Deborah Shepard Books
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Conference Paper
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Writer's Stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
    • From Being Mentored to Book Publication
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact

Writers' Stories

A collection of life stories by writers who have attended Deborah's classes

Self-portrait: Notebooks by Kate Lewis

12/12/2022

 
​Kate grew up in the U.S. and moved to New Zealand 14 years ago with her then-
husband and son who is now 18 and a kiwi. She is a volcanologist who left university teaching two years ago and now works for Auckland Council defending geological features from development. She has fought internal resistance to writing memoir and now embraces it as her way to sort out the past and connect with other memoir readers and writers in an honest way. She learns and grows from reading others’ work and hopes that others may benefit from reading hers.
 
I have kept a journal all my life, sometimes regularly, sometimes erratically. Of course, I regret the gaps, but that’s how it’s gone.
 
When I was a little girl, I hid a tiny diary up in the unused chimney in my bedroom.
 
When I lived in Hungary at eighteen, I used the same style of notebook for a year, due to a limited choice of office supplies behind the Iron Curtain, a series of pale purple books, maybe half A5 size, which I filled with tiny handwriting.
 
I’ve searched for the perfect notebooks for journaling and for work. For work I’ve had books for: meeting notes; diaries; sometimes books for each project; sometimes tried to merge all notes into the same book.  
 
Big books, small books. Colorful books. Lined, dotted, blank pages.
 
Books from Trade Aid that I thought were obscenely expensive, paper handmade by Indians and Tibetans from pulverized weeds, with bright, cheerful woven cloth covers. Books from the stationery store in Devonport that ARE obscenely expensive, German and French. Books from art galleries and museums. I’ve sought beauty in the cover, the right texture and size of paper. I noted that the doctor and poet William Carlos Williams wrote short skinny poetry on prescription pads while at work; the shape of the paper can determine the shape and length of the sentences, long and rambling or short and concise.
 
There was much angst. Is this the right one in which to pour out my heart? How do I use a notebook most efficiently at work? How do I keep track of my scattered thinking? I rarely used the same style twice.
 
My journal writing picked up through the end of my marriage, a failed romance and loss of a dear friend, my mother dying, one of my best friends getting brain cancer, and another romantic disaster. I left my job, timing just a coincidence in between lockdowns, in what felt like the most catastrophic failure of my life. This happened simultaneously with yet another relationship breakup, one that left me paralyzed with grief. I wrote and wrote and wrote, smudged ink with my tears. Fell asleep with the fountain pen in my hand and woke to find ink blots that had permeated a dozen pages or left sloppy trails across my bed sheets. 
 
The grief of those years accumulated; each new loss opens the wounds for all that has gone before. It brings me to my knees again and again. A wise friend who works with dying people and their families gave me an analogy of a hole, a deep hole in the earth that is our grief. We can cover the hole with plywood, create a surface to walk on, go along with our lives as if the hole isn’t there. Sometimes something will happen that forces us to remember, but if we want to badly enough, we can cover it up. It will take a toll, alcoholism, anxiety, abuse, insomnia, but those are easier to bear than grief that rips us apart like lions’ sharp teeth shredding its prey.
 
If we can bear it, if we can be brave, we can fill the hole with dirt, shovelful by shovelful. It is painful, it cannot be fast-tracked, cannot be rushed. If we can do it, we can fill in the hole and have solid ground, be somewhere safe.
 
I have tried to fill in the hole by shoveling dirt. I have tried to look loss and despair in the eye, to figure out who Kate is and what she wants and needs. Not Mom, not the ex-husband, not lovers or partners or bosses or friends. It is hard and painful and imperfect.
 
And now a new place to live. A new job that I hope makes sense for me. In any case I have chosen it, not gone with what I thought would be all I could do, trying to make things work when they were the wrong fit and hoping things would work out. 
 
I found a therapist who helped me so much that I wanted to sit afterwards and write down my thoughts and his words to process it more.  For this I needed a therapy notebook that was portable, also with nice paper for the fountain pen. It needed to be small enough to fit in my bag with my ink pot in case I ran out of ink at a café.
 
I have found notebooks that make me happy, the one for this class, which was a gift from my aunt and uncle in the U.S., which is grey and not one which I would have chosen, but which I treasure because it was one of the last gifts from my aunt who died last year.
 
