Linda Joy Myers, Ph.D., author of Don’t Call Me Mother & Becoming Whole: Writing Your Healing Story, has been a therapist in Berkeley for over twenty-seven years. Dr. Myers combines her background in art, clinical work, and writing (she received her MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College) to offer unique memoir workshops and trainings in the Bay Area and nationally. She is former president of the California Writers Club, Marin branch, and is now on the board of Story Circle Network.

     Myers is an award-winning fiction, poetry, and non-fiction writer, her first book Becoming Whole: Writing Your Healing Story has received many accolades and was featured on the Marin Bestseller's list in 2003. Excerpts from her memoir Don’t Call Me Mother has won several prizes, including first prize at the Jack London Writing Contest and ranked in the top five percent winners of the annual Writers Digest Writing Contest.

     In 2006, Don’t Call Me Mother  won the Gold Medal Award through the Bay Area Independent Publishing Association.

    Linda’s autobiographical work began with paintings and collages of old family photos, trying to discover and uncover the history of her family, the separation from her mother and father early in her life and the sense of loss. After that, Linda wrote autobiographical poems, capturing moments of meaning in childhood with her great-grandmother Blanche on a farm in Iowa, moments of her mother coming and going on the train, and the way that music, piano and cello and symphony, created belonging and healing. Through working with those media, she realized that she needed to write what was beyond the images of photos and paintings and in between the lines of the poetry.

     A prose work would demand that she confront the full story of her mother’s abandonment and her mother’s own history of being abandoned. Prose demanded structure and wove all the lost pieces of her life and her memory together. Linda’s memoir took nearly a decade to write, because during that decade she was researching the family history and still living through some of the legacies of the past, as many memoir writers do.

     Because of her own journey through memoir writing, Linda appreciates the struggles and challenges that other writers face, and offers ideas and feedback to writers who are on the same path.

  
Linda’s Complete Bio (pdf)

Linda’s Philosophy About Memoir Writing

     Writing a memoir is an act of faith and of learning. We know that people who tell a personal story may feel exposed and vulnerable. In this process, the writer investigates the Self, personal history, and even the family.

     Many people who write memoir are searching for memories, hoping to validate their experience in order to move forward in their lives. Writers often worry about the validity of their memories. A memoir is not a factual recitation of history, though history is part of the story; it is a recollection, a musing and merging of images, dreams, reflections about your life and the lives of others who have crossed your path in your life’s journey.

     A memoir is an exploration of a part of your life–a complete life story is referred to as an “autobiography.” Both a memoir and an autobiography is a story written by the protagonist, through the point of view of the “I” of the story.

     Writing a memoir is an act of faith–faith in yourself and faith in the process of writing. But the most important ingredient in writing a memoir is motivation–a passionate reason to get the story on the page, a “fire in the belly” feeling that what you have to tell is important and significant. You may want to create a family legacy, to share your personal views about the times you have lived through, or to create a healing story that allows you to move forward in your life.

     Dr. James Pennebaker, one of the researchers about writing as healing, says that stories are a “kind of knowledge,” a new kind of knowledge that develops as you tell your story. The story itself guides you on your path, you find yourself in a sometimes surprising process. Most writers struggle to retain “control” of the story, but find it difficult to stick with the original plan because the creative juices start flowing and invite the writer to follow new paths. It is important to stay open to the process of writing. Take any deeper material that arises to your journal or therapist.

     I enjoy all the stories that I hear and read. I always learn from these stories. They inspire me to keep writing and teaching, they show me the uniqueness of each person. I find such joy in becoming acquainted with a new writer and story, aware that each story and person has a view of life and of healing and change that is different from anyone else’s.

~Pick up your pen.

~Listen to your stories.

~Listen to your inner wisdom.

~Write for ten minutes every day.

~Write without censoring.

~Capture what you know and feel. Paint your memories in words.