For as long as you can remember….

….you’ve been dreaming about the memoir you’ve wanted to write, but you’ve been procrastinating writing it for an eternity too.  You’re wondering if your life story is compelling enough to commit to paper. 

Well, I’m here to tell you that the world needs your stories, big and small. 

Your relatives will be interested to read about how you grew up as one of a large family during the Great Depression and its aftermath. Or what it was like coming of age during World War II in the late 1930s and early 40s.  Or how you met and married your spouse at the apex of the Korean War and the beginning of the Vietnam Wars in the 1950s. Or how you joined the civil rights and women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and 70s.  And how you’ve worked hard during the 1980s and 90s to become a prominent person of influence in many spheres over your lifespan to the present Corona pandemic of 2020. 

If you’re worried all these rich, meaningful life experiences you’ve spent a lifetime building will be lost forever unless you write your memoir, I can help!

I’m a memoir writer and creative writing coach for elders who want to capture their life stories to share with their families.

I love working with elders who are dazzling treasure troves of historical information.  Whether you’re looking for help writing your own story, or want to hire me to write your story for you, I’m excited to collaborate with you!

My Story

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. From the time my father gave me a wedgewood blue pleather diary with gilt-edged pages and a teensy two-pronged key to open the lock holding all my deepest secrets, I’ve been writing my life story. I guess you could call this diary my very first attempt at memoir.  

Then in elementary school, I began writing poetry in earnest. While up late at night in my bedroom I peered out from behind my sheer nylon curtains overlooking the glistening snow-blanketed backyard under the full moon’s glow. Each poem I wrote, drifting from my mouth, left the familiar steely metallic taste of a snowflake suspended in mid-air, melting there.

Writing has always been magical to me.

But instead of a brilliant writing career, what followed was the steady succession of mindless fast food jobs with their accompanying unflattering polyester uniforms:  Papa Gino’s, Brigham’s, McDonald’s.

Fast forward to my high school summer days when, at 3 p.m., I would arrive at Sudbury Pines Nursing Home to start the second shift working as a nurse’s aide.  The unit was mostly old ladies.  Marion was a moaner who couldn’t feed or wipe herself; so I did both of these for her.  Christine had long, white greasy hair, smelled of pungent urine, and hoarded old food in her bra, shrieking whenever you’d touch her.  But Virginia, dear Virginia, was my very favorite; she was 101 years old and sharp as a tack.  It was her body that betrayed her; she harbored a bed sore on her coccyx at the base of her spine so deep you could see past her paper-thin skin to her insides.  Virginia never complained; instead she murmured a musical, “thank you.”  Then there was Adele who was super-anxious and parroted whatever you told her.  Mama Rosie was Italian, but her dementia was so advanced she couldn’t carry on a conversation, and she was known to wander, or argue heatedly with a wall.  

What I realized was: Each of these elders had her own story, of which I could only see a fraction.  What these ladies taught me about life would prove invaluable to me later.  I loved them all and thoroughly enjoyed serving them.  Finally, a meaningful job!

Life began to change for me, albeit slowly, at Brown University where I cultivated my interests in writing and literature.  I earned my bachelor of arts in English and American literature with honors (meaning that I submitted my thesis on the Nonsense of Emily Dickinson and Lewis Carroll to my thesis advisor just in the nick of time). I was elected to Phi Beta Kappa during my junior year; and I received the Minnie Hicks Prize for academic excellence.  And I was also magna cum laude.

Upon graduating I accidentally landed a series of fascinating jobs in the field of fund-raising administration for higher education.  During more than a decade in fund-raising administration, I built on my skills in research and writing.

Then at thirty-one, my life changed forever when I fell off an interior window ledge, bisecting my right internal carotid artery, and suffered a stroke.  I realized I too wanted to live long enough to grow old.  But only if my best years of life experiences were preserved intact for all to read.

I didn’t want to die without first having shared my story with the world. 

I felt as if I had been given a second chance at living.  After a six-month recovery, I resumed work, and concurrently I met and married a Brazilian chemist. But within a very short period of time, my life would soon change forever directly after I gave birth to our healthy daughter.  

In the postpartum period that followed, I was blindsided when I struggled with postpartum problems so severe that I couldn’t even care for myself let alone my family, so my marriage unraveled.  This in fact proved to be harder for me than surviving a stroke ever was. 