For work I’ve settled on the ugly and practical, working through Peter’s leftovers from his school years, so they say “Peter K. French” and “Peter Kenedi, Science.” I’ve added “Kate Lewis, Science.” In that one I left the pages he used, so his notes of the scientific method and the solar system introduce my notes on geothermal geophysics.
 
Finally I have settled just a bit. For my journal I found a large, blank, hard-backed notebook and for therapy and travel a smaller, soft-covered notebook in a brand whose richly colored covers made me ache with joy. I have spent lavishly for them even when I have been most worried about money over the last years. I peel the plastic wrapping off them and caress them, open them and stroke the pages. I write.

Blue Ball Inn by Kate Lewis

9/10/2021

 
Kate grew up in the U.S. and moved to New Zealand thirteen years ago with her then-husband and son who is now seventeen and a kiwi. She is a volcanologist who left university teaching a year ago and is figuring out what to do next. She feels drawn to write memoir, looking to the past to help work out a fulfilling, wholehearted future.
 
When I was fourteen I spent much of my family’s European summer vacation boiling under the surface. We visited friends and toured for almost two months. I loved seeing the world; I hated my parents.
 
On a cliff path in southern England we stumbled on a pub called the Blue Ball Inn, a tiny building with a thatched roof and a big blue ball hanging in front. Mom had read that it was a local gem; she gasped and grinned, overjoyed at our luck. Dad said no.
 
Mom rarely said what she wanted; she said she didn’t care, and we found out the truth when she sulked and made cutting remarks to punish us for not reading her mind. In this case she begged to go, anguished pleading followed by teeth-gritting rage. Dad went quiet, his face tight and stubborn. We kept walking, all the way into town.
 
We ate at a cheaper place, which Mom said wasn’t cheap enough to justify sacrificing something glorious for greasy tourist nothing. She ordered the cheapest thing on the menu and after several minutes of not eating started to cry and left. My brother and I choked down a few bites of fried fish. I glared at my father, realizing the meaning of that phrase I had read in novels, impotent rage.
 
Two days later I got my period for the first time and felt relieved, hormones not insanity, thank God. My mother quietly cheered me on, conscious not to embarrass me in front of the others, and we went shopping for fun, one of the only times I did that with her. She bought me leather slippers that I sank my feet into, lined with deep, warm fleece. I had never had anything so wonderful; loved her for this luxurious splurge.

    Your Stories

    Please submit your story via the Contact page and it will receive a gentle edit from Deborah.
    WRITING GUIDELINES
    Tips on writing and posting a story
    writing on a theme
    COVID-19 STORIES

