Book Launch Tips: Business Boy to Business Man, by Robert Verreault
The book launch party was a lovely experience—one that brought to those of us who were involved in creating the book a strong sense of (forgive the overused term!) closure. Writing a memoir is a long haul and it is refreshing to have an event as one might a wedding or a funeral to gather […]
Preparing for A Successful Book Launch
I’m finished writing the text for my next book, A Sugary Frosting/A Memoir of A Girlhood Spent in a Parsonage. What follows is a synopsis of what I am doing to promote the book so that its natural audience is aware of it.
Franco-American History and The Lachine Massacre
In the evening of August 4, 1689, the night of the Lachine massacre, a violent rainstorm hovered above the Saint Lawrence and the Island of Montréal. Lightning flashed repeatedly across the sky and deafening thunder resounded above the seventy-seven houses of the community of Lachine. As the Canadiens slept in their isolated farms, fifteen hundred […]
You Need Formal Research
Interviewing family members and friends is clearly a form of research, but interviews alone are usually not enough to give your stories the depth they require. For that, you need formal research.
5 Steps to Gathering Stories at Family Events
Gathering stories at family events—interviewing—is one of these basic steps you can master for writing your memoir. Following these basic steps, anyone can succeed at writing interesting and meaningful memoirs. People love to tell their stories…
Writing About Family Stories You Don’t Agree With
How do you write about family stories whose interpretation you don’t agree with? We may all have family stories that we feel are wrongly told. When you distort your insights in order not to contradict other people’s take on your story—to “make nice,” your readers will sense that something is wrong.
Mine Your Family Stories
There is a rich lode of stories that you can tap into quickly both for their historical content and for what they tell you about how members of your family wanted their young to be. These are “family stories.”
Retiring to Memoir Writing: Justine Powell Kuntz
Eight years ago as a retirement project for church, I introduced memoir writing…
My Son Denis Is Born
My second pregnancy was also easy enough. This time Albert was with me, and he and I could live it together. My mother had had most of her babies at home, but by the mid-1940s, women were…