All-day pre-conference seminars have proven to be popular offerings at APH conferences, and the 2016 APH conference in Fort Worth, Texas, will be no exception. In this podcast, you’ll meet APH member Patricia Charpentier. Patricia is the author of Eating an Elephant: Write Your Life One Bite at a Time and she’s one of two pre-conference seminar presenters for “Kick It Up,” the conference for the Association of Personal Historians . In this segment, Life Story People Podcast host Steve Pender speaks with Patricia by phone about her career and her pre-conference workshop, From Transcript to Terrific, Bringing Experiences to Life.
Here’s a description of Patricia’s pre-conference seminar:
It’s good to take an interview transcript, clean up the grammar, format the text, and create an accounting of a person’s life. But what if you used that information to set the stage, bring people to life, show rather than tell, add sensory detail, apply tools of good fiction writing to your factual information, and make it read like a novel? It’s possible, and in this workshop, you will learn how to transform data into story. Don’t yet have a client transcript? No problem, use your own experiences to learn the techniques of good storytelling, which you can later apply to your work.
In this hands-on seminar, you’ll work on your story idea throughout the day, learning how to organize, keep track of progress, write about setting, describe people, compose dialogue, and more. Using PowerPoint, lecture, and discussion, Patricia will guide participants as they apply each new lesson learned and watch their writing evolve throughout the day.
Whether you are just starting out or are a seasoned pro who wants to brush up on his or her writing skills, this seminar will help make your written work come to life.
Be sure to join Patricia Charpentier and your APH colleagues from October 23–26 for “Kick It Up,” the conference for the Association of Personal Historians. And be sure to subscribe to this podcast!