Blanche and Lulu, 1895 Lulu’s father died 8 months before she was born Today is International Women’s Day. I reflected again on the history of the women in my family–my great-grandmother Blanche who gifted me with stories from the 19th century; my grandmother, Gram, who raised me. She started off as Lulu, a farm girl, who transformed into Frances, who took ships across the ocean. And my mother, Josephine, who’d been left behind as a little girl so Lulu could transform into Frances. Frances left Iowa to work in Chicago as a secretary in the early 1920s while her daughter lived in Iowa with re ..read more

Writing a memoir means exploring who we are and where we came from, entering the unknown on our journey and discovering ourselves. It means striking out for the gold of truth and honesty, exposure and even a spiritual journey that leads us away from known territory. Writing a memoir is a lot like the pioneers that my great-grandmother told me about. She was in her eighties and I was about eight years old. Her face was deeply grooved, her eyes sank deep in her sockets, her voice sometimes sounded far away, like she was still back there where her memory took her. She was still a young girl on th ..read more

While you write your memoir, your family and childhood come to life on the page. As the narrator, you present the significant things that shaped you through your own eyes and your own point of view. Most of us grow up thinking that our family and childhood as “just the way it is,” unaware of the many different ways families live and cope with stressful events and disappointments. We begin our writing from this internalized perspective, only to find ourselves surprised by how other people react to our story. As we write a memoir, we learn how the family crucible has shaped us. You find that you ..read more

In his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki writes about freeing the mind through meditation, creating the possibility of a fresh and truly open mind, especially when approaching new things. He says that we should look at everything with curiosity and acceptance and be vulnerable enough and strong enough to not know everything, to withstand discomfort, to be humble. When you write with a beginner’s mind, you’ll see your family story through new eyes. When you write your story the way you see it, not the way it has always been told, you free yourself from the strictures of a “right” w ..read more

  What story chases you? What are the moments you can’t forget? These are clues that you have a story to tell, that a memoir is knocking on your door. For me, it was wanting to understand my mother, who’d left me with her mother when I was four. She’d visit once a year, and I loved her desperately, always getting close to inhale her skin, loving the way her dark eyes and shapely lips made her so beautiful. I wanted to understand her, and her mother, my grandmother, who had taken me in. They must have loved each other, but each visit, dishes were broken, their arguments rising to the ceili ..read more

Fear–everyone experiences an uncomfortable tension, a flutter in the stomach, when they think about writing about their lives and revealing themselves. But most of us come to the page with a need–to explore our lives and memories. To understand something. To muse and wonder about life, relationships. What are the stories that haunt you? What do you need to say and what stops you? What memories won’t leave you alone? Write them down. For now, just write a list. What gets in the way of writing your truth: shame, fear of judgment from family and friends? Sometimes it’s hard to express the truth o ..read more

Mondays, May 4-May 25 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET With the bonus below, this class will now run 9 consecutive weeks: Mondays, 3/30 – 5/25. This 4-week intensive (May 4-May 25) is our most ambitious and exciting master class to date. Join Brooke and Linda Joy for four consecutive Mondays to learn about the inner workings of voice—its evolution from something you talk or think about to existing on the page; how it’s driven by courage and authenticity; and narrative techniques that add sophistication, complexity, nuance, and resonance to your scenes so you create intimacy and a heart connection with ..read more

May 1st, 2020: 10am-3pm PT / 1pm-6pm ET Join Linda Joy and Brooke and our talented and inspiring guests—best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love and Committed), Joshua Mohr (Sirens), and Alia Hanna Habib (literary agent).   REGISTER HERE Itinerary: 10am PT/1pm ET: Answer What’s Calling You Brooke Warner kicks off the day with an invitation to dream big—into what your memoir wants to be, into your publishing possibilities, and into the power of your self-expression. This hour is about voice—what you’ll do with it, how to get yourself out there, and how to ..read more

In July, I spoke at the Story Circle Women’s Writing Conference—a group of bright, energetic, and eager writers of all genres. What moved me most was the look in some of the women’s eyes as they told me how much they needed to hear permission, again, to write and tell their stories–from me and from other teachers at the conference. Most of us struggle with how to feel internal permission to write what most needs to be written—the deep truths that have shaped and governed our lives. It helps to get encouragement, to hear how important this is, over and over again. We know that there are things ..read more

  When the invitation to join our Enid High School 55th graduating class reunion arrived, at first I tossed it aside. Enid, Oklahoma is a long way from California. It takes a whole day to get there by two planes and a car. Would I really connect with “kids” I knew back in the fifties after all these years?  Then, curiosity–who are these people now? Perhaps I could attend and include a book reading. Is there a bookstore that would host me? A few Google clicks later led me to “A New Chapter Bookstore,” a new bookstore owned by two women who are indeed starting their own new chapter in ..read more