memoir
Irish Lament
I’m Irish. That’s the short story. My father’s parents were born in the small seaport of Sligo, on the northwest coast of Ireland. I never knew them; they both died before I was born. In fact, Dad doesn’t remember his mother because she died when he was just three—of peritonitis from infection after an appendectomy; […]
Remembrance in Memoir: What Does It Take?
Dear Steve, I’m really glad you asked this question in my memoir writing workshop last week: “What three qualities do people who complete their memoir have?” Since then, I’ve consulted two authors of published memoirs who sent me their three qualities. Then, I came up with four. All in all, we now have ten […]
Goldenrod Feast
It’s late August and Goldenrod is everywhere. I walked by Lake Ontario today, and was ecstatic to see several species of bees, three lady bugs, two wasps, one grasshopper, and one monarch butterfly luxuriating on the lush yellow florets of Goldenrod in full feathery bloom. Fascinated by the frantic activity of the bees and […]
Brief Memoir of a Blender
I am an aging multicultural blender. My glass bowl came from the Philippines, my practical plastic lid was imported from Mexico, my snappy blades were sharpened somewhere in the USA, and all my parts came together in China. My birth certificate (they call it ‘registration’) says Florida. Go figure. Since I was purchased by my […]
The Magic of Intention
Before she left for Ottawa with her parents for the Canadian Dance Festival, eight-year-old Eowyn announced, “I’m going to have my picture taken with Prime Minister Trudeau.” Ha! Once words are launched into the air, atoms and molecules perk up their ears and set the stage. The girl’s parents noted the flurry of molecular theatrics […]
An Honest House: A Memoir by Cynthia Reyes
An Honest House is a rich memoir that moves through a ten-year period of Cynthia Reyes’ cynthiasreyes.com life. In the midst of a successful career, family life with children blooming, she and her husband move to an old farmhouse surrounded by gardens they love, just north of Toronto. Against this idyllic backdrop, PTSD strikes. […]
Book Burning
When I heard, I was shocked. Ninety-year-old Sarah called to tell me one of her daughters had rounded up all fifty copies of her book, a memoir, from friends and relatives and burned them. She didn’t know why, and it was too painful to probe. Sarah (not her real name) and I had worked on […]
Refuge in Prison is a Book Club
The title caught my attention on a shelf in the Port Hope library. The Prison Book Club. A neighbor and I started a book club here in town over ten years ago, and I know how much it means to all of us. I had to find out how a book club worked in a […]
