Hello!
I hope you enjoyed my blog and will come to visit again. I’ll be writing about memory and memoir. Sometimes I’ll write a book review about a good memoir, or refer to a memoir that offers strong lessons in how to approach writing personal stories. Sometimes I will describe a memory of my own that may have relevance for the writing of stories. I’m very happy when readers submit a story from their own lives that relates to one of the posts, and I publish it in a later post.
About
In earlier years, I worked as a Medical Lab Tech in Montreal, then as a French and Physical Education teacher in Ontario secondary schools. I left those careers when my partner and I began working full time building a 46′ sailboat in a barn. Six years later, we sailed south, chartered the boat to support the life style, and settled in the Turks and Caicos Islands. There I worked as an algologist, growing algae to feed baby conch, and as an organic gardener for a non-profit group.
I started writing during the sailing years because life on the ocean and in the islands was so fresh and immediate I felt an urgent need to record it so as to not forget it, to re-experience it in words, and to communicate it to others in various sailing magazines. A book resulted: The Perfect Galley Book. I discovered that writing was another way of educating. I became passionate about creating words in notebooks, journals, blank pieces of paper in a typewriter, on a computer screen.
Eventually returning to Toronto, I first worked as a seamstress at Ulmer Sails and as a book seller at the Nautical Mind Bookstore. Then, upgrading my teaching certificate to include English as a Second language (ESL) enabled me to teach ESL in Scarborough secondary schools and Seneca College until the late nineties.
In the seventies, oral histories caught my attention and at the first opportunity, I recorded my father’s stories of his early life, going back even further to his parents’ life in Ireland. It was such fun and so rewarding for both of us that I designed a course to show others how to record their own stories. The course grew and grew and eventually became a book: The Gift of Memoir: Show Up, Open Up, Write and it was published in 2015. Researching and writing it took four years of reading memoirs, writing chapters, reading chapters to a writers group, and editing, editing, editing.
I continue to write, compose life stories for elders, give my course, renovate this 1850 house, and have lunch with friends at Crawford’s Café on Lake Ontario in Port Hope.
Memoir Writing Workshop. My next three-hour workshop in writing memoir is May 5 in Peterborough at the Public Library. Seating is limited to twelve. Last year’s longer workshops (15 hours over five days) were in Lakefield, Cobourg, Lindsay, Centreton, Uxbridge and Picton. Email me with any questions: dtaylor@eagle.ca
Diane Taylor 
Hi Di,
Nice to see your web-site. Good Work. Good Luck.
Love, Lynda
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Hi Diane. I see we have something in common–memoirs. I have thought about recording life stories for elderly individuals and I am currently making the final revisions to my memoir. Pleased to meet you and thank you for following my blog. I’m looking forward to reading more of your blog.
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Wow! And I thought I was a Jack of all Trades.
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Are you ever! Books on such different topics, book reviews, sculptor, the brain …
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I have just bought your Gift of Memoir. I shall be interested to see what you say, though it is a little late to take your advice. I usually write fiction, but have been putting together on my parents story during WWII using their letters and memoirs for the last five years. It is in the final stages of publication now.
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Thanks for buying my book! I’ll be interested to hear what you, a writer and memoirist, think about it. Letters from WWll are so valuable and a good base for a memoir of your parents’ lives in that era.
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Such a nice surprise to meet again! You look so good haven’t changed at all
This is really awesome!great ‘ website
I’ll start reading and get inspired by all the wonderful material!
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You haven’t changed either! So good to see you! And super to see you here on my website. You have stories to write down and save for the next generation(s).
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Fascinating background, especially the sailing to the Turks, that must have been interesting.
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We lived in the Turks and Caicos for three years. Wonderful place and people, and we learned a lot about the flora and fauna and the ocean and the human heart, and catastrophe, too.
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Your book sounds so helpful! I wish I had read it before I started! Last year I hired a coach to help me through the writing process and I’ve just finished my second professional editing. The coach was totally worthl the money I paid her.
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Good for you. It’s a great feeling to have an ally, isn’t it.
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I’ve just found your blog. Lots of useful info here about memoirs. I’d like to write one too – I actually have two to write – one about the wonderful time I had at boarding school in the 1970s, and a memoir about the last five years when my husband and I bought and renovated a yacht, and sailed it to Greece! We live aboard full time for most of the year, and have had lots of adventures. I love writing, and have had freelance articles published in sailing magazines. What advice would you give for someone starting to write a memoir?
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I think the most important thing is to make the time for it. Then, make a list of all the major events or turning points or lessons learned, maybe thirty or more, then start writing about them. Consider buying a few books on memoir writing, and underline ideas that strike you as important. Good luck. I’d love to hear how it goes.
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Wow – that’s a life lived to the max! What a great array of things you have done over the years, and it sounds like the story is far from over!
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Indeed, not over. One of the secrets is to follow joy – wherever it leads. Collect the bits and pieces of it, savour them and then give them away. Sometimes, though, it’s a good idea to stow them away for soul food on cold winter days! I think you do both.
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How is it that I have never managed to make it to your About Page before? Another one of your wonderful stories worth sharing. And your response to Lexie is just the wisdom I needed today. Hope you are well
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I’d love to learn more about your travels and I coming seminars. Please contact me at sissy4550@hotmail.com. I still remember your bright smile and happy demeanor from when you had your vw van and were on Reach st .
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