Category: Women Writing Memoirs
Domestic Abuse and Isolation in Relationships
For Domestic Violence Awareness Month, we are featuring a number of blog posts by women writers on the topic. Sexual assault, addiction, and suicide are unsolved social problems that carry stigmas. The stigmas cast a code of silence that do not solve problems. The result of not speaking about the crime of sexual assault is too often […]
Reflections on Native American Novelist Leslie Marmon Silko
It is a “given” that for bibliophiles like me, there is nothing better than curling up with a good read in a quiet house with a cup of steaming coffee – I take mine with cream and sugar. And there are scores of genres and sub-genres from which to choose. Romance. Inspiration. Poetry. Biography. You […]
Italian Author Elena Doni: Writing Fakhra Younas’ Life Story
Backstory. The memoir, “Il volto cancellato” by Fakhra Younas with Elena Doni, is the story of a Pakistani woman who started life in Karachi’s red light district, became famous as a dancer and movie star, and then was unspeakably disfigured by an acid attack. Fakhra married her “prince”, the son of the former governor of Pakistan’s […]
Post Trauma Healing: An Interview with Author Michele Rosenthal
“I began writing my story at the age of 37, because I’d read that in order to overcome PTSD one had to be able to tell one’s story.” Michele Rosenthal Every now and then when we need help, we’re fortunate enough to know exactly what type we need and where to find it. However, even in […]
When the Story Hurts too Much: Fakhra Younas’ Life and Memoir
When a woman tells her story, writes her memoir, she is writing her own history. She becomes visible to history; part of the human narrative. Telling her truth, her experience and wisdom, she leaves her legacy. When the life lived hurts too much… it’s hard to write, and hard to tell. And when the story told […]
The Writer’s Ear: Hearing Prose, Poetry and Music
UK Author Jo Carroll very kindly responded to our question about how poetry and prose influenced each other in your writing. I have a diffuse boundary between poetry and prose. I know that one informs the other, but I’ve never tried to define that, nor explain it – even to myself – in a coherent […]
Initiation into Authorship: Calamity to Creation
I was never meant to be a writer. Or so I believed until… After virtually forty years of training and practising the art of sculpture, my life took a surprising new course. It is said that a Shaman must endure some physical calamity – a fall from a high rock face, breaking every bone in […]
A Soul Healer’s Memoir: Gift of the Dreamtime by S. Kelley Harrell
In the fantastical memoir Gift of the Dreamtime– Awakening to the Divinity of Trauma, Kelley Harrell chronicles a modern shamanic journey from pain, to healing and accepting a calling to work as a soul healer of others. At the time of its first publication, no other modern shamanic work shared a story of healing from […]
On Memoirs: Writing About Abuse and Difficult Topics
I’d always loved writing. I’d kept journals, written poetry and short stories and had ideas for books. I’d never thought about writing my own story but there came a point where I wanted to share it to try to release myself from the past and its haunting memories. I should explain that I grew up […]
Memoir: Agony and Relief
Narrating stories is as old as history itself. In writing about my childhood growing up in India, it’s mostly pain that I highlight: writing allows us to search the depths of our being – to excavate, sort, pile, discard, and heal. Writing a personal narrative comes with mixed emotions, an eclectic blend of agony and relief […]
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