I escaped to my father’s house on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.  It was there on that tiny island off the coast of Cape Cod that I spent hours up in the attic bedroom of his half-cape writing the story of my life to make sense of my misfortune.  To reinvent myself.  But, most importantly, to heal.  

Writing the first draft of my memoir—replete with all its glorious imperfections, in the confines of my father’s cramped but cozy attic, with its narrow staircase and steeply sloping eaves—saved my life.  

Returning to my fundamental love of elders, I volunteered to be a companion to an elder named Marva at the island’s only nursing home, Windemere.  Applying my research skills to the online dating scene, I met Wesley McCormick, who would become my husband eight years later.  But in reality it was my two-and-a-half-year old daughter who selected Wes as her step-dad when, after our first date at the youth circus called Circus Smirkus, I turned around from the line at the ice cream parlor to find my daughter reaching for Wes’ hand! Talk about love at first sight!

Wes got me a job at the copier company where he worked.  For nearly a decade I struggled there, miserable but also very grateful to be gainfully employed.  I worked in various roles as a service administrator, dispatcher, and finally a sales job: supply representative, it was called.  (A polite way of saying toner telemarketer.)  Not so bad, really, except that I sucked at sales.  And I do mean sucked. 

Continuing to follow my beating heart in my spare time, I applied to participate in the Brown Writers’ Symposium for creative nonfiction, and Brown accepted me during the summer of 2008.  There I studied Life Writing with Professor Carol DeBoer-Langworthy. I was on my way to becoming a memoir writer, but for the moment my passion was still on pause, my dreams not yet fully realized.

Several more soul-crushing years of mind-numbing toner telemarketing passed, and eventually in 2015 I was laid off. (I cringe every time I hear a challenge being called an opportunity; however, in my case it truly was.)  Because of my residual disabilities, I couldn’t find traditional employment, so it made perfect sense to seek help from the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission as a way of returning to work. And therein lay my opportunity…..

In the summer of 2017, I set my heart on a class at the Cape Cod Campus of Bridgewater State University called “Jumpstart Your Home-Based Business Memoir Writing for Elders,” taught by long-time memoirist Mary O’Brien Tyrrell.  I couldn’t believe my good fortune, as this class combined my love for memoirs with my affection for elders and promised that ever-elusive job--one where I could finally do what I loved while being my own boss!  But would Mass Rehab support my career choice?

So I pitched the class to my Mass Rehab Counselor.  And she loved the idea!  Success: Mass Rehab approved this class for me.  And it’s been life-changing. The teacher, Mary, took me under her wing, and during the class, we wrote a press release in which I was featured, and which later became the basis for an August news article in The Register.  (Click here to read the article.)

It was as if the universe were finally aligning for me to apply my creative talent, education, and skills to the pursuit of my love of memoir.  Soon Easter Seals offered me special adaptive technologies to help with my client interviews and typing.  By September of that same year, I had a creative business name (you got it—Enduring Elephant Memoirs), a slogan (“So Future Generations Never Forget Your Family’s Legacy”), a rudimentary website up and running, and an original elephant logo designed by my daughter, then fifteen years old.

During 2017, my father’s health declined dramatically, so my business took a back seat to caring for him, and in January 2018, just a week after my birthday (and a mere three days after being declared not acute enough for placement in a selective hospice center), he passed away.  

To this day I regret not having written my own father's life story while he was alive to share it with me.  In the year that followed, while grieving, however, I did write a moving personal essay about my father entitled, The Boat Over:  Remembering My Father’s Final Year.

Today I am doing what I love: I’m writing my heart out, creating memoirs for elders and coaching others who are tackling their own memoir projects.  I know what they are going through; I understand their challenges, their frustrations and their opportunities. (Did I really just say opportunities?  Yes, I did!)  A life-long learner, I’m always reading, acquiring new skills, taking classes, engaging in workshops, and sharing insights with my clients.  

Together with my clients we brainstorm; we collaborate; I offer constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement.  I just love working with people like you--who are both ordinary and amazing--to write their heartfelt memoirs that preserve the memories and experiences they’ve spent their lifetimes amassing for posterity.

But enough about me. Tell me about yourself! Don’t waste another minute.

Let’s start writing your story so future generations never forget your family’s legacy.

Send me an email at priscilla@enduringelephantmemoirs.com.

To learn more about how I can help you write and share your memoir, visit my Work With Me page.