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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Dad arrived in the mail yesterday. Due to the extremely reductive process of cremation, this formerly handsome man of 90 kilograms could now fit into a small cardboard box. If it were possible, he would be laughing at the absurdity of his final journey. Such is the nature of modern-day death and the available option […]
‘Genes’, as the American academic and neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky has written ‘…are not about inevitabilities; they’re about potentials and vulnerabilities’. Good genes don’t necessarily result in good outcomes – in sport or anything else. But they sure can help! My latest book – ‘It’s in the Genes, Australian Football Families’– tells the stories of some […]
The gentleman opposite was interviewed for someone else’s biography. He shared the bones of his own story. An incredible tale of migration and thriving despite childhood and other adversities. When I suggested he should write his own life story. His reply was cutting and quick. “I don’t believe in vanity projects,” he dismissed. “Not for […]
When you read a biography, do you feel like you’re in the story living the biographical subject’s life, feeling what they’re feeling and seeing what they’re seeing? To stimulate your imagination this way, biographers make hundreds of decisions. It’s these choices the biographer and LSA member, Gabriella Kelly-Davies, explores in her new podcast, Biographers in […]
‘And what did it look like?’ Thea, who was attending one of my life story workshops, looked as if a lightbulb had just been switched on. Her face became animated as she recalled leaving a smoky polluted town to move across the state to the countryside. Fresh air! Blue sky! The trees, the flowers …! […]
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