Writing Your Self: Transforming personal material

Writing Your Self is a comprehensive resource for anyone who wants to explore personal material in their writing. It examines how many writers use personal subject matter in memoirs, poems, journals and novels. Part One focuses on universal experiences including childhood, identity, adult relationships and loss as well as more specific issues such as displacement and disability, physical and mental illness and abuse. Throughout the book writers, including the authors, give frank, firsthand accounts of their own experiences and how they have tackled writing about them.  Part Two begins with a series of techniques for approaching personal material which include practical exercises and examples. It also considers the differences between raw and finished writing and the validity of each and offers ideas for developing work. With its wide range of writers and the exciting possibilities it offers, Writing Your Self is a definitive book for exploring personal literature and life writing.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I 1. Childhood and Relationships with Parents 2. Identity 3. Adult Relationships 4. Abuse 5. Displacement and Disability 6. Illness 7. Mental Illness 8. Caring and Coping 9. Loss 10. Facing Death 11. Spirituality Part II 12.Getting Started, Image Exploration and Basic Techniques 13. Accessing Memories, Secret Letters, Monologues and Dialogues, Visualizations 14. Fictionalizing, Transforming Personal Material, Dreams, Drawing as a Starting Point 15. Keeping a Journal, Writing a Memoir, Shaping Work 16. Finishing Work Conclusion Bibliography Notes about Contributors Acknowledgements Index

About the Author :
Myra Schneider is a poet and tutor for The Poetry School in London, UK. She is author of Writing My Way Through Cancer (Jessica Kingsley, 2003) and Writing for Self-Discovery (with John Killick, Element Books, 1998). John Killick has been a teacher and education officer in prisons and more recently has worked with people with dementia.  He is a poet and literary journalist. 

Review :
"Writing Your Self" is the ideal resource if you want to explore personal material in your writing" Writing Magazine "The interconnectedness of the subjects and the reoccurence of the same writers in different chapters gives a cohesiveness to what might have seemed a rather atomistic approach to literary material. The inclusion of a brief but pertinent bibliography by chapter will be helpful for anyone teaching or leading groups in any kind of personal writing. ... Writing Your Self will be a useful reference for teachers and facilitators and I highly recommend it." Victoria Field, Writing in Education ‘This is an inspirational book, one to add to your toolkit if you are involved in anyway with creative words for health and wellbeing.' Writing your Self is a beautifully constructed, compelling handbook of ways to navigate the great challenges of life (loss, illness, despair) and an effective workbook that demonstrates the processes by which personal or therapeutic writing can form the basis of successful poetry, fiction or memoir. 'I would like to say what an amazing resource Writing Your Self is - so rich, so varied, so well researched and referenced. The examples are powerful and well-chosen. The book as a whole is authoritative, compassionate and utterly convincing . New writers (and not-so-new writers) will have a sense of being taken by the hand and guided by wise friends.'- Dr Maggie Butt, Middlesex University, UK "The connection the arts have with suffering brings into question nothing less than their relevance to the human condition itself. The field of writing in and out of distress has developed exponentially, in the UK, over the last twenty years, and so has its bookshelf. But there's always more to be said on this important topic, and Killick and Schneider's approach, which is primarily personal, will doubtless appeal to many." - Fiona Sampson, Poet and Editor of Poetry Review "Throughout history, communities and individuals have renewed and preserved their sense of identity and shared riches by telling stories. To tell any story is a spiritual act: to tell our own stories is both liberation and challenge and, at crucial points in our passage through life, words can either magnify or diminish the soul. Our lives are as rich and as rewarding as the stories we tell ourselves and Writing Your Self is a valuable guide to making those stories as adventurous and as generous as we have it in us to be, both for our own sakes, and for the sake of the larger community of souls." - John Burnside, Poet and Reader in Creative Writing, University of St Andrews, UK "Myra Schneider and John Killick have written an engaging book about personal writing which will stimulate readers whatever their level of experience. Examples have been carefully chosen from both well-known practitioners and writers experimenting with words for the first time. Writing Your Self will introduce readers to speculative and reflective approaches to writing and reading. It should expand thinking about the possibilities and challenges of writing, e.g. aesthetic, cultural and political within one's own experience. The book will appeal to facilitators of creative writing groups and people wanting a guide for their personal use." - Wendy French, Educational Consultant, Ex-chair of Lapidus