Willamette Writers Hillsboro Presents

Finding the Core Message of Your Memoir with Valerie Ihsan

Theme is arguably more important in memoir than in any other genre. You need a compelling takeaway for the reader because you aren’t a celebrity coasting on your platform. You are an ordinary person who lived an extraordinary segment of your life, and you are here to write about it. In today’s presentation, you’ll discover and clarify the thematic core of your memoir, decide which structure to use, and maybe even settle on a working title. Come prepared to look underneath the plot of your story and find its true meaning.

Valerie Ihsan is the author of You Can’t Dance a Lie: A Memoir of Stepping Into My Truth; The Scent of Apple Tea; and Smell the Blue Sky: Young, Pregnant, and Widowed, winner of a B.R.A.G. Medallion for Top Indie-Published Books. She co-chaired the Eugene Chapter of Willamette Writers for ten years, hosts an annual writing workshop and retreat in Marcola, Oregon, and helps authors write the best books they can. She podcasts at Writer Craft Podcast, loves dogs, and aims to make Costa Rica her home. She lives in Oregon with her husband and three dogs.

This is a hybrid meeting. We meet at the Hillsboro Brookwood Library and online on March 14, 2023 – doors (and Zoom!) open at 6 PM and with the meeting starting at 6:30 PM. Read Zoom details below, then register for the meeting here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAlf-qvpz0qEt2NcgR91LTWytjw45YekPSa

About your chapter meetings

Willamette Writers meetings are open to all writers, 18 and up. Guests are welcome to make a donation to help support the cost of the meeting (we believe in paying our speakers for their time and skills). This meeting is run by volunteers. We look forward to seeing you there!

Young writers are encouraged to join our Young Willamette Writers meetings. Sign Up! Any high school or middle-grade writers are welcome to join us. Sign up for our email list at: http://eepurl.com/hRubBf  A registration link will be sent to our email list before our next meeting.

MASKING: Willamette Writers continues to require mask-wearing at our in-person, indoor meetings. If you are unable to mask, we invite you to join us at one of our online Chapter Meetings. Here is a link to our policies.

Zoom Details

You have to be logged into your own personal Zoom account to attend this meeting (to create a FREE account, go to Zoom.us).

Once you are logged in to your own personal zoom account, register for the meeting in the link provided above.

On the day of the meeting, log into your Zoom account and then click the link zoom sent you in your email when you registered with the link above. If you are logged into your personal zoom account, you can also click the link above and register again if you need to. If you have not done this before, we encourage you to try logging in a half hour before the meeting begins. We had to change our meeting access because of a few inappropriate guests, but we want to continue to keep our meetings open to the public.