Around the Writers Block, Spring, 2009

I’ve been thinking a lot about essay and memoir writing lately (our April reading just featured memoir excerpts from four amazing writers), and what I find myself explaining each time I teach a class in memoir or edit a memoir is that the situation—the event about which one is writing--is not the same as the story. The awful childhood, the recovery from addiction, the recounting of your mother’s or father’s or nephews’ lives—none of these subjects are what the essay or memoir is about. Not really. Those are the situations.

And the story? The real story?

That’s where the writer reveals what she did with these situations, where she struggles to make sense of them, where she finds the space for these incidents and people that populate her life long after the events are over, long after the people are gone. Every memoir, in other words, has a situation and a story.

As does our writers’ guild.

The situation of the guild is the organization itself—our many activities: our free writes, contests, readings and song nights; our parties. But the story? The real story?

That’s the tale of what this community has done with what could have easily been just another arts organization.

We’re not.

And nothing makes me more proud.

Every single thing the guild does happens because members—and nonmembers both--give a part of themselves to this community. Whether leading a Free write! baking brownies or cheese squares for a party, lending us a mic and amp, taking photos of our events, upgrading our website, ordering cakes—with our guild guy in blue icing on top, wrapping gifts in orange bows to give winners of our contests, sending out weekly emails, performing at a music night….the list goes on—but this, this is the real story of the guilds’ success.

Most memoirists fail because they confuse the situation with the story. They might recount events beautifully, but it is only in the willingness to look at events from various perspectives, only in struggling not just to tell what happened, but to shape and therefore, to better understand it, that experience is transformed into art.

And isn’t this the goal? 

Good art isn’t about making money (though it sure would be nice); good art isn’t dependent on having the most fans; it’s not even about being displayed in the best galleries or being published by the biggest publishers. Good art is about transformation. Good arts organizations are about the same thing. I know with certainty that the writers’ guild has transformed lives; I know it has transformed mine, and I am thankful every day to be a part of it.

-Maribeth Fischer

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For more about Maribeth, see her website, www. maribethfischer.com