm Gladwell is that he notices elements of his life and sees connections that pull them together in a way that makes sense of the world.’ ‘Say that again!’ I cried. I wrote while he repeated, trying not to put too much pressure on […]
Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette is the work of a unique talent who understands the power of story and now understands herstory. If you haven’t seen it, do. I had the privilege of front-row seats at the 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival live show, where it won the Barry Award for Best Comedy. I write about this now, in […]
Are you, like me, in that tricky space where you’ve heard your parents or grandparents stories so many times you cut them off as soon as you hear the opening line? But at the same time you really want those stories written down, because, quite frankly, you’ll miss them when they’re gone. If you’re with […]
The queen of soul, Ms Aretha Franklin died a week ago and I feel quite bereft inside as she was one of the musicians on the soundtrack of my life. Since she blasted on to the world music scene in 1967 with Otis Redding’s song ‘Respect’, which became an anthem for women everywhere, Aretha sang […]
I recently read an article from Harvard Medical School about the health benefits of writing your life story or memoir. The article says that as we age we tend to feel less relevant—we retire from jobs that may have given us a strong sense of purpose and we can become isolated from family, friends and […]
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