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Meeting a memoirist

11/23/2015

http://www.shannonmoroney.com/

This past Thursday and Friday I attended a restorative justice conference here in Calgary sponsored by ARJA (The Alberta Restorative Justice Association). I met Shannon Moroney, author of "Through the Glass", the story of her husband's crime, what happened to her as a result of that crime and how the justice system in Canada treats both the victims and the perpetrators of crime. She has become a spokesperson for restorative justice and also works in the field of restorative justice in Canada.
    As a memoirist she is an inspiration. Through her book and her talks she has told her terrifying story openly and honestly - revealing her personal journey through hurt and healing. She has educated thousands of people as to the futility of incarcerating criminals with no chance of treatment for their many issues. And she works to help families of criminals who are also affected by their loved ones' crimes.
    Sometimes as a memoirist I wonder if my story will help others but when I meet and hear people like Shannon, I realize that we all need to share our stories. Stories affect others, leading them to feel what it might be like to be a situation like Shannon was, or I was. Hopefully by sharing these stories light will be shone on topics that many people don't want to face or deal with. Also, understanding the situations may help people to be less judgmental.
    Facing judgment is one of the realities I will have to continually deal with as I move forward to talk about domestic abuse. People like Shannon are there to remind me that others have traveled the same path.

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Book festivals

10/27/2015

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Wordfest in Calgary

Every Fall, Calgary is treated to a rare opportunity meet and hear authors - new authors, tried and true authors, famous authors, more obscure authors and authors from other countries. This year Wordfest was from October 13 to 18 and hosted about seventy authors. This was the second year that I was a volunteer and I am hooked on this incredible experience. This was also my second year helping out in "Artist Liaison" in the Westin Hotel, where we meet and greet and register the authors. Among the authors I met this year were Lawrence "Larry" Hill, here to talk about his new book, The Illegal. I first met Larry three years ago when he was in town for the Bob Edwards awards and he is so lovely to talk with. I shared with him that I had never dreamed of a character from a book before I dreamed of Aminata from The Book of Negroes. Lorna Crozier, the award winning poet from Sydney, B.C. recommended an amazing shoe shop that I didn't know existed in Calgary! David Constantine was visiting from Oxford, U.K. and Drew Hayden Taylor had us in stitches. In the photo above you can see me with Wab Kinew who spoke about his memoir "The Reason Your Walk" in which he tells the story of First Nations people in Canada using his father's last year of life as the story arc. Word/Book festivals give the public an insider's view into the life of an author, what inspires them, what they struggle with as they write and how they come to share their life learnings with their audience. It is a privilege for me to be a part of this ambitious undertaking - and the Wordfest staff are so dedicated and hard working! My praise this year goes to Sandra Paire who headed up Artists Liaison.

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Why?

10/16/2015

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Someone recently asked me why I wrote my book (pub date April 2016). She said that she was interested in writing a memoir so she can shine a light on mental illness in her family. Is or was my goal that lofty in the beginning? I had to admit it wasn't.
In the beginning, I just needed to write, write my story, write to understand why my life had not gone the way I thought it would, write to get things down on paper so I could have a look at them.

Then I realized that I would have to learn to write, to use techniques used in fiction writing in order to make my story readable, and understandable to others. Techniques like: having a story arc, writing scenes and dialogue, using description, showing, not telling.

Then, some years into the process, two important things became obvious to me: that I liked to write and that I actually was learning about my life while doing the process of writing my story. It was then that I also knew that others could learn from my story. So I decided then to publish it.

James Pennebaker's research on how the simple act of writing can heal shows that writing that's authentic has three components:
1. It reveals the facts of the situation, using details that evoke the senses.
2. It shows how the writer felt then.
3. It shows how the writer feels now about what happened.

By learning to write, really write, I realised that I could do all this.

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