Erskine Writers meeting 16th March 2021

Morag delivered her Workshop on Memoir to the group.     

She had used ideas from Brian Whittinghame’s workshop with us, Catherine Simpson who did a SAW workshop in 2018. ( Scottish Book Trust} And a four page article in the March 2020 edition of Myslexia by Caroline Sanderson ( publisher and Director of the Bookseller) 

She talked about the fact that the last five or six years has seen a surge in the  writing the writing of memoir by ‘ordinary’ people  before this you had to be a celebrity or someone who already had a certain literary reputation. Myslexia doing a monthly pitch on memoir

Morag advised that writing memoir can be a minefield  as you  tend to be writing about dealing with a hard hurtful experience. 

Depression, schizophrenia, a mother with autism, a brother in a persistent vegetative state,  breakdowns in relationships  leading to the expression  misery memoirs. Can cause upset for the writer and those he/she writes about. 

Theme today something about a figure from your  childhood, adolescence.  Can be mother, father, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, neighbour. The idea is to keep our focus on our relationship with that person, but you might find that doesn’t work for you and that you decide to change the person.  That’s fine!  

  Morag has asked the group to write a piece of 500 words on anything  to do with memoir for our meeting on 13th April.