The Momoir Project

The Momoir Project has been written about in many publications, including Pregnancy magazine, The Globe and Mail, The Georgia Straight, Vancouver Courier, Island Parent, Today’s Parent, as well as in many online newsletters. Please see below for a sampling of these reviews.

From The Globe and Mail, July 8, 2008

Moms are packing up the crayons, and picking up the pen: A new class teaches mothers the art of the memoir - whether they’re looking for catharsis or a book deal

By Wency Leung

Vancouver - Kirsten Hamelin takes a deep breath and reads aloud. Do you ever look across the dinner table at the father of your child, she asks, “and want to stab a fork in their hand?”
The six other students in Ms. Hamelin’s writing class laugh knowingly.

The women, all young mothers, have gathered at the home of Vancouver writer Cori Howard with their anecdotes about the frustrations, joys and fears of motherhood. They are here to learn what Ms. Howard, who leads the class, calls “the art of the momoir.”

Ms. Howard began holding memoir-writing classes exclusively for mothers, both privately and at the University of British Columbia, earlier this year. The response has been so positive, she is now expanding her “Momoir Project” to offer similar classes in Toronto and online (themomoirproject.com).

“Especially for working moms, time just flies by and more often than not, we don’t mark that time,” Ms. Howard said. “[Writing] is just a way to remember your experience in all its different complex facets.”

Ms. Howard, who has two children aged 3 and 7, wrote about her own abrupt transition to motherhood in the introduction of an anthology she edited, Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth about Motherhood, published last year.

While compiling the anthology, she said, she came across more stories than she could fit in the book and realized there was demand for a forum where mothers could share their tales.

Keeping a record through the postpartum haze isn’t the only reason women are compelled to write about motherhood, Ms. Howard said.

Some also join her classes with the goal of having their work published or to pen stories for their children to read when they grow up. Others find the practice of writing cathartic and take comfort in sharing their struggles with other women who can empathize.

“It helps you feel less alone,” Ms. Howard said, adding that even though each woman’s story is different, “you realize you have more similarities than differences.”

She has enlisted writers Randi Chapnik Myers and Katrina Onstad, both of whom contributed to Between Interruptions, to teach the Toronto classes.

Recurring themes in momoir writing include how motherhood has changed women’s relationships with their spouses, how it has affected their careers and how their own upbringings have influenced their parenting skills.

Since the subject matter is so intensely personal, it is not uncommon for students to laugh or break down in tears when they read their work aloud in class, Ms. Howard said.

Student Heather Barnes, who has a six-year-old daughter, said the writing course has inspired her to record her childhood memories and her relationship with her own mother. “For me, it’s reflecting on my parents and how I was parented,” she said. “It’s therapeutic.” Ms. Hamelin - the would-be stabber - said she, too, sees momoir writing as a form of therapy. She said she felt a loss of identity after the happy birth of her son, who is now 18 months old.

Writing has given her an outlet for those conflicting emotions, she said. “I had lots to say.”

From Yummy Mummy’s Earnest Girl Blog

The Things We Keep - An Invitation

November 11, 2009

I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.

~ The Invitation, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder, May 1994

There have been nights like these lately, and so the what needs to be done has taken precedence to the chronicling. My last post, which has been sitting quietly, holding this window on motherhood open, was inspired by my participation in Cori Howard’s The Momoir Project.

The title, The Things We Carry, is really hers; it was given as a writing exercise. My version of that exercise unwound itself almost complete on the page as you see it below. I had no idea it was there, just under the surface and waiting to be articulated, until Cori handed me the divining rod.

So much of motherhood is spent navigating the meltdown, the hunger, the mess. There are days, months, bouts of behaviour, times of stress and sickness, when you are engulfed. I spent the first year and more sleep deprived to the point of delusions. This was no “mommy brain”; I’m talking off-the-charts not sleeping and stumbling through my days. I swear, it was only the sturdy white handle on the pram that held me up for months on end.

It is hard to grasp the ways in which the experience of motherhood, of being a mother is subtly changing you every day. Like a river it flows, and like the river’s bed, you are altered by the flowing.

Writing is an opportunity to catch some of those moments before they are washed away. You do not have to want to be a writer to write down your experience of motherhood. It can be an act of creative remembering, a way to shape the stories you want to pass to your children. To dedicate yourself to the process is, for some, certainly for me, a way to ensure you will wrest a bit of time for yourself, a lookout if you will, on the river of momdom.

