MEMOIR WORKSHOP: FAMILY HISTORY New Worlds

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Mentor Co-Leaders: Linda Corman

My-Thuan Tran Savannah Ashour

Special Guest Author:

Patti Bosworth

Acknowledgements: Open Road Integrated Media

10:00-10:15 AM Sign-in and Snack 10:15-10:30 AM Opening Lines: Blast from the Past 10:30-11:15 AM Craft Talk with Patti Bosworth 11:15-11:45 AM Share and Discovery: Family Portrait 11:45 AM-12:20 PM Free Write: Scene One, Take One 12:20-12:30 PM Online Portfolio Share 12:30-12:40 PM Break 12:40-12:50 PM Community Announcements & Readings Submission Guidelines 12:50-1:15 PM Group Reimagining Activity: The Art of Listening 1:15-1:30 PM Closing Lines: My Favorite Part

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OPENING LINES: BLAST FROM THE PAST Describe a memorable family moment, or a tradition your family has. Answer at least six of the nine questions listed below. 1. When and where did it occur? 2. Who was there? 4. What exactly happened? Write a detailed list of the chain of events that occurred. 3. What is the exact moment that you’ll remember forever? 5. What are the sights, sounds, smells, and/or tastes you associate with this moment?

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6. How did you feel about it? Did you love it? Dread it? 7. Was the moment unexpected or uncharacteristic for your family, or was it very typical? Why? 8. If you were to relive a similar moment in the future, is there anything that you would change in any way? 9. If you’re writing about a tradition, think about how your family ritual has changed or stayed the same over years, and why. Does your family still follow the tradition? If not, when did it stop? Why?

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CRAFT TALK WITH PATTI BOSWORTH Patti Bosworth is the author of Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family Story, a memoir about her relationship with her father, a lawyer and well-known political activist. She is also the author of several biographies, including Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), which was on the New York Times Bestseller List. Her other books include biographies of Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando. Patti was born in San Francisco, California, and is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College. She is a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. She has taught literary non-fiction at Columbia University and Barnard College and is the winner of the Front Page Award. A long-time board member of the Actors Studio, she runs the Playwrights-Director Unit. She is currently working on a second memoir. Teaser from Patti Bosworth's memoir, Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family I remember watching my father’s pale naked form disappear up into the crackling flames that had suddenly destroyed the nursery on the third floor of our house in Berkeley. I remember hearing his frantic cries of “The baby! The baby!” grow fainter and fainter while my mother and I stood as still as statues in the garden outside. It was a clear, cold California night. Full moon. The hills looked black above our house. The trees seemed even blacker. Acrid smoke billowed toward us, mingling with the pungent scent of the eucalyptus groves rustling nearby. Presently, the smoke covered the moon. Mama and I waited for what seemed like hours, gripping each other’s hands until, just as the wailing fire engine arrived on the steep drive below, my father emerged panting from the house. To read Patti’s full memoir, Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family, just follow the link to her e-book, sent to you by GWN last week!

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SHARE & DISCOVERY: FAMILY PORTRAIT Excerpt from Patricia Bosworth’s memoir, Anything Your Little Heart Desires: An American Family

Daddy didn’t look fifty-nine. Oh, he had a slight paunch, but his grin was still boyish. I watched him light Pauline’s cigarette and then rush over to freshen her drink. He was famous for his manners. During the blacklist, whenever he obtained a clearance for a client, he’d write thank-you notes to everyone who’d given evidence pro or con. He usually made an effort to be nice. I never heard him pass judgment on anybody. “Nobody is worthless, my darling,” he’d say to me, “but nobody is that terrific either.” [. . .] I remember that he started to cough. He did smoke four packs of Pall Mall cigarettes a day, so he invariably coughed a lot. But when he saw me, he stopped. “Hey, baby!” he called out. “Give your old man a kiss!”

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SHARE & DISCOVERY: FAMILY PORTRAIT To write a successful family memoir, you need to make your family members compelling characters while still writing truthful portraits of them. To do that, you’ll need to choose the details that make them unique. Create a character sketch of a member of your family—one you wrote about in your Opening Lines exercise or someone else. What does he or she sound like, look like, smell like? What phrases, habits, objects, likes and dislikes do you associate with this person? Use detail and dialogue, as well as description, to make your character come alive. (Write this either as prose or as a working list of characteristics.) Examples of details you might associate with your character:

• Things that are important to them (for example, an old letter, a diploma, a photograph) • Things you associate with them (a handkerchief, a particular pet, a perfume, etc.) • Gestures or phrases, rituals they always perform (do they always pinch kids’ cheeks? Ask

people to take off their shoes before they enter the house?)

