Tag Archive | empathy

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 […]

Fifteen Great Memoirs to Read

By Diane Taylor November 18, 2015 10 Comments

Empathy relies on a willingness to step into the shoes of another person and leave our own world behind. We do this when we read memoir. When we understand what moves another, we are taking a giant step towards felling barricades. Barricades of racism, poverty, mental illness, zenophobia and all the other phobias. Indeed, […]

Ten Reasons for Writing Memoir

By Diane Taylor March 25, 2015 25 Comments

In my book, The Gift of Memoir, the twenty reasons I give for writing memoir are culled from the forty-two I offer in my course. The more reasons there are, the more apt you are to finish your story. Not that all forty-two, or twenty, will be valid for everyone. Are there three or four […]