Local classes with Linda Joy Myers are centrally located for Bay Area writers who come from Marin, San Francisco, the Peninsula, and East Bay locations.

For more info about workshops and

classes call (510) 524-3898

or email Linda at:

linda@memoriesandmemoirs.com

Corte Madera ($195) | Register Now
Five Wednesdays, June 25, 2008 - July 23, 2008
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

Have you ever heard a small voice inside you saying “write the real truth...” but you were afraid to do it? Linda Joy Myers, a therapist and author of Becoming Whole: Writing Healing Stories guides you through the process of writing the important stories that shaped your life. She shows how to use a timeline to help structure the memoir. She shows techniques of story writing, including plot and character development, and she shows how to silence the inner critic and ease concerns about the reaction of family and friends.

Thursday Night Women's Circle

Summer workshop, June 12- July 31
6 meetings $305

Each week women of all ages and backgrounds meet to write and talk about motherhood, single dating, careers, romance, memories of family, and their spiritual quests. The writers use both poetry and prose to capture memories and to explore the richness of their lives. We write about important turning points--the lighter, humorous moments along with dark nights of the soul. There is laughter and a few tears, and most of all the witnessing of our stories, an important component of healing and moving into the future.

Women of any age are invited to participate in these workshops. You do not have to be "old&qu ot; to have a great deal of wisdom to share in writing the story of your life. Women of every age learn from each other's experiences in our groups; everyone inspires each other to keep writing more insightful and thoughtful true stories.

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Saturday Spiritual Autobiography and Memoir Circle

June 28- July 26
4 meetings, $205

10 AM - 1 PM

Berkeley, California

(Limited to 7 participants)

Have you ever said, "I need to write my story"? If not now, when? Memories and Memoirs offers a choice of memoir writing classes, workshops, and retreats to help you get started and keep going.

Memories carry deep personal meaning in our lives and for our sense of self. Through exploring them we discover our own unique stories to craft as memoir or fiction. Join our supportive classes to help zap your inner critic. We offer writing tools and exercises each week in class and encouraging, positive feedback. Write the stories you have been meaning to write, whether for your own development and healing or to leave as a legacy for others.

According to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Dr. James Pennebaker, writing stories heals body and mind. You can read more about these exciting studies in Dr. Myers' book Becoming Whole : Writing Your Healing Story, available at any bookstore and at www.Amazon.com.

Classes are geared to all levels of writers, and focus on your specific goals. Mining memories, healing trauma, and being witnessed are part of the healing process. In addition you will learn how writing scenes and using sensual details create an atmosphere of healing. The classes embrace a wide range of interests, from writing journal entries to writing a full length memoir.

Several of Linda's students have completed their memoirs and have won prizes. Memories and Memoirs focuses on the craft of writing. Class members write memoirs, personal stories, autobiographical fiction, and poetry. The work is shared in a respectful environment that offers support for both emotions and creativity. Class size is small, from four to eight people. Students are able to read their work during each class meeting.

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NEW! Write for Publication                                              

Wednesdays 6:45-8:45

2008 Dates To Be Announced Soon!   

$249

Berkeley, California

For more info call: 510-524-3898

linda@memoriesandmemoirs.com

Are you writing articles, essays, or poems you want to try out on an audience? Perhaps you are working on a chapter of your memoir or a fictional piece, and you need help to shape it for publication. This newly forming group will support you in your work. Each week there will be information about writing skills, publication resources, and information about how to get your work out into the world.

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Write Your Family Memoir                                                 To Register

8 Week Online Class                                                          

$287
Includes extra bonuses and phone coaching.

Sign up online and get started right away.
Contact Linda at linda@memoriesandmemoirs.com

Your story is unique, and you are the only one to tell it. It’s an important legacy for your family and a way to have the last word in your family story!

All family stories have joys and sorrow, coming together and moving apart, birth and death, and so many memories. Your past history is a treasury of historical times, places, and customs—towns, buildings, headlines, clothing, holidays, grandparents, cars, and school days. Falling in love, marriage, births of children, and new family traditions are all stories everyone wants to know more about.