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FREEWRITE: SCENE ONE, TAKE ONE Part I: What’s happening? Write a scene using either the moment you’ve been working with from the Opening Lines exercise or another memorable family moment as the main event. Remember to use details and dialogue that capture your family members’ unique quirks and habits, and to give us all the sensory details—not just sights. Be sure to include sounds, smells, and tastes from your memory, as well. Tip: Think of yourself as being inside the moment for Part One—write about what happened and bring your reader into the scene. Before you start writing, you might want to skim over the excerpt [below] from President Barack Obama’s 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father. Example from President Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father Barack’s father left him and his mother when he was two years old. When Barack is in college, he decides to reconnect with his father. At this point in the memoir, they are about to meet. For the next several days, I tried to avoid situations where my mother and I might be forced to talk. Then, a few days before they were about to leave, I stopped by while Maya was taking a nap. My mother noticed a letter addressed to my father in my hand. I asked her if she had an international postage stamp. ‘You guys arranging a visit?’ I told her briefly of my plans as she dug out a stamp from the bottom of her purse. Actually she came up with two stamps; they had melted together in the summer heat. She gave me a sheepish grin and put water on to boil so we could steam them apart. [His mother goes on to explain that Barack’s African father had been discouraged by Barack’s grandfather to marry her—a white American woman. But they went ahead and married, anyway.] She sighed, running her hands through her hair. ‘We were so young, you know. I was younger than you are now. He was only a few years older than that…. She stopped and laughed to herself. ‘Did I ever tell you that he was late for our first date? He asked me to meet him in front of the university library at one. When I got there he hadn’t arrived, but I figured I’d give him a few minutes. It was a nice day, so I laid out on one of the benches, and before I knew it I had fallen asleep. Well, an hour later—an hour!—he shows up with a couple of his friends. I woke up and the three of them were standing over me, and I heard your father saying, serious as can be, ‘You see, gentlemen. I told you that she was a fine girl, and that she would wait for me.’

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FREEWRITE: SCENE ONE, TAKE ONE

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FREEWRITE: SCENE ONE, TAKE ONE

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FREEWRITE: SCENE ONE, TAKE ONE Part II: Why are you telling us about it? Now take a step back and tell us why this moment was important to you. What makes this a story worth telling versus just a fond memory? Further your scene by explaining how the family moment made you feel and why you wanted to tell this story. Questions that may be useful to address as you build on your scene:

• Did you feel happy, heroic, in charge or let down? • What does it say about you and your family? • How were you different after it happened than you were before? Did you have a change

in perspective, or understand something new? • Did someone in your family change in a way that was important to you?

Tip: Think of yourself as being outside the moment—looking in—for Part Two. Example continued From President Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from My Father Barack has just recounted the actual moment he shared with his mother. In this excerpt, he reflects on that moment and infuses his reflection with perspective. […] My mother laughed once more, and once again I saw her as the child she had been. Except this time I saw something else: In her smiling, slightly puzzled face, I saw what all children must see at some point if they are to grow up—their parents’ lives revealed to them as separate and apart, reaching out beyond the point of their union or the birth of a child, lives unfurling back to grandparents, great-grandparents, an infinite number of chance meetings, misunderstandings, projected hopes, limited circumstances.

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FREEWRITE: SCENE ONE, TAKE ONE

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FREEWRITE: SCENE ONE, TAKE ONE

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GROUP REIMAGINING ACTIVITY: THE ART OF LISTENING

Break into groups of four. Then, take turns following the four steps below.

Step 1. Author reads her draft out loud. Feedback Providers listen and take notes on Active Listening Worksheet (p. 14).

Step 2. Feedback Providers share what they heard from the draft.

Author listens silently and takes notes on Active Listening Worksheet (p. 15).

Step 3. Author/Feedback Provider Q&A to clear up any questions. Step 4. After everyone has shared, each Author takes 5 minutes to begin revising

her draft. Author tries to work one or two suggestions offered by the Feedback Providers into her scene.

Tips for Active Listening Author: As you read, listen to your language, the rhythm in your sentences, word choice, and punctuation. During Step 2, listen and take notes; do not speak. Resist the urge to explain your intentions; you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions in Step 3. Before you revise your piece, think about the following questions:

• Did the Feedback Provider respond to your piece in the way you intended? Any surprises?

• Moving forward, how might you change or expand upon your piece to ensure that the reader best understands where you are coming from – and what you are trying to say?

Feedback Providers: Listen carefully and take notes on the following page as the author reads. Keep the following questions in mind as you listen:

• What key details stand out for you? Why are these particularly vivid? • Do you get the “big picture” of the essay? Can you describe in one sentence the heart of

the piece? What is it about? • Are there concrete details? • Is there an image or dialogue that you liked? • Is there a “Before and After” structure or is there a moment of discovery shown in the

story? If not, how could one be included? Reflect back to the author what you heard in the draft in your own words. Your goal is to give the writer your sense of what she is trying to say.

