Life experiences relayed in Inprint’s memoir workshops
Since 1996, the Houstonbased literary organization Inprint has offered free memoir writing workshops to senior citizens in diverse community centers around the city.
In the workshops, seniors write about their life experiences — stories about their family, childhood, neighborhood and a changing world.
A memoir, a form of autobiographical writing, gives writers and others a look into who they were, and some of the things they experienced.
“These workshops benefit senior citizens in many ways. (They) challenge seniors to use their memories to craft interesting and well-written stories,” said Krupa Parikh, communications and community relations director of Inprint. “Most of the seniors have never thought of themselves as writers.
The tasks of writing, editing, revising, and reading aloud keep them mentally and emotionally engaged in ways that few other senior activities do. It is exciting for them to learn something new and participate in that learning with peers.”
In the workshops, attendees write, read aloud, and revise their stories and memoirs with the help of a skilled writer/teacher.
In doing so, they experience a sense of accomplishment, enhanced mental alertness and increased well-being. They are also an opportunity for personal growth.
When writing memoirs, people look back through their decades of life and think about what people and events were especially meaningful to them.
After that, they have to transform the bits of information they have gathered into sentences and paragraphs that make sense.
They have to learn how to convey emotion. They also have to find ways to effectively show how they were affected by certain people and/or events.
Along the way, individuals develop their unique writer’s voice and their personality comes out in the writing.
Workshop participants (enrolled through the community centers) write down these stories for their children and grandchildren, themselves, and their communities, preserving family and community histories. These workshops help keep memories alive as well as provide a stimulating group activity.
Workshop students share what they have written since the last meeting and offer constructive criticism.
The teacher works to get the students to start reading like writers, and see how a piece of writing is made. This includes helping them put their thoughts into a form they can share with others.
One 84-year-old participant said it was good for older people to do this, that when you get older, it’s good to have new experiences.
Parikh said workshop participants often talk about the deep social bonds that develop through the practice of a workshop, and especially sharing personal stories.
As studies show, seniors who are socially active and connected tend to stay healthier.
Inprint Senior Memoir Workshops are currently running at three locations: Finnigan Park Community Center in Houston’s Fifth Ward, led by Josephine Mitchell; Henk Rossouw leads the one at the Jewish Community Center; and the workshop at Amazing Place, a day center for people with dementia, is led by Niki Herd.
Many of the writers who lead the workshops are University of Houston Creative Writing Program students and alumni.
These workshops typically run from September to May and meet on a weekly basis, with each group meeting for 1½- to two-hour sessions a week. According to Parikh, they are focused on helping seniors recall and write down their stories.
“Our Inprint Senior Memoir Workshops have celebratory readings that are open to the public,” Parikh said. “Inprint has a great video on its website from our Inprint Senior Memoir Finnigan Park Workshop Celebration back in May, which has lovely quotes by the seniors on how the workshops impact them.”
One participant has since published her poetry in regional literary magazines, and has read her poetry at the Houston Poetry Fest and the Round Top Poetry Festival in Round Top.
Inprint is a literary arts nonprofit organization in Houston whose programs support and engage readers and writers of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction.