Magical Memoir Moments

Jean Raffa on Dream Interpretation and Memoir Writing

Author Jean Raffa has been sharing her knowledge of dreams in a series begun with this post and continuing with last week’s post about the Big dreams of childhood. Here are two more concluding questions from me and Jean’s answers. Q: If we don’t have dream interpretation training like you do, do we need an analyst…

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A Twitter Post-Script: How Online Can Lead to Offline Memoir Connections

Just have to share a lovely experience because it continues the conversation about social media and “real” writing that began with this post about social media and continued when Kathy Pooler did a guest post about Twitter here last week. As I write my own memoir, I am learning to know many authors who have…

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Using Twitter Strategically: It's All About Making Meaningful Connections

Two weeks ago I wrote about balancing two kinds of writing — memoir and social media (Facebook and Twitter). Kathleen Pooler wrote a comment on that post, which prompted my invitation to her to share what she has learned about Twitter. I tend to use Facebook more than Twitter, but I see the advantages of Twitter when…

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Yeats, Mennonites, and Memoir

At the Mennonite/s Writing VI conference March 30-April 1, 2012, the theme of “the self” recurred often. Poet and scholar Ann Hostetler drew attention to this theme in her talk: “The Self in Mennonite Garb, or, Where Does the Writing Come From?” Hostetler has been thinking about the lyric voice ever since she put together…

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Toni Morrison Turns Back Memoir Contract

By almost any standard, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison has led an extraordinary life. I’d love to read the story only she could tell about any segment of this story: born 1931 into a working class family in Lorain, Ohio; educated at Howard and Cornell Universities; taught at various universities (the last being Princeton); an editor…

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Finding Voice: Part One

Once, when I was a young professor asked to speak in the Goshen College Afternoon Sabbatical lecture series, I was helped by an unexpected source–my five-year-old son Anthony. We had just returned from nine months in Haiti, where our family had led two groups of college students in a wonderful deep learning experience–an international service-learning…

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The Help: A Bestselling Novel with a Memoir Message

The Help spent 379 days in the Amazon Top 100 list. It has 1,751 reviews on Amazon.com and rates 4.5 stars. It is a novel, but, as Lanie Tankard argues, it deserves consideration from a memoir perspective.   The Help by Kathryn Stockett New York: Amy Einhorn Books (Putnam), 2009. Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, CD,…

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Memoir as Potential Social Movement

Last Friday, The Kalamazoo Gazette published an op-ed I wrote. Its conclusion contains the revolutionary idea that if all of us finished the tasks (see below or click link above) we need to accomplish before a “good” death is possible, we would have years to live free of the fear of death and thus could…

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Memoir and Management: A Path to the Corner Office?

The New York Times runs interviews with CEO’s of various companies in a series called “The Corner Office.” On Sunday April 26, 2009, the subject was Richard Anderson, of Delta Air Lines as interviewed by Adam Bryant. Since I taught both English and history to undergraduates, I was delighted to see Anderson’s emphasis on the…

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Google Trends and Memoir

Have you ever used Google Trends?  You can find the website here.  The home page tells you what subjects are “hot” because they have appeared frequently and recently in both blogs and news sources online.  Right now, for example “Kemba Walker,” star of the University of Connecticut basketball team, enroute again to the Final Four…

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