In this course you will learn:

• How to use the timeline tool to discover and organize your stories
• How to write in your own natural style
• How to use scenes and dialogue to improve your story
• The importance of being a narrator, and using creative description to bring your stories to life

Each week:

• You will receive handouts of writing prompts
• Feedback on the stories you submit
• Extra articles, resources and links
• Information about how to complete, edit, and publish your memoir

Bonuses:

• Handouts about publishing resources
• 3 10-minute phone coaching sessions during the course
• Extra reports and articles about memoir writing

Sometimes there are several people in a course at one time, and other times you will receive the benefit of one-on-one coaching.  Feedback is designed to be supportive and keep you writing.

This course begins when you are ready.  Start now to create your special memoir.   Your family will love you for giving them a special gift.  You do not have to “be a writer” to write your memoir.

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Monthly Write Your Book Workshop 

Learn about editing, how to find an agent, and how to get your book published
Saturday afternoons monthly 2-5 PM

New class formin g in 2008. Contact Linda to talk about your project.

For more info call: 510-524-3898

linda@memoriesandmemoirs.com

Writing a book requires skill development and the ability to keep writing through the ups and downs of life. This workshop makes time for long readings, as much as 30 pages at a time each month to help you get feedback for large numbers of pages.  A synopsis, chapter titles, and overview are used to orient the new readers about where you are in the book during the first class. You will learn about plot, theme, scenes vs. narration, character development, grammar, and editing, and look at memoirs that are similar to your own for structure and marketing ideas. Writing a publishable memoir is the goal of the workshop.

To Enroll for East Bay Classes
Linda interviews each person seeking to join the memoir circles to help create the right fit for the student and the class.

If you are interested in attending the East Bay classes, please call
510-524-3898 or email linda@memoriesandmemoirs.com to let Linda know you are interested and to discuss your project and writing interests.

Take the plunge into your writing life. Join our supportive classes to help you travel beyond the critic voices. Invite yourself into freely writing small stories, poems, or vignettes and enjoying the process.

Each week you receive writing tips and encouraging feedback to keep you writing. Even if you want to write a book, you must begin with a sentence, a paragraph, an idea. Each page builds on the next until you have sketched out more stories than you ever imagined.

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Testimonials:

“This has been even more healing than therapy,” says one memoir workshop participant.

“Putting my story on the page has helped me see my past more objectively,” says another.

We all have a story. We have carried stories through the generational stream of our families, and now it is our time to write our story. There is no story like yours--it is time to leave your legacy of wisdom.

Everyone IS a story

Naomi Rachel Remen says, “Everyone IS a story.” What is yours?

The Memories and Memoirs method helps you through the steps of writing a memoir, from dreams and ideas to stories and vignettes, all the way to a book. Memories carry deep personal meaning for us. Through exploring them we discover our own unique stories. Story writing can be a deeply transformative process as well. Research has shown that stories can help to heal arthritis, asthma, and chronic fatigue syndrome, among other physical ailments. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1999 published studies by Dr. James Pennebaker, author of Opening Up, that researched story writing as a way to release pent up emotions and trauma.

Writing a story creates a structure to hold the chaos of feelings and events, and provides you the writer with a narrator-persona to tell the story. This narrator/character duality helps to heal by giving the writer an objective voice to tell the subjective story.

You do not have to identify with being a “writer” to write your story. You just have to have a story to write and the desire to write it.

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The Eight Steps to Writing A Memoir

1. Mining Your Memories; revisiting the corridors of past memories
2. Through Memoir Story Openers you will remember more than you could have imagined, stories that have meaning and resonance that demand to be written
3. The Memory Timeline and Lifelist gives you a structure and visual representation for your memories. You always know where you are going, and can always add new details as you remember more.
4. Linda’s Critic-Censor Keys unlock your words, give you permission to write, and free you to write abundantly.
5. Dark and Light Gateways help you decide if you are ready to write some of the more emotional stories—you choose when, or if, to write the traumatic, sad or “dark” stories, and when to write the happier, “light” stories. This way you are free to keep writing your way into full emotional expression.
6. Sacred Space Contract: This assures that you safeguard your writing from intruders, until or unless you are ready to share it. This is an agreement you make with yourself, but when you work with me, we make it explicit. It is part of feeling safe to write freely, abundantly, and with growing confidence in each new story.
7. Memoir Quilting Circle: When you are ready, you assemble the stories, like quilting blocks, into one document. Voila—you have the first draft of your memoir.
8. Witnessing as Healing: A powerful healing process through being witnessed by others as you write and share your stories.