Writing workshop Friday 16 May – Memoir and Ancestral stories

The third Discovery Writing Workshop will be at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, 16 May 2025, at my home on a hill near Santo Estêvão, Tavira.  

In the first workshop, we examined origin stories and worked on prompts. We also learned about each other’s writing practices and built some trust. The second workshop considered Magical Realism, Fantasy, and Fabulism.

In this week’s genre, we will consider how memoir can take many forms and reflect ancestral connections and cultural differences. Through poems, stories, cultural narratives and research, we will uncover how memories and moments in time may bridge different worlds of experience.

A memoir is not about being fair to everyone and including their point of view, but about allowing ourselves to speak from our unique perspective. We will look at how a few writers began memoirs and how some used a theme to hold the work together.

Cathy Rentzenbrink notes,

“I used to think that all I had to do was write everything I knew, but it’s more than that. In the best memoirs, the writer looks at the events in their lives, thinks about them differently and is a changed person by the end. The reader wants to know what happened to the writer, how it happened and why it matters.”

Rentzenbrink, Cathy. Write It All Down: How to Put Your Life on the Page (Quick Reads 2025) (p. 12). Pan Macmillan. Kindle Edition. 

Future workshops will examine writing for change, structure, and more, depending on the group’s decision. Each workshop is designed to be interactive and will last between one and a half and two hours. The limit on numbers is eight people for six or seven sessions (every two weeks).

We create a safe space for reading, writing, and listening. Each session will include participation and writing exercises. We may also briefly walk around the garden and/or meditate to connect with ourselves and nature. Scattered around the property are tables for writing alone before returning to the group sharing.

If the weather is unpleasant, we can work in the house.

The materials for the session are shared on a private Discord server. Please send an email if you want to join any of the sessions and to gain access to the materials.

This is an opportunity to explore and experiment with your writing in a supportive environment.

As part of the circular economy I accept donations or 10 Euros if you prefer.

Get in touch at sue@suehall.net