Press
Purposeful Memoir as a Quest for a Thriving Future
Reimagining Education Conference REC 5.0. sponsored by the Ecoversities Alliance
Watch the presentationExploring the "cycles of change" represented by different stages in our life journey can help us take stock of how we got to the present moment, in order to step with greater clarity and intention into the thriving future we desire for ourselves and our world. I believe this inner contemplative work is essential for effective action in the world, and is an important component of a reimagined education. I'll briefly introduce the key techniques of purposeful memoir and will lead the group in a carefully designed series of prompts that will move us from past into present and towards the future, while also mapping our personal stories onto the larger landscapes of our communities and our planet.
Transforming Coal Into Diamonds: Telling Painful True Stories Through Fiction
Jane Friedman blog
Read the Full ArticleWhy shift from memoir to fiction? When we bottle up our painful memories, we run the risk of letting them fester; we let perpetrators off the hook; and we prevent ourselves from sharing the hard-won wisdom we've gained through experience.
Writing to Right the World: Interview with Jennifer Browdy
The Artful Mind
Read the full articleA wide-ranging interview about the purposeful memoir process, my guide books, and the special purposeful memoir writing prompt card deck that I created during Covid, using images from beautiful Nova Scotia and writing prompts from the "elemental journey" of purposeful memoir.
Purposeful Memoir as Another Doorway into the Work That Reconnects
Deep Times Journal
Read Full ArticlePurposeful memoir, informed by Joanna Macy's Work That Reconnects, offers another key to open the door of positive engagement with the world we love. We take the practice of “active hope” into an exploration of our own life journey, and as we honor our “one wild and precious life,” we develop the loving capacity to act in the service of nurturing that life force we call Gaia.
The Paradox of Wise Activism: High Spirits for a World in Transition
Kosmos Journal
Read Full ArticleSomewhat paradoxically, to be effective change agents on the planet, the best thing we can do—for ourselves and for our beloved world—is to keep our spirits high.
Purposeful Memoir as a Path to Alignment
Kosmos Journal
Read Full ArticlePurposeful memoir that aligns the personal, political, and planetary is a tool for deeper understanding of how we got where we are today, as individuals, as a society, and as an interconnected global system.
It is also visionary: we explore the past and present in order to be able to more clearly and boldly imagine the future into which we want to live.
Solo Creatives of the Berkshires presentation
CTSB-TV
Watch the presentationThe importance of community in the life of solo creatives, and a window into how I run my purposeful memoir workshops for people of all ages.
Solo Entrepreneurs of the Berkshires presentation
CTSB-TV
Watch the presentationA window into my work as the founding director of the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, the publisher of Green Fire Press, co-host of the Birth Your Truest Story online writers' community, and leader of writing workshops at home and abroad.