Writing Your Self: Transforming Personal Material

270 Pages·2010·1.04 MB·English

by  Myra Schneider, John Killick

Writing Your Self
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Writing Your Self
Transforming
personal material
Myra Schneider
and
John Killick
Continuum International Publishing Group
The Tower Building 80 Maiden Lane
11 York Road Suite 704
London SE1 7NX New York, NY 10038
www.continuumbooks.com
© Myra Schneider and John Killick 2010
Myra Schneider and John Killick have asserted their right under the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the
Authors of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or
retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-8470-6251-2 (hardback)
978-1-8470-6252-9 (paperback)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire
Contents
Notes on the authors vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
Part 1
1 Childhood and relationships with parents 7
2 Identity 30
3 Adult relationships 56
4 Abuse 80
5 Displacement and disability 90
6 Ilnes 109
7 Mental illness 118
8 Caring and coping 131
9 Los 143
10 Facing death 157
11 Spirituality 166
vi Contents
Part 2
12 G etting started, image explorations and basic
techniques 177
13 A ccessing memories, secret letters, monologues
and dialogues, visualizations 190
14 F ictionalizing, transforming personal material,
dreams, drawing as a starting point 203
15 Keeping a journal, writing a memoir, shaping work 219
16 Finishing work 229
Conclusion 237
About the contributors 242
Poetry acknowledgements 245
Bibliography 248
Index 25
Notes on the authors
Myra Schneider taught severely disabled adults for many years, has been
a writing tutor since 1988 and currently works for the Poetry School. She is
consultant to the Second Light Network of women poets and has co-edited
anthologies of work by contemporary women poets. Her first book publica-
tions were novels for children and teenagers. Since the 1980s her main writing
has been poetry. She has had ten collections published and her work has
appeared in many journals and anthologies.
John Killick was a teacher for thirty years before becoming a full-time writer
in 1989. For ten years he ran a small press. For the last fifteen years he has
worked with people with dementia, first as a writer in residence and later as
a research fellow in communication at the University of Stirling. He has pub-
lished and spoken widely in this field. His other poems, articles and reviews
have appeared in a variety of magazines.
Both authors have long been interested in the field of personal writing
and previously co-wrote the popular handbook Writing for Self-Discovery
(Element Books 1997, now out of print).
Recent publications: Myra Schneider
Insisting on Yellow: New and Selected Poems (Enitharmon Press 2000)
Writing My Way Through Cancer (a fleshed out diary with poems and writing
suggestions) (Jessica Kingsley 2003)
Multiplying the Moon (Enitharmon Press 2004)
Becoming (Second Light Publications 2007)
Circling the Core (Enitharmon Press 2008)
Recent publications: John Killick
Openings: Poems and Photographs (Hawker 2000)
Communication and the Care of People with Dementia (with Kate Allan) (Open
University Press 2001)
viii Notes on the Authors
The Arts and Dementia Care (with Anne Basting) (National Center for Crea-
tive Ageing 2003)
Over the Land: Poems and Paintings (with Alison McGill) (Fisherrow 2007)
Dementia Diary (Hawker 2008)
Myra Schneider: www.esch.dircon.co.uk
John Killick: www.johnkillick.co.uk
Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to the following people for their contributions
which are central to this book: Linda Chase, June English, Vicki Feaver, Kate
Foley, Katherine Gallagher, Miriam Hastings, Wendy Lawson, Lance Lee,
Grevel Lindop, Hilary Llewellyn-Williams, John Lyons, John Mackay, Mary
MacRae, Chris McCully, Pascale Petit, Maggie Sawkins, Clare Shaw, Penelope
Shuttle, Matt Simpson, Duncan Tolmie, Dilys Wood.
We would like to thank Dilys Wood for all her help with the manuscript.
We are indebted to Erwin Schneider for formatting the text and for pre-
paring the index.