During these last few weeks of total engulf, small moments have presented themselves that I know are now lost to the rapids. I’ll not get them back, those little whiseperings, the tickle in my ear lost in the bigger whooshing. But I have learned now that they will wait, cocooned in a crevice, for the cup of tea, blank page or midnight moment in front of the computer’s blueglow, to unfurl in their own time.

From the blog, theopinionatedparent.com

Wed, September 2, 2009

If you are a mom, you have stories. Big stories, little stories…but you are most definitely full of stories. The very, very first story emits from the first time you see the two pink lines on the pregnancy test (or hear your physician say, “You’re pregnant.”). See? Every mom has a story!

I have stories and memories resounding and reverberating in my head all day long. Instances are brought to mind several times each day, springing up to consciousness in the midst of my daily duties. The problem is this: How to stream all of these memories, stories, scenarios? How to channel them into cohesiveness and get it down on paper for posterity? Therein lies the problem.

Whether you don’t have time or you aren’t sure how, recording your motherhood-based stories may seem impossible and impractical. For you and me, though, there’s help….thanks to Cori Howard and her Momoir Project.

The Momoir Project is the brainchild of Howard, an award-winning journalist whose passion for writing goes beyond her past profession. She formerly published Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood, an anthology of stories by moms and about all-things-motherhood. The Momoir Project is an extension of that effort….a way to help all moms out there figure out how to write down their lives, how to record their experiences (from the mundane to the extraordinary).

Howard offers actual writing classes for moms, as well as online seminars. Brand new, however, is a condensed e-book, The Momoir Workbook, that can be purchased and printed out. It allows you to learn and work independently at your “momoir,” setting your own pace and exploring at your own leisure the writing yet to bloom from your experiences.

The workbook teaches the importance of carrying around a notebook at all times, how to realize what your own unique story really is, and reminds you to remember who your audience is. It goes back to the basics and teaches you how to brainstorm anecdotes, write leads, composes theses, formulate the body, and close your story neatly in a bound ending.

Every chapter in the e-book offers a writing prompt that will set your creativity and memory bank ablaze. There’s also a call to record in writing the random conversations (or Q&As) you have with your children. I found this especially endearing, since I am consistently trying to write down (or email, or text, or Twitter) my children’s quizzical ponderings or hilarious realizations that they frequently vocalize.

Last but not least, great tips for actually finding time for writing and keeping up with it once you’ve begun wrap up this instructional, inspiration e-book.

You can purchase The Memoir Workbook (in PDF format) directly from The Momoir Project’s website. The cost is $32.95 in US dollars and $34.95 in Canadian Dollars. This book is certainly an investment in the things that matter most — penning and remembering these precious days with our little ones, the angst, trials, and decision-making along the way, and as moms, recording our hopes and dreams for the future (both ours and theirs.)

Moms bond over the write stuff

By Gail Johnson

Published July 2, 2009

in The Georgia Straight

Penelope Hutchison has one word to describe how she felt upon becoming a mom: stunned. The Vancouver resident admits she was completely taken aback by how isolated she felt during those early days of her child’s life. The loneliness that flooded in so unexpectedly was only exacerbated by a case of postpartum depression that lasted about a year. Then there was the overwhelmingly steep learning curve that accompanies caring for a newborn.

If Hutchison found herself fumbling toward motherhood, she certainly isn’t alone. Granted, the joys and benefits of parenting far outweigh its rigours, but most new moms say they’re shocked to learn just how tough their new role can be. Sleep-deprived, covered in spit-up, and perpetually behind on household chores, women suddenly find themselves working harder than ever before—in demand 24 hours a day—all the while yearning for adult conversation, lamenting the lack of personal freedom, and, commonly, facing the loss of identity.

Hutchison found that one way of coping with the ever-changing demands of motherhood—her “baby” is now 10—is through words. She just finished taking part in the Momoir Project, a writing course for moms of all ages.

“You’re alone for eight hours a day with this being,” Hutchison recalls of being a new mom, speaking to the Straight at a West Side café where the group recently gathered for its last session. “You feel so isolated. It’s so freeing to write about whatever is on my mind and to connect with other women.…This raw honesty comes out. We barely know each other but we know where we’re all coming from. We can all relate.

“I love being able to write about being a mom—not just about changing diapers but about how motherhood changed our relationships with our partners, with our mothers and fathers,” she adds. “There’s a huge, broad range of issues. It’s writing about life. There are no censors.”

Started by local journalist Cori Howard, the Momoir Project aims to teach moms how to record their experiences, whether they just want a keepsake or they aspire to being published in print or on-line. As a writer and a mother of two, Howard knows firsthand the power of the pen (or the computer keyboard).

