Magical Memoir Moments

Prairie Lights Bookstore, Faulkner, Carol Bodensteiner, and Me

Stuart and I are on the road again. This time we are driving instead of taking Amtrak. The prairie is our playground and this Sunday October 19 2-3 p.m.  Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City will be our destination. In the meantime, we visit friends in various Wisconsin cities and Kalona, Iowa. Finally, I will…

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Black Like Me: What I Learned by Listening to Black Voices Then and Now

Even though no black students were enrolled at Warwick High School in Lititz, Pennsylvania, 1962-1966, the years I attended, I was not completely unaware of the Civil Rights Movement. I had Mr. Price for my American history teacher. He urged us to read about injustice and imagine what it must be like to deal with…

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Book Expo America: Three Tips to Keep You from Going Broke or Crazy

It’s all Dan Blank’s fault. Dan’s an entrepreneur and heads a company called We Grow Media. Last year he wrote about experiences on the floor of the enormous Book Expo America (BEA) in his newsletter. New York, of course, where BEA usually takes place, is also the hub of the publishing industry in America. Dan’s…

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Combining Service, Learning, and Memoir: An Intergenerational Approach and Syllabus

Since I am preparing to teach memoir to college students, I’m anticipating a question: How write about a life when it does not yet contain a long timeline with twists and turns in it? There are many solutions to this problem: Memoir thrives on the short view anyway. It is not the chronicle of a…

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The Power of Narrative: Another Memoir Class Syllabus

Since my own book order is due to the bookstore by April 15, I need to start thinking hard about my own choices for the course I’ll be teaching in the fall. So here is one more syllabus to study. Every time I look at a syllabus created by Richard Gilbert I want to sign…

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Who Wants to Take a Memoir Class? Tantalizing Syllabi from Pro Teachers

I’ve been a teacher since the age of three. That’s when I became a big sister. Ready or not, poor Henry got to pitch me softballs while I learned to bat. He was the first pupil in my classroom and the Watson to my Sherlock. Next fall I will be teaching again, and I’m excited….

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How to Leave a Legacy. Hint: It Goes Beyond Your Book

  The most piercing thought any of us have is that some day we won’t be here. Some day, instead of sitting here looking out at the Shenandoah Mountain, I will be gone from this earth. Someone else will be looking through this window. In the words of poet Jane Kenyon, “all morning I did/the…

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A Graduate-Level Spiritual Memoir Course Syllabus

Last week I met a dynamic professor from Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary who told me she visited this blog several times while she was teaching a course on spiritual memoir. I was delighted to meet her and to know that she used the blog as a resource.  You know what I did, of course. I…

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A Free National Tele-Conversation on Place in Memoir–Sign Up!

Friends. Here’s a chance for us to hear each other’s voices, literally. I will be speaking on a roundtable along with the fabulous authors Tracy Seeley and Linda Joy Myers, whom you may have met in previous posts and comments on this blog. Linda Joy will interview Tracy and me on the tantalizing subject of…

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The Nature of Creative Transformation: Three Views on Video

Michael Jones, Lauren Artress, and Jen Louden discuss the nature of transformation–and its relationship to art and the artist. Do you think everyone is creative? What do you do allow your creative side to flourish?

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