Writing memoirs helps seniors understand their past
TIPS ON GETTING STARTED
- Look through family archives, such as heirlooms, handwritten letters, old photographs, the family silver. These items can stir up memories.
- Walk through antique shops. You might see a similar item you had as a child. There may be something there you remember from your grandmother's house.
- Take a whiff of flowers at a nursery. If your mother or grandmother had a rose garden, smelling the roses could bring back memories.
- Talk with other family members about their recollections of events or people. But don't tell them you are writing your memoirs because they will want to add their own stories.
Source: Beth Hermes, OLLI Memoir Writing instructor at Kennesaw State University’s College of Continuing and Professional Education
MEMOIR WRITING CLASSES
Kennesaw State University’s College of Continuing and Professional Education, OLLI, 3333 Busbee Drive, Kennesaw
- Memoir Writing "Wouldn't That Make a Great Story?" eight-week course meeting from 10:30 a.m.-noon Wednesdays, Jan. 27-March 16. Fee: $119. Instructor: Beth Hermes. To register: 470-578-6765 or ccpe.kennesaw.edu/olli/.
Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, 980 Briarcliff Road N.E., Atlanta
- Memoir I: Reading It and Writing It, 7:30-9:30 p.m. Wednesdays, Jan. 13-March 2. Fees: $165 Callanwolde members/$175 nonmembers. Instructor: June Akers Seese.
- Advanced Memoir Seminar, 7:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesdays, Jan. 12-March 1. $175 members/$185 nonmembers. Instructor: June Akers Seese.
For more information or to register: callanwolde.org
Ten years ago, following the death of a parent, Jim Monacell, a bond attorney from Avondale Estates, signed up for a memoir writing course at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center on Briarcliff Road. The instructor was published author June Akers Seese.
While his classmates had intentions of getting published themselves one day, Monacell, now 63, remembers being unsure he’d even like the class much less stick with it. But he did. Over the next decade, Monacell continued taking Seese’s memoir courses and setting aside free time to write.
He now has a publishable manuscript and an understanding of his past that he says he wouldn’t have had otherwise.
“Writing your memoirs serves two purposes,” Monacell said. “It’s a way of relating and passing on and presenting these experiences for others. But more importantly, it becomes a way to understand the experiences for yourself.”
Are seniors interested in writing their memoirs? “Holy cow, yes!” exclaims writing instructor Beth Hermes, who for the past four years has been teaching memoir and creative writing to seniors at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) through Kennesaw State University’s College of Continuing and Professional Education.
Hermes’ classes fill up quickly, usually capping at 18. Some seniors take the memoir class every time it’s offered. While the Callanwolde courses usually draw students of all ages who are serious about writing in this genre and want to be published, the OLLI students have all sorts of motives for taking memoir writing, Hermes says.
Some have parents or other relatives with Alzheimer’s, and they want to capture family stories before memory fails. Others have had interesting careers or life experiences and want to write them down.
“None of them are looking to sell their memoirs, but they want to have them for family and friends,” Hermes says.
Hermes recalls one student who worked on her memoir despite having terminal cancer. She finished it before she died, and her family had it printed and distributed it at her funeral. Another student, who had served in the Vietnam War, wrote about his military experiences then self-published his stories and photos in a magazine format and passed out copies at a family reunion. Some students have set up private blogs where they can put their memoirs online.
Over the eight-week course, Hermes takes her students through excavating exercises — mining for those forgotten memories that can be turned into written gems. She’ll bring in props, like old photographs or a coffee can stuffed with throwaways from a junk drawer.
“It’s like going through an old trunk in the attic,” she says. “You kept the trunk for a reason, but maybe you’ve forgotten about it. When you open it up, it’s like opening up memories.”
In the Callanwolde classes, Seese teaches a mosaic style where students detail a certain period or point in their life.
Memoirs differ from an autobiography, Seese explains, in that an autobiography is a literal progression to a point in a person’s life. With a memoir, you can choose whatever period of life you want to write about.
“But once you choose the period, you have to go all the way to the scary stuff. Otherwise, you’re dealing with whitewash,” Seese says.
Even in her beginning class, students are required to write a 20-page paper, which she critiques. Students also critique each other’s work, but not in a vicious way, Seese says.
In any given class, half of her students will be senior adults. The oldest was a 93-year-old retired professor. Seese says all of her students are voracious readers and disciplined writers. They’ll set aside two hours a day to write, even if their goal isn’t to be published.
Seese sums up the desire to write down life stories by quoting The New York Times best-selling memoir author Abigail Thomas: “People write memoirs to explain to themselves and the world how they became who they are.”
Adds Seese: “Even if it’s not published, the idea that you go through the process gives you an awareness of yourself.”
