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By teaching memoir workshops, you are placing yourself at the forefront of an emerging profession dedicated to helping people to write their lifestories.

Teaching memoir workshops is so popular today because transmitting personal and family stories reaches deep into our collective human experience, national cultures, and our personal spheres of life choices. Memoirs corroborate and celebrate the value of life in all its diversity and multiple expressions.

It seems everyone is writing memoirs today—you don’t have to be a pope or a politician; it’s the lady down the street, the former CEOs, the retired teachers, the housewives, and the guy who wants his grandchildren to know who he was and what he did. Clearly, our collective cultural life is the richer for the telling—and preserving—of these stories.

In this teaching memoir workshops category, we have provided you links to articles that will help you to become a better memoir teacher so that you can address the needs of a growing clientele. It will take some time and some effort on your part to become a better teacher but the rewards will also be great.

Eventually you will find yourself thinking, as I have so many times over the years, “Imagine—I’m having this wonderful experience and I’m earning good money doing it!”

This joy teaching memoir writing will be the gift that your lifewriting students will bring into your life in exchange for what you have brought into theirs. What you will receive is a more than fair exchange for what you will give!

Your experience in teaching memoir workshops will, I hope, be as rewarding as mine has been.

For more information on how to best prepare yourself to be a great Memoir Professional, click here.

teach memoir workshops

My Love Story with Memoir Writing: How I Started to Teach Memoir Workshops

In October of 1988, following upon the publication of my book of short stories, What Became of Them and Other Stories from Franco America, I was asked to read from this collection of autobiographical fiction to a group of foster grandparents. It was to prove how I started to teach memoir workshops.

It seemed good marketing to present to another group of people—potential book buyers. The reading would also give me an opportunity to send in a release to the local newspaper.

I accepted the invitation, but not without some hesitation. Might this group be too small?

Mary, the woman who coordinated the meeting, had told me however that, after my book program, she was confident many people in the room—Franco-Americans themselves— would want to hear the stories and share theirs. At that time, I had no mind to teach a memoir workshop.

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leading a conference workshop

Leading a Conference Workshop as a Guest Presenter

Participating in writing conferences, either as a panelist, lecturer, or as a workshop leader is a great way to get your name and book out in public and to network with other writers like you—especially when you are leading a conference workshop.

Being a presenter comes with tasks, but the challenge is not impossible. I’d like to offer you some  guidelines to help you be as successful as you can be to:

  • Respond to a presenters’ request for proposal,
  • Adhere to a list of conference presenter’s guidelines, and
  • Develop a workshop that keeps the promises you proposed – in the specified allotted time.<!–more–>

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launching memoir teaching

Launching Your Memoir Teaching – 6 Steps To More Success

Many memoir writers secretly, or not so secretly, want to help other people to write their memoirs. Sometimes they do this informally with a friend or two, and at other times, they get a bit more organized and offer a class at a library or other institution. One thing is certain, launching your memoir teaching will take some attention.

I have taught workshops for decades and can attest to the deep satisfaction I have derived from working with writers. I have formed friendships that have lasted these many years.

If you would like to offer a memoir class here are a few tips to do so more successfully. They are garnered from sound business practices, but don’t worry as they are easy for anyone to implement.

(I have written about the curriculum elsewhere.)

1. Reconnect with people who told you they want to be in a workshop within a few days of having first spoken to them.

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Teaching Memoir Writing

Teaching Memoir Writing – 3 Tips For Making Your Vision Real

Writing a vision statement about teaching memoir writing can be stimulating for you as a Memoir Professional. Your memoir writing company’s vision statement is a personal reminder you make to yourself about how the work you are planning will sustain you emotionally and make you into a better person. A vision statement is usually about the person writing it. (The mission statement, on the other hand, is about what you will give to the public.)

Here are some ideas for writing a great vision statement. (No venture should be without one!)

1. In your vision statement, your eros needs to be written large.

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