Interview With Nan Phifer
Interview by Jenna Glatzer

Nan Phifer is Associate Director of the Oregon Writing Project at the University of Oregon.   In 1998 she created a workshop, Writing Spiritual Memoirs, sponsored jointly by Lane Literary Guild, the Pastoral Care Department of Peace Health Medical Group, and the Oregon Writing Project at the University of Oregon.  Her new book, Memoirs of the Soul: Writing Your Spiritual Autobiography, was piloted by workshop participants.

Memoirs of the Soul enables inexperienced as well as experienced writers to explore and write about their aspirations, disappointments, satisfactions, joys, longings, and search for meaning.  Writers gently progress from accessible subjects they can readily address to deeply significant subjects.  This book takes readers on a voyage of self-discovery by means of writing and through a process that produces polished memoirs.

When Nan taught at the secondary and college levels, she received recognition for outstanding teaching.  She also wrote the basic skills textbooks: Easing into Essays, Writing Your Life: Developing Skills through Life Story Writing, and Writing for the Workplace; and she has made presentations at many national conferences. At this time she teaches workshops of various lengths for writers' groups, teachers' organizations, continuing education programs, religious organizations, library programs, and clubs.  

The resulting workbook for GED students, Easing into Essays: Getting Ready to Write the GED Test Essay, is warm and personable and brings good results. I submitted it simultaneously to publishers and received four acceptances--a success so thrilling to me that I wrote two more composition workbooks using methods I had evolved with my classes.

You've focused much of your work as a teacher, workshop leader, and author on the memoir-writing subject.  Why does this topic interest you so much?

I love the literature of personal drama, both the published literature and the literature we carry inside ourselves. Most of us do have tender stories to tell. We just need a guide to help us see our individual table of contents, show us techniques for initiating the different chapters, assure helpful responses to first drafts, suggest ways to reflect on that draft, and give us clues for revision.

Why should a writer undertake the project of writing a "spiritual autobiography?"

Many of us think about the purpose and meaning of our lives, and we desire reconciliation with people we have known and even reconciliation with the different aspects of ourselves.  We want to be aware of the most important elements in our lives and put the less important parts in perspective.  Writing memoirs is a way to sort out, discover, understand, apologize, appreciate, and celebrate.

Many memoirists like to share the telling of their lives with close friends, family members, or fellow writers.  The sharing creates extraordinary intimacy and acceptance of us as we really are.  If final drafts are written and the memoirs are printed, they will be a gift of ourselves to friends and, possibly, to a broader community.  Memoirs give descendents a way to know the person behind a photograph, a way to know their heritage.

What's the difference between a memoir and an autobiography?

Autobiographies are usually linear, beginning with birth and continuing to the age of the writer.  They include factual data that may, or may not, be interesting.

Memoirs are about the times when our feelings were intense, when we pulsed with caring, or knowing, or not knowing, with wanting, regretting, belonging, not belonging, stumbling, and transcending.  Memoirs are about the times when we have been most keenly alive. In writing about those times, the writer often gains surprising insights.  On reflection, we often see positive aspects of ourselves that we have failed to appreciate.  We observe our intentions, strivings, sacrifice, patience, and the efforts we've made.  Autobiographies focus more on events and achievements, life at the surface, while memoirs also reveal our dreams, frustrations, and satisfactions.

Because memoirs do not need to be written chronologically, they don't plod. I advise memoirists to begin by writing about the subject most astir with energy.   Eventually all the various chapters, long and short, can be spread on the dining room table or living room floor to be arranged and rearranged, sometimes chronologically, sometimes by theme or by another grouping.

If the writer decides to expand her memoirs into an autobiography, the necessary statistical data can simply be added.  An autobiography composed in this way is already filled with soul and will be vital.

I love your blueprint idea.  Actually, at several points in the book, you suggest that writers draw things-- hearts and stick figure portraits and trails and street blueprints.  But I'm a writer, not an artist.  How will these visual exercises help me?

