AWARD-WINNING INSPIRATIONAL STORIES The true stories in the four volumes of Seasons of Our Lives will charm, intrigue, captivate, and inspire you because they speak of our lives almost as much as they do the authors'. The details of childhood, coming of age, adulthood, and aging-of passion, friendship, love, sacrifice, betrayal, disappointment, survival, and unexpected joy-of lives intersecting with history-of ordinary yet extraordinary experiences are unique to these award-winning authors. And yet, at their core, these stories tell of all our lives. These true stories will make you laugh. Cry. Feel joy. Experience sorrow. Collectively they form a kaleidoscope of life's multi-faceted seasons. WomensMemoirs.com held four contests and received hundreds of remarkable stories. Award-winning authors and memoir coaches Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett, editors of these four volumes of life stories, read each submission, ranked them, and then made decisions on the winners. These four volumes (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) contain the award-winning stories. Interested in writing about your life? The editors of these volumes added a lesson, or what they call a "takeaway," at the end of each story. As you read the 100-plus stories, you'll find a short lesson, each tied to the memoir vignette, designed to motivate and inspire you to begin writing your own life experiences. The mini-lessons that follow each award-winning story cover many of the topics important in memoir writing such as: creating a memoir title, crafting a powerful opening, linking openings and closings, choosing point of view, incorporating sensory details, adding character descriptions, showing (not telling) emotions, using dialogue effectively, understanding how time and place can be used in tandem or as stand-alone elements, making word choice a priority, discerning the different impacts of present versus past tense, considering vignette topics to write about, choosing between letting the reader figure out the story behind the story or spelling out all the details, and much more. SEASONS OF OUR LIVES: WINTER includes 33 memoir vignettes and takeaways to get you thinking about your life, and perhaps writing your own stories. Five of these stories include a treasured family recipe along with the story.
About the Author: MATILDA BUTLER is the award-winning co-author of the collective memoir Rosie's Daughters: The "First Woman To" Generation Tells Its Story, Second Edition, Writing Alchemy: How to Write Fast and Deep, the two volume anthology Tales of Our Lives: Fork in the Road and Tales of Our Lives: Reflection Pond, as well as other books. A psychologist, online and in-person memoir coach and writing conference speaker, she writes and teaches in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Butler also offers classes in Waikoloa Beach, Hawaii. KENDRA BONNETT is the award-winning co-author of Rosie's Daughters and Writing Alchemy and author/ghostwriter of nine additional books, a marketing executive, and a speaker and memoir coach. She regularly blogs with Matilda Butler at WomensMemoirs.com and writes and teaches from her home in Downeast Maine. Butler and Bonnett can also be found at their three Etsy.com stores: (1) RosiesLegacyGear (featuring Rosie the Riveter bandanas, posters, employment badges, mugs, and even rivets-an outgrowth of writing the collective memoir Rosie's Daughters), (2) WomensMemoirWriting (featuring journals, storymaps, teas, mugs, videos and other products for writers-an outgrowth of their book Writing Alchemy), and (3) StandWithWomen (featuring enamel pins, t-shirts, and socks for your inner feminist-an outgrowth of helping women tell their stories so that no female voice is silenced).