Magical Memoir Moments
Wedding Blessings Revive the Magical Memoir Moments of Childhood
Weddings produce Magical Memoir Moments by their very nature. They fill us with hope. Parents feel a special joy tinged with sadness. Mothers often weep inside as they embrace daughters. The most popular blog post I ever wrote shares the wedding blessings Stuart and I gave to Kate and Nik in 2010. We instinctively chose…
Staring Death in the Face: How I Became a Gutsy Mennonite Memoirist
Are Mennonites “gutsy”? How about memoirists? My guess is that you may have had more problem answering “yes” to the first question than to the second. So here’s a Mennonite confession. I’ve always admired gutsy-ness. If you read to the very end of this post, you’ll understand why. First, let me introduce you to a…
Sharing Nostalgia for Childhood at Christmas Time With Linda Gartz
Nostalgia. Comes from two Greek words meaning a longing for home. Probably Christmas brings out more nostalgia than any other time of the year. According to the New York Times, nostalgia is good for us. I’ve been sharing nostalgic photos of vintage decorations and ornaments with those of you who subscribe to my weekly Magical…
Your Chance to be an Author! Tell a FriendStory
Some of the people who read this blog are authors and bloggers. Other people who read this blog have a closeted desire to write. They need a little push. So, here’s a perfect opportunity for both kinds of people. Miranda Beverly-Whittemore, an author friend, started a blog a year in advance of her next novel Bittersweet being published. Bittersweet is…
Amish and Mennonite: What's the Difference?
Small groups like the Mennonites and Amish, which only surface in most people’s awareness when the national media pay attention, can confuse people. Especially when both these small groups contain a myriad of varieties. So it’s not surprising that MennoMedia’s Third-Way Cafe has become the go-to place online for people who ask: What’s the difference…
The Day Before Launch: Going Home to Lititz During Harvest.
Who says you can’t go home again? Reporter Sarah Chain certainly disagrees. The official launch will be held tomorrow night at Lititz Mennonite Church, 165 Front Street, Lititz, Pennsylvania. 7 p.m. If you live close by, please join us! We’ll have a party, and we’ll relive a little Lancaster Conference Mennonite Church history in the…
Learning from a Baby: A Memoir Writer’s Teacher
I was a baby once. Now I’m a grandma learning to write about childhood while holding my grandson.I remember Wordsworth’s “Ode on Intimations of Mortality” (1803) Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar; Not in…