The Heart and Craft of Writing a Healing Memoir

The Heart and Craft of Writing a Healing Memoir reveals powerful techniques that integrate inner awakening, trauma healing, and story writing skills.

Finding words to express what is inexpressible is a theme for many memoirists. This book offers an integrative approach from a professional therapist that unifies the heart—the emotional journey—with the craft of writing stories. It’s a life-changing experience to claim our truths and our voice. Linda Joy reveals how to weave the psychology and emotional challenges of writing a memoir with the skills of creating a vibrant meaningful story. The book encourages memoir writers to break long years of silence to find their voice and tell their story. 

In Part I, the reader learns about the power of writing stories to heal and explores the elements of writing a memoir through mining memories, taming the inner critic, healing shame, and understanding family dynamics. In Part II, craft elements like the turning point technique, scenes, and finding your narrative voice reveal how to practice elements of storytelling to fully inhabit and heal the past, and share your knowledge with readers. Writing and sharing the truth of our lives is a gift to ourselves and readers.

Linda Joy Myers founded the National Association of Memoir Writers in 2008, and brings her knowledge of family therapy, holistic writing craft, and coaching skills to her workshops. She’s passionate about honoring the stories that bring meaning into our lives. She’s taught memoir writing for thirty-five years and is the author of two prize winning memoirs—Don’t Call Me Mother and Song of the Plains as well an award-winning historical fiction, The Forger of Marseille. Her writing craft books include Journey of Memoir, The Power of Memoir, and Becoming Whole.