Magical Memoir Moments

How to Write a Memoir

By Shirley Showalter | February 20, 2012

So you want to explore the fog of memory and write a memoir. Great! Like the IRS, I’m here to help. And so are many others. In fact, I am going to send you to them. Here is an eight-page booklet (.pdf) I wrote on the subject. What I say below will not duplicate the…

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Writing Down the Bones: Slow and Dumb

By Shirley Showalter | February 5, 2009

I remember reading this breakthrough book soon after it was published in the late 1980’s.  I don’t remember how I bought the book, and I don’t have the old copy on my shelf, so I may have loaned or given it away, Mostly, I remember how I felt after reading it. High!  I had never…

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Natalie Goldberg: Memoir Workshop at the Sophia Institute

By Shirley Showalter | January 28, 2009

Last weekend I enjoyed sunshine, warm air, a beautiful room in the carriage house of the Phoebe Pember House affiliated with the Sophia Institute, a long walk in historic Charleston, a wonderful memoir workshop, and delightful conversation with Natalie Goldberg, the workshop leader, at the Slightly North of Broad Restaurant. Here she is, on the…

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