Stories From the Heart:
A National Memoir Conference

Friday, February 8
12pm Registration opens
3-4:30pm Optional pre-conference workshop: Spirit Soaring: Wings of Creativity, Judith Helburn, no charge
5:30-7pm Dutch-treat dinner, Holiday Inn restaurant, hosted by Austin Chapter members
7:30pm Keynote Speech: Wild Heart, Wise Heart -- How to Tell Where to Go, Betty Sue Flowers, Ph.D. (Dessert reception following, included in registration fee)

Saturday, February 9
8:30am Registration opens. Hospitality Suite open (check registration desk for times)
9-10:15am Session 1
***Coffee/Tea Break***
10:45am-12pm Session 2
12:30-2pm Lunch, Straight from the Heart, inspirational music and remarks by Bethani (included in reg. fee)
2:15-3:30pm Session 3
***Drinks & light refreshments***
4-5:15pm Session 4
6-7:45pm Dutch-treat dinner, various Austin restaurants, transportation provided by Austin chapter members
8-10pm Storytelling from the Heart: After-dinner Open Mike. Rebecca Roberts, Mistress of Revels

Sunday, February 10
9-10:15am Session 5
***Coffee/Tea Break***
10:45am-12pm Session 6
12:30-2pm Lunch: Telling Our Heart's Story, Susan Wittig Albert, Ph.D. (included in reg. fee)

	Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, our Friday-night keynote speaker, is the recently-named director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. She is also a distinguished professor of English and an award-winning teacher, poet, editor, and consultant to government and international corporations. She has collaborated with Bill Moyers to produce four books from Moyers' PBS television series.
	Dr. Susan Wittig Albert, the speaker at our Sunday lunch, is a former English professor and university dean and vice-president. The recipient of many teaching awards and fellowships, she is the author of numerous books for young adults and the best-selling author of two mystery series. She is also the author of Work of Her Own and Writing From Life: Telling Your Soul's Story. In 1997, she founded the Story Circle Network.

Spirit Soaring: Wings of Creativity. Judith Helburn, Austin, TX. (replaces The Muse's Journal, with Dana Reynolds) Reconnecting with our spirit also means reconnecting with our creativity—with new ideas, new dreams, new stories. We will explore the connections and ways to open ourselves. Come and be inspired to take risks and give yourself permission to shape new stories about yourself. Judith addresses audiences around the country on incorporating spirituality into our daily lives. (There’s no fee for this workshop and no need to pre-register. If you paid for The Muse’s Journal, you’ll find refund information in your registration packet.)

Marigold Room. Writing the Stories of Our Lives: Getting Started. Frances E. Reynolds, Columbia MO.
Writing our family stories encourages us to reflect on our values while we assess the impact of family culture and the power of place. Explore these stories with a skilled teacher and facilitator. For novice life-writers.

Bluebonnet/Azalea Room. Using Genograms to Identify and Map Your Life Stories. Annette Riggio, San Marcos TX.
Learn how to use the genogram to study your family tree and map your family's complex history.

Sunflower Room. Mythologically Speaking: Creating Your Personal Myth. Carolyn Blankenship, Austin TX.
There is tremendous power (and a great deal of fun) in telling our stories as fairy tales. Let this inspiring leader/facilitator help you find your own fairy godmother.

Marigold Room. Women, Autobiography, and Spirituality. Linda Myers, Richmond CA.
Deepening into the self is a way to heal and to find the true voice within us. Led by a therapist who teaches classes in spiritual autobiography and has published poetry, fiction, and memoir, we will read inspiring poetry, listen, write, and create a sacred circle.

Sunflower Room. From Memoir to Fiction: Using Novelistic Techniques. Susan Wittig Albert, Bertram TX.
The lines between memoir and fiction have blurred in recent years. The best-selling author of Writing From Life and 80-plus novels will show us how to use description, conflict, dialogue, setting, and other novelistic techniques to enhance our stories.

Bluebonnet/Azalea Room. Between Generations: Connecting Through Writing and Sharing Glories, Gifts, and Graces. Carolyn Scheider, Austin TX.
Mothers and daughters can connect at a deeper level as they write and share stories about their glories, gifts, and graces (adapted from Chapter 2, Writing From Life). Even if your mother or daughter isn't present, come and discover how you can write together. Attendees will learn, firsthand, from three generations who have written and shared their stories. Carolyn, a former teacher, has helped mothers and daughters discover their gifts through writing, sharing, and scrapbooking. Currently, she is developing a program to use in conjunction with her church's intergenerational ministry.

Marigold Room. The Nature of our Lives. Jean L. McGroarty, Battle Ground IN.
The natural world shapes our stories in more ways than we know. Through clustering, word association games, lists and other activities, we'll bring the outdoors to our writing, encouraged by an experienced Story Circle facilitator.

Bluebonnet/Azalea Room. Outside the Box: Playing with Frameworks for Writing Life Stories. Susie Kelly Flatau, Austin TX.
A creative, nuts-and-bolts gathering led by the author of From My Mother's Hands and Red Boots and Attitudes will help us find the right personal framework for our tales. Explore tried-and-true approaches, share ideas, and play with story.

Sunflower Room. Preserving Memories through Scrapbooking. Kathryn Quintana, Scrapbook Cupboard, Austin TX.
Scrapbooking is a wonderful and fun way to preserve your family's heritage. Learn scrapbooking basics from the owner of Scrapbook Cupboard. Bring 5-6 related photographs.

Bluebonnet/Azalea Room. The Red Shoes: A Parable for Today's Women. Lorraine Soukup, Kittery ME.
The story of the Red Shoes is a story of every woman's need to create and sustain a self-designed, authentic life filled with passion and vitality. This story-telling session, led by an internationally-known singer-story teller, will inspire our creativity, help us find our own Red Shoes, and stand on our own two feet.

Marigold Room. Cameo Life Stories: Penning Your Portrait in Words. Deborah Hansen Linzer, Scottsdale AZ.
From its director, we'll hear about the Cameo Life Stories writing program for women, sponsored by the not-for-profit National Life Stories Center and affiliated with the National Women's History Project. Find out how women's stories are archived at Arizona State University.

Sunflower Room. Art as Teacher & Tool for Discovering Your Story. Rebecca Roberts, Austin TX.
In this workshop, we'll play with clay, and then write. The facilitator, an award-winning potter, will show us how to discover stories we've hidden from ourselves.

Marigold Room. Passing the Light. Jan Seale, McAllen TX.
Our stories about sex, birth, money, marriage, self, spirit, family, and career are shaped by our family stories and deeply influence the stories by which our children shape their lives.

Sunflower Room. The Nitty Gritty of Self Publishing and Marketing. Donna Remmert, with Terry Sherrell of Morgan Printing Company, Austin TX.
Find out from the experts how to publish your own book! The author of The Littlest Big Kid will interview a representative of a small press that caters to self-publishers.

Bluebonnet/Azalea Room. Writing Out Loud. Deborah Morgan, Camrose, AB Canada
In this session, we will introduce a “fearless” approach to writing, as well as simple, non threatening writing exercises designed to encourage even the most hesitant new writers, at all skill levels, to write from the heart and learn about the benefits of the writing process.

Bluebonnet/Azalea Room. Making Modern Parables. Marianna Gage, Austin TX.
Our life experiences can be distilled into stories that open us to the healing process and can be used to heal and teach others. This experienced story-teller will help us find our healing stories.

Sunflower Room. Interviewing the Important Women in Your Life. PJ Pierce, Austin TX.
Wise women have much to teach us. With the author of Texas Wise Women Speak, we will learn important interview techniques for oral history: how to ask questions and record and compile answers.

Marigold Room. Art as Inspiration. Beth Kennedy, Austin TX.
This nationally-exhibited textile and quilt artist will show us how to tell our stories through monoprinting on cloth and paper, then lead us to write about the experience.

It’s Saturday night in Austin TX—what would you like to do after you’ve enjoyed a fine dinner at one of Austin’s many great restaurants? Well, you might take in a film, or join the Mardi Gras party in Austin’s disco district (the River City is widely known as the Live Music Capital of the World).

Or we could all hang out together and swap stories.

Swap stories?

Hey, what a great idea! After all, isn’t that what Story Circle is all about? And who has more stories to swap than women—women who have loved and laughed and cried and succeeded and failed and survived and, yes, triumphed! Creative, canny, crafty, clever, courageous women. Women who have lived ordinary, extraordinary, and sometimes downright outrageous lives!

So for Saturday night’s entertainment, we offer you—ta da! (a flourish of trumpets and rattle of drums, please)—an open mike!

And all you have to bring is you, and your story. Maybe it’s a piece you’ve already shared with your Story Circle, or a poem or two that you’ve just finished, or a short autobiographical fiction. Maybe it’s a story to be sung, or danced (if you need music, let us know ahead of time). Or perhaps you’d like to bring a piece of art that you’ve made—pottery, painting, textile, whatever—and tell us how and why it is part of your story. The sky’s the limit, gals, and the only thing we have to fear (as some famous man said once) is fear itself. So let’s see how many different stories, and how many different ways to tell a story, we can all come up with.

To give every story-teller a chance to participate, we ask you to limit your turn at the mike to ten minutes. And in order to help our Mistress of Revels, Rebecca Roberts, to do a good job, we’ll also ask you to sign up for a turn at the mike, and give us a 3-line bio for your introduction) when you pick up your registration materials.

Remember that wonderful ’60s song that began “When you come to San Francisco, be sure and wear flowers in your hair”?

When you come to Austin, Texas, be sure to bring a story from your heart. We’re eager to hear it, y’all!

Last updated: 02/13/02