Family Memoir Writing

press release:  In this 90 minute workshop, Jen Rubin will discuss her process of writing a family memoir that centered around the small business her family owned for 80 years. Jen will talk about how to balance 3 generations, deal with thorny family issues, and how to include enough history and sociology to inform the story but not so much that the central story is overwhelmed. Jen is a skilled storyteller and brought an oral storytelling approach to her writing. This will be an interactive workshop with a mixture of presentation, storytelling, Q & A, and small group work. Jen Rubin is a former New Yorker who leads storytelling workshops around Madison, co-produces the Moth StorySlam in Madison, teaches the occasional social policy class at the University of Wisconsin School of Social Work, and works at the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. She has recently published her first book, We Are Staying: Eighty Years in the Life of a Family, a Store, and a Neighborhood. Jen is an obsessive maker of mixed tapes and quite possibly the best challah baker in town.