Writing Family Stories
Families and their stories are messy, tragic, comic and unique. Writing them down can be illuminating, comforting and healing, even if you opt never to share them with anyone else. Or you may be inspired to create a record in one form or another that your present and future family members will treasure.
Putting together a family history from boxes full of ephemera and a head full of jumbled memories can feel daunting. But the beauty is, you can start anywhere. Captioning photos is a great first step, before the stories of the people in the pictures are forgotten.
In this workshop, I will guide you with simple prompts to start writing your family story, one anecdote at a time. You will take away a few completed mini stories. You might go home and write some more. You might want to pursue a bigger project, like a photo story book, digital recording, or even a memoir.
The workshop can be adapted for groups of different sizes and offered in person or virtually for anywhere from 1 to 3 hours. It can also be designed as a series.
The session Mary ran for us was great! She engaged the audience right from the beginning and was honest but encouraging about the challenges of writing personal stories. Her last minute adjustments to accommodate the group size enhanced the overall experience for everyone. – Zile Ozols, Manager, Programming and Partnerships, Brantford Public Library
Personal Storytelling through Spoken Word and Art
Sometimes the best route into a story is a visual one. Making collages out of felt is fun, easy and cheap and produces fabulous results! Participants can depict meaningful memories of places, events or important moments and then enjoy their collages as single pieces, as part of a collection, or as one piece of a group quilt, banner, photobook… the possibilites are endless. Approaching memory this way is gentle and accessible no matter what someone’s comfort level with writing.
I’ve done this workshop with all kinds of groups: social workers, social service clients, people in addiction treatment or other health programs, seniors and kids. It can be adapted for groups of any size, and take anywhere from one hour for a single activity, to a few hours that incorproate different storytelling methods and prompts.
By way of storytelling, Mary invited the drop-in participants to share their grief and craft their story through felt art. The group were able to select colors and create a scene personal to them that brings them peace. They were invited to share their pieces afterwards and talk about the meaning attached. – Street Health Toronto
Writing and Editing Services
Do you want to tell your story or capture an older relative’s story before it’s too late? I am skilled in collecting oral histories and turning them into vibrant written stories that reflect the voice of the person whose experience I’m recounting. We all need to know where we came from. Sharing these family stories is an invaluable gift to the generations to come.
Mary Fairhurst Breen 