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 […]
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 […]
A few weeks after receiving a Public Service Medal honouring his contribution to human rights policy and law in Australia during his 26 years at the Human Rights Commission, David Mason resigned. Resigned from an organisation that for a quarter of a century fulfilled his need to secure greater social justice for marginalised groups of […]
I bumped into my former cello teacher, Heather Stratfold, at a Bach concert a few months ago and she told me about her struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome. She eventually gave up on mainstream medicine and decided to heal herself and she is keen to let other people with the condition know it is possible […]
‘I woke up suddenly, jolted upright at 4.30am on 28 December 2015, with an idea,’ Madeleine Easton, a baroque violinist says. ‘I’m going to set up a Bach orchestra in Australia.’ I’d lived and worked in Europe for 17 years, performing with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the English Baroque Soloists, directing the Bach Cantata series […]
A few weeks after receiving a Public Service Medal honouring his contribution to human rights policy and law in Australia during his 26 years at the Human Rights Commission, David Mason was faced with a stark choice— work for a new manager who he believed lacked the knowledge and skills to do the job competently— […]
To misquote the Beatles, ‘30 Years Ago Today’ 1988 was Australia’s Bi-centennial year, making 2018 an ideal time for some reverse time travel through your lifetime memories. As a personal historian who first interviewed 100 aged care residents about their early days as a Bi-centennial project, that year is significant to me as I have […]
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