Event Description
Seminar
Writing Captivating Memoirs: Tips & Tools
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Thinking about writing the stories of your life? Wondering where to start? Or have you started but feel unclear about how to organize your writing? Looking for ideas to make your tales a better read? Are you a published author looking for help writing in memoir form?
In this workshop, we will be using specially designed techniques that help enliven and enrich books of memoir, and tools to sharpen your writing and organization skills. We’ll get you started, and you’ll find you won’t want to stop. Or we’ll help you move to the next level of your work in progress.
Please bring a brief sample (one-three pages) from what you have written, for review. If you have not yet begun, that’s perfectly fine.
We’ll be writing one to two short pieces, sharing them with the workshop leader and others in the class, giving you feedback on various aspects of memoir writing, including:
- Tips on writing a memoir that even folks who are not your mother, or your kids, will savor
- Detail derail: how much is too much, too little?
- Themes and Structure: considering a variety of ways to hook your stories together to draw readers in
- Dialog: adding life and spice to your stories
- Character: ways to give dimension to the people in your life, by showing, not telling your reader about them
Our presenter:
INA HILLEBRANDT is a writer, speaker, writing coach, and editor/publisher specializing in memoir. She also works with fiction, to help both new and published authors create books of their life stories — or flights of fancy — with flair, and fun. Her work includes taking the written word onstage, and she is involved in developing film and TV projects, her own and students’. Ina’s experience includes 20+ years as a creative and communications consultant for Fortune 500 companies, and 10+ years writing/coaching clients and members of the public from a variety of countries and backgrounds. Books Ina’s written include “How to Write Your Memoirs…Fun Prompts to Make Writing…and Reading …Your Life Stories a Pleasure!” The follow-up to “How To Write Your Memoirs,” the Toolbox Edition, will be out by spring 2013. Her first book, “Pawprints,” the book of close encounters of the furry kind, became an Amazon.com best seller, led to the Pawprints Literacy Plus™ program, and a curriculum guide for educators, “Pawprints-The Student Prints,” revised and reissued December 2012. Books Ina has helped others develop and publish include the “Stories From The Heart” series, the second volume dubbed a top seller by Amazon.com; “Wine, Women, Whispers” by Alon Mintz; “Of Politics, Ladies and Bagels” by Gene Zahn, and other books of memoir and poetry.
Her website is InaTheMemoirCoach.com.