How We Got Here: The Women of Writelife

Six women, whose backgrounds differ by age, marital status, socio-economic background, and place of birth within the United States, came together to focus on one goal: writing our story. We found our way to the WriteLife memoir writing class in the Circle of Scholars adult seminars at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. Our intentions for seeking out this particular genre varied from continued writing from other memoir seminars to sitting down for the first time to put-to-page our own stories. The class offered a welcoming, supportive environment set by our teacher, who led by example and identified value in our earliest attempts to put our life’s narratives into a black and white reality on a piece of paper-an oftentimes terrifying transition.Whether it be to document a family emigration story from another country, or to illuminate how our heritage as Americans can differ by region of our vast country, or to try and exorcise some demons from the family chest of secrets: all were accepted as valid motivation by this small brave group of explorers into the brave new world of disclosing our intrinsic inheritance.How We Got Here celebrates our inherent strength in looking into our individual, yet collective life legacies. In doing so, we illuminate how our ghosts, even subconsciously, allow us to find the path to the collective space where we all were brave and valid for wanting to bring our voices into the air. Dianne Elliott, August 2020