Tag: Coming of age
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Memoirs offer a new approach to suffering
When Siddhartha first encountered suffering he ran away to the jungle. When I first encountered suffering, I went into a rage, determined to fix the world. Instead of changing the world, Iury, fell apart. That’s when I ran away, but not to the jungle. I ended up living in a garage in Berkeley, one step…
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Ex-pat Brats Come of Age in Saigon
I discovered another author, Les Arbuckle, who like Hanna felt compelled to tell the story of his childhood in that war torn country. His book is called Saigon Kids, An American Military Brat Comes of Age in 1960’s. Despite the similarities between the two stories, they were also totally different, representing a stark contrast between…
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Life to Stories: 3 Habits, 3 Rules, 3 Stages
Since the beginning of civilization we’ve looked to heroes to show us the way. In the old days these heroes were mythological and lived on mountains. In the modern age, we look to each other in order to learn how to climb those mountains.
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Writing Your Messy Teen Memories Could Save the World
Her book is much more than the story of one couple trying to hold back the chaos that was enveloping their daughter. It is also the courageous attempt to share that situation with others. By sharing what ordinarily would be a very private story, Pruchno is challenging us to develop wisdom about the teen years.
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Six Psychology Lessons In This Memoir (continued)
The title could be construed as a double-entendre. Not only was Pruchno surrounded by the madness of trying to bring her daughter in line with social norms. She was also surrounded by the madness of a mental health care system that turns a blind eye toward insanity. Pruchno’s heart-wrenching story is both a good reading…
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Memoirs Popularize Important Psychology Lessons
After having had an experience of mental illness, or some other complex, unique experience, a memoir author must attend writing workshops, collaborates in critique groups, hire editors, swap manuscripts with beta readers, and revise, revise, revise. Like grapes that require fermentation to release their intoxicating properties, the events of life require the evolution of the…
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Memoirs Chronicle Search for Identity in the Melting Pot, Pt 1
At first glance, Karen Levy’s moves back and forth between two countries seems extreme. However, when you look more closely, you can see similarities to what millions of kids face when they go back and forth between the cultural mixing at school during the day, and ethnicity of their home at night. For those kids,…
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Writing a Memoir Penetrates the Fog of Memory
As a slow, methodical memoir writer, I find incidents buried under years of forgetting. Like an archeologist, I extricate them from the rubble of details and wonder what value each artifact might offer. I place them into the context of the book of my life, where they acquire deeper meaning.
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The Sixties Had Many Struggles. Here’s One I Missed.
During the 60s, women needed to confront the Man in a very different way than I did. They had to confront him when they asked their fathers what subject they were allowed to major in. They had to confront him when they asked for permission to leave their dorms at night or which job they…
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