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ACTIVE LISTENING WORKSHEET: FOR FEEDBACK PROVIDERS Use this Active Listening Worksheet to take notes while each Author from your small group reads her work.

Author #1, Name: What grabbed you as a listener? What was unclear in the piece? What did you want to hear more of? Notes: Author #2, Name: What grabbed you as a listener? What was unclear in the piece? What did you want to hear more of? Notes: Author #3, Name: What grabbed you as a listener? What was unclear in the piece? What did you want to hear more of? Notes:

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ACTIVE LISTENING WORKSHEET: FOR AUTHORS Use this Active Listening Worksheet to take notes while each Feedback Provider from your small group critiques your work. Feedback Provider #1, Name: Write down a critique or compliment she gave that stuck with you. Notes: Feedback Provider #2, Name: Write down a critique or compliment she gave that stuck with you. Notes: Feedback Provider #3, Name: Write down a critique or compliment she gave that stuck with you. Notes:

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CLOSING LINES: MY FAVORITE PART Think about where you want to take your memoir from here. Write down 1-2 sentences describing another scene in your life or another character you want to explore. Or, take a minute to read through your writing from today and let yourself be proud of the work you have accomplished! Put a star next to a phrase or sentence that you are particularly happy with.

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EXERCISES FOR PAIR SESSIONS Share your responses in your portfolio online at girlswritenow.org! 1. Write a six-word memoir. Examples: “I’m sick of these power outages;” “Early bird who’s a bit cuckoo.” Publish it on www.smithmag.net/sixwords/. Then expand on your mini-memoir by giving it a setting and context, and fleshing it out with detail and examples.

2. Write a brief memoir structured around the sentence: “Once I was ________; now, I am _______.” Example: “Once I was a mellow chick from the Caribbean; now I’m as frenetic as any New Yorker.”

Write as many sentences as you can in 5-10 minutes. Share them with your mentor/mentee and explore the reasons they came to mind.

3. Choose one sentence from your responses to question 2 and use it to write an essay. Begin with a “once” section, and end with the “now.”

4. Who—or what—has had the most influence on you, and made you who you are today? Write about that person, place, thing or event in some detail, and explain her/his/its significance to your life. What about this influence shaped you?

5. If you were writing a memoir, who would the most important characters be, besides you? Why? What role does, or did, each of them play in your life?

6. Go digital with your memoir. Write the next scene of your Freewrite, and type it into your GWN online portfolio. Comment on at least two other peer’s pieces.

Don’t forget to share your responses in your portfolio online at girlswritenow.org!

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APPENDIX: GENRE TERMS "A memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked." – Gore Vidal "An interesting life doesn't make an interesting memoir. Only small pieces of life make an interesting memoir." – William Zinsser Allusion: an implicit reference within a text or work of art to another text, work of art, person or event from outside the frame of the original narrative. Apostrophe: an address to a person (living or dead), place or thing which is absent but treated as though present and capable of understanding and responding. Audience: your intended readership; the people you seek to address by your writing. Autobiography: a biography of a person written by that person. Biography: a (usually historical) account of a person’s life. Blog: (weblog, abbreviated) can be 1) a type of frequently-updated website offering commentary, personal diary-like entries, advertising, or descriptions/reviews of places, events, experiences; or 2) the process by which one updates their site (e.g, “I’m going to blog”). Blogs began as extremely textual but have evolved to contain multimedia; they continue to be interactive, with comments from readers or other interactive components (e.g., polls) and incorporating links to other sites. Character: although characters in a memoir are real people, in this form they become protagonists in a story. They come to life through how they think, talk, feel and act in particular situations. Closure: the sense that all of the major components of a story have been resolved; may provide a sense of fulfillment or annoyance to the reader. Composite character: a character composed of two or more actual individuals, usually developed to protect privacy or to simplify the narrative. Compressed timeline: depicting true events that happened at different times in a timeline more convenient to the story-telling process. Confessional: a piece of writing that discloses particular sins or faults of the writer. Confessional style: a story told in the manner of disclosing a shortcoming or fault of one’s own. Conflict: “a clash of opposing wishes or needs,” or “an incompatibility between two or more opinions, principles, or interests” (Oxford English Dictionary); conflict often drives narrative and

