Tākaka’s Charlotte Squire has helped hundreds of people pen their memoir, and now she is offering the chance for locals to do it through a year-long course. Elise Vollweiler catches up with Charlotte to learn more about the course.
Give us a summary about your upcoming course, and what people will achieve.
Write Your Memoir is a year-long programme that takes people from the overwhelm of too much info and way too many ideas, to a plan, a routine, heaps of new skills and finally, a memoir or history that’s ready to be sent to the publishers!
Do you have to be a writer to record your own memoirs?
You most definitely don’t. In fact, my programme is designed for total writing newbies, people who have lived full lives and now they want to learn the skills to write about it.
What are the stumbling blocks or barriers that people usually have in this process?
I think overwhelm is a classic one, and having no idea where to start. Writing confidence is also a barrier for people. I take quite a lot of pleasure in teaching people that the most important thing is to write their story as if they were telling them that story in person. The spelling and grammar can be fixed, but nothing can replace their memories and the unique ways they tell their stories.
What do they get out of it? Why write their memoirs?
For some people, memoir writing can be a way of looking back at life and making sense of it. For some it can be a healing experience – I encourage writers to be very honest as they write. Then there are the people who want their children and grandkids to understand who they were and what experiences they had before they had kids. And some memoir writers need to know they’ve recorded important family history that no one else could possibly know.
How about those people who feel like they haven’t had an interesting life?
Oh, so many people feel that way! But I always say, your life may seem boring to you, but for your children or future generations who are descended from you, it’ll literally be their history.
What do you enjoy about facilitating this process?
I find humans fascinating. Every single person has the potential for an interesting book within them, and it’s a pleasure to help them find a good angle and a workable process, to help them pull all those loose and unruly strands into a cohesive story that their people will love to read. I also love working with groups and building a sense of community, and watching people relax and start to support each other and enjoy their writing process.
The Write Your Memoir programme includes a monthly meet up in Motueka, beginning on Saturday November 29 (late enrolments possible). The course costs $20 per week for 50 weeks. To enrol, email Charlotte at charlottesquirecoms@gmail.com or find out more at: charlottesquire.co.nz/write-your-memoir-the-one-year-programme-motueka/
