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Exploring the past Writing a memoir is like opening a window into your life. It can also help clear the fog on windows of the past. Writing my own story in my memoir Nothing Like Normal  (published by Black Opal Press on November 14) caused me to wonder about the tales of my parents and ancestors and what they could tell me about my own life. My maternal line While my father’s genealogy had been thoroughly researched by his brother and sister, I knew there was very little recorded about my maternal family line and actual history. This changed when I (more…)
This post is part of the “Beyond Writing Prompts” series to help you to access memories that may not have made it to your Memory List. Walking through the nearby Bates College campus recently, I walked towards five young women who were heading in the direction of the college dining hall. I could imagine them having gathered each other in a dormitory hallway for the hike to the cafeteria. “Hey you want to go out for supper with us?” “It’s time to go eat!” “Why don’t we go to the dining hall together?” With this seeming sense of friendship and (more…)
DL: In this excerpt, Martha demonstrates the ambivalence of her relationship with her mother. On the one hand, she charges her with not being a good mother, and on the other hand, she praises her for her mothering skills. ___ Although I loved being at the house on the hill, I was sometimes lonely for other children to play with. As there were no neighbors at the house’s level, the isolation was real. One day, perhaps remembering my friends in Worcester and my birthday party with Gordie and Louise and Billy, I demanded that my mother find me a playmate. (more…)
My book, Raising My Family Around the World ~ The Adventures of a CIA Wife and Mom in Stories, Snapshots and Letters, was self-published in the summer of 2015. Two hundred and thirteen pages and two hundred and thirteen photographs make up my hard-bound book. This was actually a surprising coincidence and not planned! Several months later, I did a re-print—this time in paperback, a much cheaper alternative than the costly, but beautiful, hard-bound version. I gave the hard-bound copies to family members. I am selling the paperback copies and doing well with this effort. My intention in writing my story is (more…)
DL— This is an excerpt from A Sugary Frosting, memoir of Martha Blowen, my lifemate and business partner who died in 2008 of metastatic intraductal breast cancer. The previous posts covered Martha’s life in Worcester where she was born. While I believe my father did well as minister in Hadwin Park, he was by nature a small-town minister. Coming from the working class, he was familiar  and comfortable with working men and women. Or, I might say, he was comfortable being the educated man among uneducated people. His talent was working in a small, self-contained communities. Worcester is the second (more…)
People are driven to express themselves. Each of us has a story and an urge to tell it. In my estimation no other medium is as effective in revealing the self as the irreplaceable memoir. Below are thoughts of various media for self-expression. Flash Memoir In a world of texting and Twitter, the urge to self-express is constricted but still vibrant. A new ‘literary genre’ called Flash Memoir has emerged: storytelling within the confines of six words. (It’s close relative is  Flash Fiction!) The most famous of these Flash Writings is “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” Attributed to Mr. (more…)
Life in a parsonage for my family was a 1950’s middle-class existence. It is what I believe my father was striving for when he worked those years in Enfield, CT, after high school and before Bates College, those years at Bates working at the telephone switchboard at Central Maine General Hospital, serving as kitchen and dining room help at President Clifton Daggett Gray’s house in exchange for board and a room on the third floor. Neither my father nor my mother were materialistic people and they did not see their educations, I believe, as passports to more “things.” For them, (more…)
Today would have been my parents’ wedding anniversary. They are both gone now—my mother having passed on May 5th of 2015. I included a eulogy in a previous blog post. Theirs was a 1940s Franco-American wedding. For this post, I am providing you with a link to the blog archives where I My mother’s book has found its audience. have posted many excerpted stories from her book We Were Not Spoiled, which I wrote with her and published in November of 2013. A hard copy of the book is available on Amazon.com (more…)
There are many free books, MP3s, and PDFs in our My Memoir Education area for you to enjoy. If you have not been to the downloads section lately, check it out. Here are a couple available to you at no charge. 1. First FreeMemoir Writing 101 : 10 Steps to Crafting a Compelling Memoir This book’s ten action steps can help you write a memoir or improve the one you are working on. While this is a basic text, we believe it can correct any memoir writing course and get you to a finished product more quickly. Easy but very (more…)
MarthaGW

Memoir Leads to Exploring the Past

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Writing a memoir is like opening a window into your life. It can also help clear the fog on windows of the past. Writing my own story in my memoir Nothing Like Normal (to be published by Black Opal Press November 14) caused me to wonder about the tales of my parents and ancestors and […]

living_with_a_cell_phone_01

Cell phones: A fine way to avoid intimacy

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This post is part of the “Beyond Writing Prompts” series to help you to access memories that may not have made it to your Memory List. Walking through the nearby Bates College campus recently, I walked towards five young women who were heading in the direction of the college dining hall. I could imagine them […]

the memoir writing process

My Good Mother Organizes a Kindergarten for Me

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DL: In this excerpt, Martha demonstrates the ambivalence of her relationship with her mother. On the one hand, she charges her with not being a good mother, and on the other hand, she praises her for her mothering skills. ___ Although I loved being at the house on the hill, I was sometimes lonely for […]

Martha and Gordie, 1956?

We Move to Athol

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While I believe my father did well as minister in Hadwin Park, he was by nature a small-town minister. Coming from the working class, he was familiar and comfortable with working men and women. Or, I might say, he was comfortable being the educated man among uneducated people. His talent was working in a small, […]

adams

The Irreplaceable Memoir

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People are driven to express themselves. Each of us has a story and an urge to tell it. No other style is as effective as the irreplaceable memoir. (more…)

truth in memoir

Can Life Get Better in the Parsonage?

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Life in Worcester for my family was a 1950’s middle-class existence. It is what I believe my father was striving for when he worked those years in Enfield, CT, after high school and before Bates, those years at Bates working at the telephone switchboard at Central Maine General Hospital, serving as kitchen and dining room […]

Franco-American wedding

71 years ago today…

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Today would have been my parents’ wedding anniversary. They are both gone now—my mother having passed on May 5th of 2015. I included a eulogy in a previous blog post. Theirs was a 1940s Franco-American wedding. For this post, I am providing you with a link to the blog archives where I have posted many […]