Memoir Network Coaching Client Ingrid Littmann-Tai Writes of The Emperor’s New Clothes I congratulate a writer I have been coaching, Ingrid Littmann-Tai, as she has had one of her stories published in The Globe and Mail. Enjoy her story of an outing with her children in Paris. At the Theatre, We Discovered the Emperor’s New Clothes “This is boring, maman,” my 11-year-old daughter said 15 minutes into the play. On my other side, my eight-year-old was already yawning, her little head leaning against my shoulder, eyelids slowly closing. In this production of The Emperor’s New Clothes there was no dialogue and (more…)

From We Were Not Spoiled, the memoir of Lucille Verreault Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. While my parents were immigrants to the US, they had not really come to be immigrants. My father’s health had been affected by the tiny, deadly filaments called asbestos dust in his hometown of Thetford Mines, Québec. Thetford was an important mining town—that’s how it got the “Mines” in its name—and beneath its streets were many tunnels into which men went down night and day to bring the asbestos filaments up to the ground surface. This process produced a lot of slag, and that slag was (more…)

It was the summer the city burned. The weather was dry and hot, but the real tinder was a mixture of frustration and anger, white and black, promises and demands. It was not a day when I though the sparks of young love would ignite. If I paused to consider these things, the pause was imperceptible. I stood at the edge of the pool contemplating whether to jump or dive, and finally, with one motion, I flung my body into an arc and parted the water with my outstretched hands. The water, bubbling from a nearby spring, was cold, shockingly (more…)

Lucille Verreault Ledoux From We Were n Not Spoiled / A Franco-American Memoir the life of Lucille Verreault Ledoux as told to Denis Ledoux. The Importance of education was not always accepted. As I was finishing my sophomore year in June of 1937, Robert was graduating from Holy Family School. As when I graduated, my parents did nothing special to mark the occasion. Unlike me, he had never liked school and had often been made to stay after classes were over for the day either to do extra school work or to be disciplined. That summer, he got a job (more…)

Making consistent use of your marketing pipeline has to be a paramount focus if you are to succeed as a memoir professional. When people contact you as a result of your general outreach, they enter your pipeline. Some people who enter your pipeline only want general info while others are ready to hire help for their memoir project. In a nutshell, these are your suspects and prospects. Suspects are far from ready to buy. Let’s look at three different sorts of suspects. Some suspects come to you wanting information about the feasibility of a memoir project and about you as (more…)

In this grandmother story, I look back on the life of my mother’s mother.

“Look at this,” my grandmother said. “Not a tooth broken.”

We kids looked at the comb. We were not impressed. This grandmother story had to offer more!

“I made this when I was 8 years old.”

I looked again. Now I was impressed. I was 8 years old, and I had no idea how to make a comb. This one was big, maybe eight inches long, thick and creamy white. Indeed, not a tooth was broken. It looked nothing like the flimsy black plastic one my father carried in his pocket. My grandmother kept this one in the top drawer of her dresser with her small assortment of jewelry. This grandmother story impressed me for sure. (more…)

The usual person gets four natural grandparents. Naturally, I got five. Or six. And for this Depression story, they were all in one body.

Both of my father’s parents passed away before I was born, victims of his absence during World War II as he fought the Germans on their own soil. My mother’s father died when I was six months old, a coincidence I believe, or so I have been told. (more…)

“Branding”—isn’t that about steers? Or Coca-Cola and Nike? What’s that got to do with the home-based lifewriting practitioner? Do I really need to be concerned with mega-corporate buzzwords like “branding”? In a word, yes. Why? Because if you are making a public presence for your work, your brand is being made whether you are aware of it or not. Wouldn’t you rather be in control than leave it to chance? Essentially, your brand is your reputation—but more. Branding is not important at all in the teaching of an excellent workshop. In fact, branding has nothing to do with the excellence (more…)

Taken from my mother’s memoir, We Were Not Spoiled, this excerpt is a memoir of relatives and the hardships they endured. (The numbers refer to footnotes below.) Ma Tante Emilia Verrault Lessard and Mon Oncle Louis Lessard[1] both worked and, since they had no children to spend their earnings on, they had more disposable income than my parents. They would drive up from New Auburn in a little Ford that had a square back, but it had no rumble seat[2]. Since my family did not have a car, having them show up in their Ford was special to us. Emilia (more…)

Emperor’s New Clothes: Memoir Network Coaching Client Gets Published

By Ingrid Littman-Tai

“This is boring, maman,” my 11-year-old daughter said 15 minutes into the play. On my other side, my eight-year-old was already yawning, her little head leaning against my shoulder, eyelids slowly closing… (more…)

The Story of Why My Parents Came Down

By Denis Ledoux

While my parents were immigrants to the US, they had not really come to be immigrants. My father’s health had been affected by the tiny, deadly filaments called asbestos dust in his hometown… (more…)

Lightning or When Young Love Strikes

By Christine Terp Madsen

It was the summer the city burned. The weather was dry and hot, but the real tinder was a mixture of frustration and anger, white and black, promises and demands. If I paused to consider these things, the pause was imperceptible. I stood at the edge of the pool contemplating… (more…)