Research answers a question or solves a problem.

Research, for this workshop, is anything outside of your personal memories. In a minute, I will give examples of those resources.

How might a map of the Fall Foliage in the United States inspire a chapter of your memoir? 

- Add a vivid detail to your memories of starting school.

- Explain why you were wearing shorts in October in Texas.

What other maps might be useful for your story?

Monarch Butterfly Migration 

Growing seasons in your garden zone

Research can give a deeper meaning to your personal narrative and help you find specific details that you had forgotten or never knew. In this workshop we’ll discuss the variety of research techniques that can strengthen your personal narrative. We’ll look at examples of research in memoirs that provide social, cultural, or environmental context to a personal narrative. We will details the why, how, and when of researching your memoir, the dos and don’ts of research, and how to keep research from becoming procrastination. The workshop will include a discussion of unique and outdated research and how writers can reflect on imperfect sources in their memoirs.

Today's Workshop

- Discuss why research can enhance your memoir

- How to research

- What to research

- Imperfect Sources

- How to incorporate the research

- Writing exercises

** IF YOU HAVE A MEMOIR OR ESSAY THAT YOU'RE WORKING ON - We'll be doing a few exercises and you can use that but don't worry if you don't. **

• You are writing a memoir and want to understand how research might help you tell your story.
• You can’t remember everything about the time in your life that you’re writing about.
• You’d like to make your memoir more dynamic by including historical context.
• You’re just starting to write your memoir and aren’t sure if your story is enough.
• You’re revising your memoir and know it needs something but aren’t sure what

5. SEE: Write down five (5) things that you can see around you. Pen or stapler, bird or tree, a family photo on the wall, or a glass of water on the kitchen counter. You can pick between big and small items to keep your options open.

4. TOUCH: Write down four things that you can touch around you. Hair, hands, elbows, and other parts of your body, the ground beneath your feet, whether it’s the floor of your bedroom, pillows, desks, phones, and keyboards.

3. HEAR: Write down three things you can hear around you. Focus on external noises like a car nearby, a clock ticking, or a dog barking.

2. SMELL: Write down two things around you that you can smell. This step may be a challenge compared to the others if you don’t smell anything wherever you are at the moment. Your skin, your shirt, your coffee, your breath.

1. TASTE: Write down one thing around you that you can taste. Toothpaste and minty floss, breakfast taco sitting next to you, the sandwich and chips you have for lunch, coffee, tea, and other drinks you have to get through the day also work.

Neighborhood: school, friends

Communities: Work, subcultures, acquaintances

Country: Mass culture, stranger

"The memoir can enter any of these circles, and ideally will move back and forth between them or show how they are layered one on top of the other...Even when the subject matter is less personal (outer circles), the personal voice is always what carries the reader from private life into the public world and then back again. The personal voice is what the reader comes to trust. It is the sturdy vehicle that will carry him from the most intimate corners of the writer's childhood into the wide open spaces of a shared culture." - Judith Barrington, Writing the Memoir. 

- Instead of writing, "My mother was a narcissist." Research narcissism and the typical traits a narcissist has. Can you use that knowledge to describe actions or habits of your mother?

- Use research on the symptoms and effects of that illness or disease to give specific details.

"It is Halloween 1989 and my best friend just told me his boyfriend tested positive for HIV. We are sipping overpriced cocktails in what used to be the best dance club in Portland but is now mostly bachelorette parties. I am wearing a bald wig because I am Mahatma Gandhi that year. My best friend is a skeleton but the white makeup is wearing off on everything he touches."  

Think of all the facts implied in this piece:

 - HIV epidemic in Portland in 1989. Society's view of AIDS and HIV during this time.

- Dance clubs and their place in gay culture

- Mahatma Gandhi 

- Portland in the 1980s

Think about things that used to be true but are no longer true:

1. Pluto isn't a planet

2. Texas is no longer part of Mexico

Spend 3 minutes listing a few things that you always thought were true but ended up not being true:

1. No one in my family ever saw a therapist or psychologist.

2. My mother made her cakes from scratch.

3. My family has "Spanish" roots.

Now write freely for 7 minutes on when you learned those truths were not true. 

Alternatively, write about something you think might be true or false but don't know for sure. 

South Austin, Southpark Meadows from Longhorns to Dave and Busters, Austin economy, housing prices. Where would these elements fit on the circles?

Your Circles

Right now, on a piece of paper or on a computer, list the different circles in the memoir you are/want to write. You can draw a circle or list. Spend five minutes listing items that fit under these lists.

As we continue in the workshop, I want you to make notes to yourself as ideas occur to you about items.

Research can wait until after your first draft.

"I encourage writers to make use of the TK. TK is an editorial term that means “To Come.” Highlight your TKs and come back to them later."

 - From Research and Memoir by Linda Joy Myers (9/1/2012)

Were you the first person in your family, state, or country to do something? Were you the last?

What happened before the time you are writing about that might explain why your story unfolded the way it did?

What happened after the time you are writing about that was influenced by the events in the story?

Solution: Research to help recover your memories.

• List the questions you want to answer with research.

• Write to remember and document where you found that information in case you need to go back.

• Write to understand. We are writers and sometimes the best way to understand something is to write it out. Discover patterns.

• Write to record your reaction to the research. How did you feel when you first learned that your father had a family before he married your mother?

• BEGINNINGS

• The day you were born?

• The day you were conceived?

• When your great grandparents came to the U.S.?

• When the Texas/Mexico border changed?

• Juneteenth?

• ENDINGS

• The day you signed your divorce papers?

• The year you went to college?

• The return flight from overseas?

• The day you reached your destination?

Knowing the timeline will help you identify research that can be done.

• Author of the memoir: An Indian Among Los Indigenas.

• MFA Creative Nonfiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts

• Published in Lit Hub, Yellow Medicine Review, World Literature Today and others

• Teach Memoir at Austin Community College

• Lives in Austin, grew up in California and Oregon

 - From Research and Memoir by Linda Joy Myers (9/1/2012)