“I use writing to deal with my problems,” she says before class, adding that she too was caught off-guard by the challenges of motherhood. “I had the career crisis, the marriage crisis, the friendship crisis, the identity crisis. I wasn’t prepared at all. I thought it was going to be all cuddles and hugs and soft blankets.”

One thing that helps women cope is learning that they’re not alone. No wonder mommy lit has exploded as a genre over the past several years, from Allison Pearson’s 2003 novel, I Don’t Know How She Does It: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother to Trisha Ashworth’s I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood (2007).

Also in 2007, Howard edited Between Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood (Key Porter), an anthology of strikingly up-front essays by Chantal Kreviazuk, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Elizabeth Renzetti, among other Canadians.

Following the book’s release, Howard says she was inundated with e-mails from women who wanted to tell their stories but didn’t know how to get started. That’s when she got the idea to offer a writing class to help women unleash the vast amounts of personal—not to mention touching, tear-jerking, irreverent, intimate, and comical—subject matter that motherhood creates.

Howard has been deeply moved by the stories her participants have come up with.

“We’ve done a lot of crying together,” Howard says.

There’s no denying the way writing about such a soul-stirring part of life can be therapeutic for those who do it and comforting to those who read it.

For proof, look no further than the blogosphere. According to the 2009 Women and Social Media Study conducted by BlogHer, iVillage, and Compass Partners, as many as 26 million moms in the United States alone write, read, and comment on blogs.

The study found that women start their own blogs to have fun, express themselves, connect with like-minded women, give and get advice, receive positive reactions from others, keep a personal diary, and establish and contribute to a community.

Inspiration for so many wannabe mommy bloggers is Heather Armstrong, a Salt Lake City, Utah, mother of two who writes about “poop and boobs” with honesty, clarity, and hilarity at Dooce.com. Her experiences clearly resonate: she gets about 55,000 hits every day.

Closer to home, Sarah Juliusson has fallen in love with writing a blog. One of the founders of Mama Renew, which aims to connect and support women on the journey of motherhood through workshops and groups, Juliusson says the blog aims to speak to the deeper needs of moms rather than gloss over women’s issues like so many breezy Cosmo-style lists.

“We want to dig into the reality of the lives of mothers,” Juliusson tells the Straight in a phone interview. “I walk through my life in such a different way now that I’m writing about motherhood.…Everything is a story.”

Blogging is a great alternative to being published in print, says Howard, who focuses on the essay form in her classes. The course has two levels, the first of which includes the basics of good writing (which is sadly lacking on so many blogs) while the second teaches participants how to get published—and how to handle rejection. The next six-week session, which costs $420, starts in the fall.

Erin MacNair, a mother of two and a Vancouver jeweller, carved out time in her hectic schedule to take the Momoir class.

“You have so much material in you, and to have a place to let it go, to be in a safe circle of women who aren’t going to judge you, is really quite powerful,” she tells the Straight. “We’ve been moved to tears. It’s cathartic.…Writing makes me feel like a person again.”

From SavvyMom.ca
2009.03.19

Toronto Issue

The Write Stuff

The Momoir Project
Memories. Misty, watercolor memories.

Do these long forgotten lyrics harken back to the early days of your new life as a mother? Unless you are still in the thick of it, memories of those newborn days (and nights) may be a bit, um, foggy.

Well, we have some news for you. Soon enough, the preschool memories will start to get a bit fuzzy, too. You can try to capture it all on film, but pictures and videos will only preserve so much. The best way to remember all the stuff you keep saying you’ll never forget is to write it down.

Cori Howard and Randi Chapnik Myers know that putting pen to paper takes a bit more skill and bravery than pointing and shooting. That’s one reason they started The Momoir Project. Described as part writing group, part literary salon, The Momoir Project offers writing classes specifically designed for mothers seeking to express themselves, share their experiences and capture their memories of nurturing their children. Some women have been so inspired they have gone on to have their work published. If you love the idea of reading what other mothers have to say about the highs (and lows) of becoming a parent, we remind you of our previous recommendation, Between Interruptions: 30 Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood. Cori edited this amazing compilation of essays about motherhood which was the inspiration behind starting the Momoir Project. The Momoir Project will be offering a new series of classes in Toronto on Monday nights from 6:30 to 8:30 pm starting on April 20 and running for six weeks. The session costs $420 and will give you all the skills (and confidence) you need to become your family’s official biographer.

Good to know: If you don’t think you can line up childcare to get out to a class, The Momoir Project also offers classes via Skype.

So put that pen to paper (or work away on that keyboard) and put the mom into memories. It’s like writing yourself a letter that you will read over and over again.