Clik here to view.
Poetry and Art–Early Memoir Snapshots
To write a memoir is to embark on a long journey of the imagination and of memory. My path of gathering memories, images, and stories was first through autobiographical art–painting, collage, etching,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Journey of Memoir Excerpt — The Three Stages of Memoir Writing
The Three Stages of Memoir Writing Through teaching memoir writing over two decades, and from writing my own books, I have found that there are several stages that writers go through as they write...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Power of Writing to Heal — Excerpt from The Power of Memoir
Forgiveness means letting go of the past. –Gerald Jampolsky For as long as I can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tracks to My Heart — Excerpt from Don’t Call Me Mother
The train bisects the blue and the green, parting wheat fields by the tracks. Mommy and I rub shoulders, sitting in the last car, watching the landscape move backward, as if erasing my childhood,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mother–on Mother’s Day
I look at this photo of my mother, age 30, as I lay somewhat untethered in her lap. It’s before everything happens, before my father leaves her, before she leaves me. It’s the beginning of our story....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Music Man
The day in 4th grade begins as usual: the pledge of allegiance, the Lord’s Prayer, a round of spelling. Melodious music wafts into the room. Then a tall, willowy man enters, bright red hair tumbling...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Fathers We Adopt | The Music Man
It’s an old story really, the girl who’s missing a father. Either he’s dead, or drunk, or doesn’t care. Or perhaps the parents are divorced and he’s gone or banished. Perhaps he’s an angry man, or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Letters from My Mother—A Mother’s Day Story
If you read my first memoir Don’t Call Me Mother, you learned about the fragmented mother and daughter relationships in my family. My great-grandmother Blanche told me that my mother had been left...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Through New Eyes: Writing a Second Memoir–Finding the Heart of My Mothers
Yes, I say mothers, plural because my mother’s mother raised me after I was six, and I saw my mother once a year as I grew up. In my first memoir, Don’t Call Me Mother, my mother, grandmother, and all...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tracks to My Heart
This is the first chapter of my memoir Don’t Call Me Mother–A Daughter’s Journey from Abandonment to Forgiveness. This story begins to explore a three generational pattern of mothers leaving...
View Article