Writers in Action Blog 4: The Making of a Memoir Part 2

In a previous entry I described a workshop with Anson Cameron focusing on the process of conceptualising and writing a memoir. In this entry I will continue this discussion by looking at a panel discussion that took place between Biff Ward, Benjamin Law and Helena Pastor. These authors were all at Write Around the Murray 2016 having recently released their own memoirs, Ward’s ‘In My Mother’s Hands’, Law’s ‘The Family Law’ and Pastor’s ‘Wild Boys: A Parent’s Story of Tough Love’.

This panel discussion focused on motherhood and the role it had to play both in their stories and in their decision to have their stories penned and retold. Ward’s memoir focuses on her mother’s battle with mental illness and the impact of this on her family growing up. Law’s memoir – generally more light-hearted – takes a look at the struggles of growing up as an Asian-Australian and his oft quirky relationship with his mother, while Pastor’s memoir at times shows her relationship with her son in touching detail. The three discussed individually the impact of motherhood upon them, not necessarily of experiencing it (as Law so kindly pointed out, he’s not a mother) but rather having been touched by it. The decision to write the memoir was a memorable point of discussion, in which Ward states “Some people write a memoir and then do years of therapy. I did 35 years of therapy then wrote a book”. This was related to the deeply emotional subject matter of her memoir, which features some difficult to read moments when describing her mother’s, and therefore her family’s, struggles. Ward raised the point that writing the memoir was almost therapeutic in itself, a contributor to her decision to do so. On the other hand is Law, a story not without heartache – when his father finally travelled back to his homeland to meet Law’s grandfather, Law’s grandfather had a stroke on the dock. His story however is one that is told in the most light-hearted of ways, a testament to Law’s views on the power of comedy and the feeling of embarrassment. Despite divorce and being attacked by zoo animals, Law manages to take a positive outlook on all the events in his book as having shaped him, and chronicling this story seems to have been a major motivating factor for him. Pastor’s memoir almost reads as more of a love letter to her son, showing the power of a memoir to not only be therapeutic or to remind one how they’ve made it to where they are, but also to say for us what we may not be able to find the words for.

Big thanks go out to Biff, Benjamin and Helena for their insight, along with the hostess, Sue Gillett and of course the organisers.