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My New Book is Published!
100 Years in the Life of an American Girl True Stories 1910 – 2010 I love this book! It’s an important testimony to the lived history of decades of young girls. Informative, fun and illuminating!...
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Revising: See With New Eyes
If you were in a nice restaurant and were served a too-salty soup, would you recommend the soup — or the restaurant — to anyone? It’s the same with writing. If you want people to read what you write...
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Readying for Release
Recently, I finished preparing the over-fifty first-person tales of life through a century for “100 Years in the Life of An American Girl.” There are five or six stories in each decade/chapter and...
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Writing “Just for Family”?
This topic has been on my mind for — well, almost twenty years. When I started teaching memoir back in 1996, twenty-two people circled a big table at the local junior college. Stories so ready to tell...
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Meet the Author: 100 Years in the Life of an American Girl • True Stories...
Are you in the Bay Area on Saturday March 14, 1:30 – 3:30? If so, please drop by the Petaluma Copperfield’s Bookstore, a Meet & Greet where I’ll have a table near the entrance and I’ll be saying...
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100 Years in the Life Goes Digital!
100 Years in the Life of an American Girl is available on Kindle now and on 14 e-readers by early April 2015. It’s the fascinating story of a century through the eyes of American girls under age 13 in...
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Memoir Writing Is Beautiful, Hard Work
The Photo That Hangs On My Office Wall Have you heard the Zen saying: Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water? Replace “Before enlightenment” with “To...
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What Do You Know?
Credit: Jon Klein Recently, a woman I know received a surprise in the mail. A relative of nearly 90 years old had sent a photograph she’d never seen before. It was an old black and white family photo...
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Naming Names: Truth in Memoir
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Shakespeare shot Cupid’s bow many a time with the ageless romance of those lines, and he makes a good point:...
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An Inspirational Day with Elizabeth Gilbert
I recently had the outrageous pleasure of spending the day with best-selling author Elizabeth (“Liz”) Gilbert at a resort hotel in Napa. Okay, so it wasn’t just the two of us (!), there were about 300...
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The “Stay-Treat”
I’m dreaming of a writing retreat, peace and quiet, freedom to write without interruption. Retreat time is writer’s gold. No distractions. But where to go? After weeks away from my book to raise funds...
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Make Your “Fertile 50” List
It’s springtime in Texas, when the bluebonnets are in bloom and women from around the country come together for a conference in Austin to learn more about lifewriting. It’s the “Stories from the...
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The Spirit of the Times
Everyday pleasures. My neon green transistor radio. The stack of ’45s I played on my turntable—the Temptations, the Jackson 5. Monday nights watching Laugh-In. Bazooka Bubble Gum. Astro Pops. Fizzies....
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Be Inspired, Not Intimidated
You keep hearing about that amazing memoir everyone’s reading, that book at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for months now, but you really don’t want to read it. Best-selling memoirs can...
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Get Help on the Memoir Writing Journey
Lewis Vaughn, an author, philosopher and critical thinker whose specialty is bioethics (the ethics of medical and biological research), needed help. After publishing more than twenty nonfiction books,...
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Easy Ways to Enliven Your Writing
You’re at the movies and the lights dim. A camera pans a cityscape. This is called a long shot. There’s no action but you get a sense of a location. Next, the camera moves in, focusing on something...
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Being a Ghostwriter
A ghostwriter gets to walk in a lot of different people’s shoes. It’s like being an actor. I’ve been a professional singer, a scientist, a philosopher and theologian—and the list goes on. As a...
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A Writer’s “Stay-Treat”
I’m dreaming of a writing retreat, peace and quiet, freedom to write without interruption. Retreat time is writer’s gold. No distractions. But where to go? “Go home!” some might say. “You live in a...
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Easy As 1-2-3
What’s new? Whatever is new in your life makes a great writing topic. It’s where the energy is. Even if you’re already working on something else, try this: 1. Make a list of what’s new in your life...
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Rejections That Didn’t Matter
Dr. Suess The stories of famous authors being rejected before their rise — and sometimes to legendary status — are so eye-opening I have to share two lists with you. This first list tells you not only...
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