By writing first about the evident, easy-to-tell aspects of our lives, we gain self-assurance and self-knowledge.  Memoirists who write together establish understanding and trust.  Gradually we progress toward the thoughts and feelings critical to the core of our being but seldom shared; and eventually, we come to the times of doubt, intense pain, radiant happiness, contentment, and times when we felt reverence, awe, compassion--possibly even times when we were in communion with something beyond ourselves.  Most of us need to approach this innermost part of ourselves gradually, writing in the way one walks a labyrinth, circling from the outside, pausing, circling back, turning again toward the center, and gently moving toward our very essence.

You encourage writers to read their work aloud, share it with others, etc.  How can writers get over the hurdle of the initial embarrassment of revealing such personal writing?

Personal, reflective, introspective writing is scary.  We tremble at such self-exposure and hesitate to risk the disapproval of our companions.  Therefore, I insist that writing partners or groups follow rigid listening and responding guidelines.

Listeners must:

Never judge the life or lifestyle of the reader.

Guard the confidentiality of the reader.

Listen to learn.

To respond constructively to a reading, listeners should:

First, point out something, anything, they like about the writing.

Next, ask a question.

Unless the writer asks for suggestions, say nothing further.

If these guidelines are followed without fail, a safe atmosphere is created.  Writers whose convictions and lifestyles differ radically can write together comfortably and constructively.  I've observed surprising candor and caring support in groups of unlike people.

Members of one's own family have the most difficulty refraining from being judgmental and from challenging the accuracy of the story.  You may find it simpler to write with people who are not involved in your life and to complete and print your memoirs before showing them to your family.

If I look back on my journals, it seems I've lived a very sad life.  Why do you think so many writers only write personally when they're feeling lousy?  Why don't we record our joys?

Writing in our journals is like turning to a dear old friend.  The writing is a solace.  When we need comfort, need to confide, need to be alone to contemplate and assimilate, we turn to our journals.

Joyful experiences charge us into the world to announce and hug and dance.  We want to share joy.  Joy shared is joy magnified.  It is when we are sad or wounded or disappointed that we need the quiet old friend who accepts our groped words, waits while we ponder, and absorbs our tears.

Memoirs include both the sad and joyful times.  They can be wildly funny as well as sorrowful.  You'll probably work on a schedule to write your memoirs.  You won't write only when you need solace.  Having a writing schedule and a plan, such as the sequence I present in Memoirs of the Soul, means that you will be writing when you have energy and verve; and your writing will gain momentum as your project progresses.

There seem to be so many self-conscious rationalizations not to start writing a memoir-- "I'm nobody important," "my life isn't that interesting," "I'm too young to write an autobiography," etc.  How can a writer move past these thoughts?

To write memoirs is to explore the inner life.  Anyone who claims to have an inner life is a potential memoirist. An adolescent filled with wonderings, concerns, reactions, and longings is ready to write memoirs. Memoirs appeal to reflective people, and such people may be any age.

What makes memoirs interesting has little to do with the importance or achievements of the writer.  Rather, the shared experiences, vivid memories, expressed feelings, and reflections that affect the mind and heart of the reader are what make memoirs significant.  Think of the novels you have loved.  The main characters are not usually people of renown or great achievement.  It is their humanity that is important to us.  In writing about your inner life, you will show your humanity.

If you could pass along just one piece of advice to writers, what would it be?

A professor who taught a workshop I attended at Lewis and Clark University advised us to write for ten minutes every day.  I think this advice is as valuable as it is simple.  It prevents procrastination.  We all can manage to write for ten minutes each day if we keep cheap notebooks stashed in our cars, tote bags, kitchens, and on the bedside table.  Even if we never write for more than ten minutes, (though many days we will write considerably longer,) the writing will accumulate, and our words and thoughts will flow with increasing momentum.

Anything else you'd like to add?

I'll be happy to hear suggestions from your readers.  Write to me at nanphifer@mac.com. 

ORDER THE BOOK BY CLICKING HERE.   

Nan is at home at 2126 Kimberly Circle, Eugene, OR 97405-5820, where she can be reached by E-mail at nanphifer@mac.com. Visit her website at http://www.memoirworkshops.com. 

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