56. Tips and rewards for writing your memoir, with Deborah Shepard

I asked Deborah Shepard to talk about writing your life story, because she has been teaching a course on memoir writing for 20 years. Tips are especially useful as you get older, because your life story gets longer and longer and longer! The rewards for writing a memoir will surprise you, I think, because they can be profound. Not financial rewards for most of us, but rewards such as confidence, understanding, wisdom, excitement, camaraderie and pride.

I've written a lot of books myself, so some of Deborah's ideas were naturally familiar to me. But I also got some totally new ideas from her, which have been tried and tested by hundreds of people over 20 years.

So if you have ever thought about writing your own memoir, listen up. Deborah gives a detailed description of the writing methods she teaches, so that you can start with confidence and really enjoy the process of writing. She knows what motivates people to start such an interesting project, and they're all good reasons. She wants you to write your memoir with affection and warmth, being kind to yourself and writing as if to a good friend: that's solid gold advice. And there's more, much more.

Writing your memoir: nothing to lose, and so much to gain. Now's good!

If you have a friend with similar interest, do share this episode: this might be the start of a supportive writing group.

Deborah Shepard is an author, oral historian and film and art historian. She has also been a lecturer in Film, TV and Media Studies at the University of Auckland.