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most often occurs between two or more characters, between a character and his or her external environment, or within the character’s own psyche. Desire Line: the “through line” of your memoir that guides the story describing what you (the character) want to achieve. The struggle to achieve the desire drives the book. (From Writer’s Digest) Dialogue: any phrase or passage that quotes a character’s words. External dialogue (use quotes) and Internal dialogue (no quotes). Emotional beats: shifts in emotion that are tied to the events you (the character) go through or the actions you take to describe what you go through to achieve your desired conclusion. Emotional distance: the state of keeping one’s feelings removed from a subject or moment. Epiphany (or revelation): a moment of insight or discovery (often sudden and directed towards the self), with spiritual connotations. First person perspective (vs. second and third person perspective): speaking and conveying thoughts and experiences from the point of view of an “I” (first person singular) or a “we” (first person plural). Memoirs are, by their very definition, written in the first person. Flashback: a scene that takes place in the past. Foreshadowing: presenting events and information in the narrative in a manner that hints at or prepares the reader for something that will come up later in the story. Imagery (tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory): “the use of language to represent objects, actions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or extra-sensory experience” (Penguin Reference Book of Literary Terms). Tactile imagery conveys experiences of touch; visual imagery conveys experiences of sight; auditory imagery conveys experiences of sound; olfactory imagery conveys experiences of smell; and gustatory imagery conveys experiences of taste. Libel: a written false claim about a person that portrays that person in a negative manner. Melodrama: actions or feelings that seem out of proportion to the circumstances; also a literary genre. Memoir: a written account of one's memory of certain events or people, usually depicting a specific segment of a life, rather than the entire scope, from birth to death, like autobiography. Also unlike an autobiography, which is a chronological retelling of an entire life, a memoir has a theme. It typically deals with a section of a life. Memoir is characterized more by telling emotional truths than recording important events and facts.

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Metaphor: a description of one thing in terms of another; e.g. the turtle thrust his beaked face out from the safety of his little round house (here the turtle’s shell is being described as a house). Misery memoir: a memoir that focuses on a tragedy in the author's life, such as illness, death in the family, etc. (chiefly British) Mood: in literature or art, the atmosphere or state of feeling that a work portrays or evokes. Nostalgia: “a yearning for a different time” (Svetlana Boym). Pivotal event: a vitally important occurrence that has a major role within, or function or effect on the story. Plot: A memoir emulates fiction by pivoting around a significant dramatic event or occurrence, a turning point in a life. Reflection: mental concentration; careful consideration; a thought or an opinion resulting from such consideration. Relational style: a conversational manner of expressing thought in language. Self-reflection: the thoughtful examination of one’s actions and mindset. Sensory detail: a description highlighting a feeling gleaned from one of the five senses – sight, taste, touch, smell, or sound. Setting: the geographic area and atmosphere in which a plot takes place, in addition to the time of day, season, and social environment. Simile: a figure of speech in which one thing is explicitly compared to another, typically using “like” or “as.” Generally used to enhance, clarify, or complicate an image. Sketch/snapshot: a rough short literary composition of a single event. Slander: spoken defamation (as opposed to libel, written defamation). Speculation: contemplation or consideration of a subject; meditation; A conclusion, opinion, or theory reached by conjecture; Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence; conjecture or supposition. Stream of consciousness: a style of writing that is meant to mimic the unedited free-flowing form of the writer’s thoughts. Synesthesia: the phenomenon of experiencing one sense in terms of another (e.g. I savored the rich taste of buttery sunshine on my pale skin.)

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Theme: the main idea (topic, subject, or concept) of a text, expressed directly or indirectly. Memoirs generally fall into specific categories, such as adversity, career, coming of age, relationship, travel. Tone: the emotional quality of a literary work itself as well as the author’s attitude towards it. Vignette: a short descriptive literary sketch. Voice: a writer’s distinctive tone or style.

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RECOMMENDED READING Memoirs Infidel, Ayaan Hirsi Ali How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Julia Alvarez I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou My Mother’s Ghost, Fergus Bordewich Anything Your Little Heart Desires, Patricia Bosworth Happy Birthday or Whatever, Annie Choi The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros Brother I’m Dying, Edwidge Danticat A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston The Color of Water, James McBride Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt The Habit, Susan Morse Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama The Net of Dreams, Julie Salamon Lucky, Alice Sebold Blown Sideways Through Life, Claudia Shear Wild, Cheryl Strayed Writing Resources Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir, Natalie Goldberg The Power of Memoir: How to Write Your Healing Story, Linda Joy Myers Writing About Your Life, William Zinsser Writing & Selling Your Memoir: How to Craft Your Life Story So That Somebody Else Will Actually Want to Read It, Paula Balzer Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art, Judith Barrett Your Life as Story, Tristine Rainer Websites Author Sara Lippmann’s Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood: http://mrbellersneighborhood.com/2012/10/crust-mantle-core “How to Write a Memoir” by William Zinsser http://theamericanscholar.org/how-to-write-a-memoir/ Memoirist Dani Shapiro’s website, author of Slow Motion and Devotion: www.danishapiro.com/ Memoir Journal: http://www.memoirjournal.net Six Word Memoir: http://www.smithteens.com/ Women’s Memoirs: http://womensmemoirs.com/