    Authors

    All
    Adele Ellis
    Alan Knox
    Alison Mayson
    Alison Quesnel
    Amanda Aitken
    Angela Eastwood
    Anissa Ljanta
    Anna Caselberg
    Anna Groenestein
    Anne Cavanagh
    Anne Morris
    Barbara Myers
    Bernice Raos
    Beth Jewell
    Betty Chamberlain
    Beverley Morris
    Bren Lawrey
    Bronwyn Lewis
    Carmel Byrne
    Carmel Ni Bhroin
    Carol Clayton
    Carol Jack
    Catherine Groenestein
    Catherine Moorhead
    Cathie Hutchinson
    Cathy Gray
    Cherie Buchanan
    Cheryl McCrow-Young
    Cheryl Nicol
    Cheryl Price
    Colin Radford
    Colleen Paisley
    David Arrowsmith
    David Phuah
    Dawn Webster
    Debbie Corder
    Diane Taylor
    Dianne Moffatt
    Dianne Speed
    Don Cowan
    Doris Riegel
    Elisabeth Sutorius
    Elizabeth Buchanan
    Elizabeth Goldsworthy
    Erica Munro
    Evan Mayson
    Evita Fromter
    Fern Paulussen
    Francie Craig
    Gabrielle Reekie
    Gillian Mayo
    Gill Sanson
    Glenys McGee
    Gloria Neale
    Graham McGregor
    Graham Woolford
    Gretel Jack
    Helen Gillespie
    Inge Rudolph
    Isabella Mcdermott
    Jackie Halliday
    Jackie Hawkeswood
    Jane Bissell
    Jane Ouseley
    Janet Bovett
    Janet De Witt
    Janet Pates
    Jane Wilkins
    Janine Peters
    Jeanette Baalbergen
    Jeanette De Heer
    Jean Rockel
    Jennifer McGarry
    Jenny Healey
    Jenny Riviere
    Jessie Jellick
    Jicca Smith
    Jim Barnett
    Jim Cooke
    Jim O'Donovan
    Jim Peters
    Joan Hugo Burley
    Jocelyn Goodman
    Jo Frew
    John Goodman
    Judy Hardie
    Judy Johannessen
    Judy O'Brien
    Julia Blick
    Julie Star
    Juliet Jackson
    Justine Sachs
    Kacie Stetson
    Kate Lewis
    Katherine Kelly
    Kathryn Kearns
    Katrina Cole
    Leona Fay
    Lexie Candy
    Liz Lees
    Liz March
    Liz Marks
    Liz Thomas
    Liz Wilson
    Lorene Verheijden
    Lydia Smith
    Lynley Stone
    Maire Vieth
    Mandy Robinson
    Margaret Farrell
    Margaret Merton
    Margaret Russell
    Margo Knightbridge
    Marg Slater
    Maria Kazmierow
    Maria Zivkovich
    Marie Cameron
    Marie Coyle
    Marie Lynne Mitchell
    Marijke Batenburg
    Marilyn Eales
    Maris O'Rourke
    Maryan Dawson
    Mary Barker
    Mary Betz
    Mary Bogan
    Mary Borok
    Mary Elsmore-Neilson
    Mary Nicholas
    Mary Weal
    Mattie Wall
    Maureen Sudlow
    Max Adams
    Meg Johnson
    Meret Berger
    Michelanne Forster
    Mike Kilpatrick
    Miriam Frank
    Moyra Cooke
    Myrtle Easton
    Nanci Campion
    Natalie Mullender
    Ngawini Hall
    Nicky Won
    Nicola Brewer Fanefjord
    Nitin Sahare
    Patricia Gross
    Pat Scriven
    Pauline Lumsden
    Pauline Sneddon
    Penny Slack
    Philomena Pinto
    Rachael Breckon
    Rae Abraham
    Raewynne Lory
    Rob Creagh
    Robyn Turner
    Robyn White
    Rosemary Auld
    Rosemary Barrett
    Roslind O'Neill
    Roz Nicol
    Ruth Bonita
    Ruth Busch
    Sally Monks
    Samantha Scott
    Sandra Plummer
    Sandy Plummer
    Sarah Ashmore
    Sarah Gumbley
    Sarah Hardman
    Sara Kimsey
    Sharyn Elliffe
    Shirley Glendinning
    Shona Barker
    Sofia Mella
    Steve Charters
    Sue
    Sue Alexander
    Sue Mercer
    Sue Radford
    Susan Grimsdell
    Susan Mcleod
    Susan Schuler
    Susie Johnston
    Sylvia Dean
    Sylvia Nagl
    Terry Levenberg
    Tim Chamberlain
    Tim Paul
    Trevor Bayly
    Val Cotty
    Verna Cook-Jackson
    Vonne Learmonth
    Wyn Hoadley

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    May 2022
    October 2021
    May 2021
    November 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2018
    June 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    May 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010

    RSS Feed

Deborah thanks Rangimarie Kelly and Pikau Digtal for website design and artist Karen Jarvis for her image ‘Writers at the Devonport Library,’ (2023)
Writing Memoir
Defining Memoir
The Participatory Model
Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
​From Writing Course to Book Publication
Your Writing Space
​Writing on a Theme
Reviews of Memoir
Writers Stories
​
Events
​About
Testimonials
What People Say

Media
​Contact
Copyright © 2023 Deborah Shepard
  • Home
  • Books
    • The Writing Life >
      • Reviews & Interviews
    • Giving Yourself to Life
    • Her Life's Work
    • Translucence
    • Between The Lives
    • Reframing Women
    • Tributes
    • Personal Writings >
      • Conference Paper
      • Lockdown Journal
      • Travel Journal
      • Elegy for a friend
      • Christchurch - Post Quakes
      • On a residency
      • Deborah’s Love Letter to the Women’s Bookshop
      • Deborah's Q & A With Unity Books
  • Writing Memoir
    • Defining Memoir
    • The Participatory Model
    • Tips on Writing and Posting a Story
    • The Value of a Writing Class
    • From writing course to book publication
    • Your Writing Space
    • Writing on a Theme >
      • Window
      • Surviving a Crisis
    • Reviews of Memoir
  • Writers' stories
    • Writer's Stories
    • Covid-19 Stories
    • Writing Guidelines
    • From Being Mentored to Book Publication
  • Events
  • About
    • Testimonials
    • Media
  • What People Say
  • Contact