Dion McInnis – Turning Memories into Memoirs, Autobiographies, Short Stories and Nonfiction

On July 7th, 2011 Tyler R. Tichelaar and Victor R. Volkman spoke with writing coach and author Dion McInnis about how anyone can learn to write an engaging memoir. He teaches Memories to Memoirsworkshops at a variety of outlets, as well as teaching photography. He fell in love with writing by the time he was 12 and photography at 6. During the day, he is a university administrator, and every moment of every day he is a writer/photographer/speaker/poet. We covered a range of topics on memoir including

Using writing cues to jog your memory
The Horizontal Timelines and how they can co-ordinate the story of your life
The importance of preserving your point-of-view while recovering memories
Choosing fiction or non-fiction as your final product
Using old photos to stimulate memories and discover context
Non-verbal methods of bringing yourself back in time
And much more!

Dion McInnis

Dion McInnis has always loved the stories of his life and the lives of those he encountered. He believes in the richness, wisdom and humanity of stories. Over time, he realized that it is harder to rekindle memories and find the ways to turn them into stories, whether for memoirs, autobiographies, short stories and so on. So, he developed a way to find the memories and turn them into words. His most recent book is entitled Daddin’: The Verb of Being a Dad.