Writers and Editors

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Fall Conference of Personal Historians
Do you help others write their memoirs or tell their family (or organizational) stories? Join others doing similar work at this year's conference of the Association of Personal Historians
November 3-7, 2010
Voices of the Elders
Click here for conference program:
http:/​/​www.personalhistorians.org/​conference/​

A great place to talk shop, talk technique, talk equipment (and how to use it), and talk about the interesting (and varying) directions this fascinating field can take us. I write mostly for print, but love watching the video tributes and video bios that are shown during Media Share.

Go early or stay late as this is a wonderful vacation destination.
Empress Hotel and Victoria Conference Centre
Victoria, BC, Canada

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Pat's Life Stories and Legacy Writing Workshops
6 Wednesdays, September 8 – October 20 (No meeting October 6)
7:15 to 9:45 pm--note slightly later starting time

What will be written on your headstone? What will your obituary say? How will you be remembered, and what has your life meant? The goal in this nontraditional workshop of short personal writing is to capture your personal and family legacy for the next generation, the friends and family who will survive you. Knowing that you are writing not for publication but to set the record straight—in your own mind, as much as anything—may liberate you, allowing you to examine with candor your important life choices and experiences, achievements and mistakes, beliefs and convictions.

Through a series of exercises designed to open a rich vein of personal material, you will begin the exploration and storytelling that may help you either develop a personal or family history or write a personal legacy letter to your survivors. No whining, no boasting, no name dropping: Just an honest examination of what went on in your life or your family, with an emphasis on fleshing out the characters and stories to be found there. This course, which grew out of the warm-up exercises for Pat's workshop on ethical wills, will encourage you to reminisce deeply: to mine your life (and family) experiences for personal stories, myths, themes, and values.

Five Wednesday evening sessions
7 to 9:30 pm
Instructor Pat McNees
The Writer’s Center
4508 Walsh Street
Bethesda, MD 20815
Phone: 301 654-8664
Writer's Center online
http:/​/​www.writer.org
postmaster@​writer.org
$195 for members, $215 for nonmembers

You can e-mail postmaster@​writer.org and ask to be notified when workshops go on-line for registration. Include your mailing address and ask for a hard copy of their brochure of workshops.

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Washington Biography Group

Next official meeting: Monday September 20, 2010
Washington International School, 7 pm sharp.
September is our annual "What I did this summer" meeting, where we catch up.
Topic delayed until fall: How do we determine our subject's world view? What are the dominant characteristics that shape what we think of them ? Their religion? Where they grew up? What else?

The WBG meets once a month, usually on a
Monday from 7 to 8:45 pm at the
Washington International School
3100 Macomb St., NW
Washington DC 20008
We meet in the Terrace Room in the main building. Members often bring a snack or drink to share. I (Pat) send out e-mail notices of the meeting dates and topics, which are also posted under “Events” on both Pat McNees’s website (www.patmcnees.com) and Writers and Editors (www.writersandeditors.com). Check out the website page about the Washington Biography Group (WBG). Go here for fuller instructions on where the WBG meets.

To be added to the e-mail list and receive meeting notices and Pat's e-letter about memoir and biography, send a message to Pat's WBG email: (spelled out to elude spammers: washingtonbookgroup at gmail dot com
Convert that to traditional e-mail formula)

Occasionally parking is a slight problem, if the school is also holding an evening event. At a recent meeting someone came in and said the owner of an SUV had left its lights on. Marc responded, "This is not an SUV kind of group" and sure enough, it wasn't one of us (although there are SUVs among us).

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The second conference of Biographers International will be held in Washington DC in the spring of 2011, the same year the Washington Biography Group celebrates its twenty-fifth year of monthly gatherings to talk about various aspects of biography and memoir writing. Members of the WBG will be helping to organize the BIO conference.

Compleat Biographer Conference
was held May 15, 2010, Boston
The conference, run by the Biographers International Organization (BIO), focused on the practical aspects of the craft and art of biography. It created a setting in which biographers could meet and share experiences with other biographers. Great conference. Next year in Washington DC and the year after that in London.
Click here for more information.
The Biographer's Craft (newsletter of James McGrath Morris, who is also the spirit behind Bio International.

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The Future of Freelancing, a two-day conference at Stanford, June 18-19, 2010, is fully subscribed. They are taking names for a wait list, for cancellations. Co-sponsored by ASJA and the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists.

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Friday March 19, 2010: Biography conference
The Leon Levy Center for Biography will hold its second annual conference on biography on Friday, March 19, 2010. Information available at its website: http:/​/​www.leonlevycenterforbiography.org/​.

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