Writers@Work: Writing Life-Changing Memoirs

An Interview with Elaine Blanchard

by Rochelle Melander

Tell me about your new memoir, I Remember You.

I have written my memoir, I Remember You: The Making of an Activist, to illustrate the healing power of love in our lives. It is my hope that those who read the book will realize how racism and the violence it inflicts on so many is damaging to all of us. It is true that none of us are free to live whole lives until all of us are free. Racism divides us and weakens our capacity for building healthy communities. I think of myself as a recovering racist. I hope the story I tell about my childhood experience of racial violence will inspire others to remember and investigate their own experiences with racism. It’s not easy to come to terms with my family’s participation in cruelty and injustice. But it has been necessary work in order for me to be launched on a path of recovery.

I hope that readers of my book who struggle with the effects of childhood trauma and eating disorders will be inspired to ask for help. I hope gay and lesbian readers will find encouragement to come out. My story includes sexual abuse and the body-shaming that accompanies it. Learning to respect and care for my body has been a process and I have had multiple therapists, many good friends and my wife to thank for their consistent support and love. I have learned how to go beyond surviving to thriving.

We frequently hear the phrase, “Hurt people hurt people.” There is the common perception that those who are abused as children grow up to be abusers themselves. But my story denies the validity of that. Some of us grow up to be healers and purveyors of hope. I have shared my story to inspire both healing and hope with the readers. I have come to terms with my own truth and found myself worthy of love.

Talk about writing your three plays vs writing a memoir.

I have written and performed three one-woman shows about my life: For Goodness Sake, Skin and Bones and Good People. Writing a memoir has been much more challenging for me than writing the plays because I am physically present when I perform. I have my voice and my body on stage. And after the play concludes, I always sit on the stage and talk with my audiences. It is like a conversation, a give and take between myself and the people who watch me perform. We connect.

But with the memoir, words go out into the world without me. I have to trust the readers to connect with my story even though they may not know me at all. I have worked on this memoir for seven years, trying to find a way to write my life story that feels right, interesting and helpful. I chose to write the memoir because I won’t always be physically able to perform on stage. It is a goal I have had for all of my adult life and I feel really good about having accomplished that goal. I have experienced multiple rejections in my attempts to publish the work. I am grateful that I didn’t give up and grateful to Bonannon Hall Press for believing in the power of my writing.

Can you share advice for people who want to write memoir.

Everybody has a story. And I encourage students in my creative writing classes to write their stories, the ordinary as well as the extraordinary. Decide what your story illustrates for the reader. Start by making a list of significant moments. Just write it out, year by year. Then begin to write about ordinary moments that have filled the spaces between the significant events. Write every day or every Saturday. Get a writing routine that works for you and stick to it. Don’t give up when life gets in your way. And don’t edit yourself until after the whole story is told. Once the whole story has been put on paper, go back and do the rewrites. That is the hard work and the place where your craft will shine. Your story is worth the effort.

What helped you recall events so that you could write them in an interesting way?

I knew that I wanted to tell about racial violence in my experience as a child. I wanted to include my eating disorder and my coming out as a lesbian. I wanted to connect all of it by emphasizing my need for help. So I started my story as a young mother in a therapist’s office. I have framed the memoir with people who were there to provide support. I didn’t get to the place where I am, as a whole person aware of my gifts and strengths, without the help of therapists, friends, my daughter and my wife.

Tell about your work in the women’s prison.

After I staged my first performance of For Goodness Sake in 2010, I was struck by the privilege I had had to share my story and to see how it impacted audiences. I began to wonder about who might benefit from an experience like that. I wondered who gets silenced in our society, never getting the opportunity to share what has happened to them.

I went into our county jail for women, and I asked if I could have twelve women to sit in a circle with me on Monday and Thursday evenings over a period of twelve weeks. I brought cookies and juice. I brought legal pads, pens and books. We wrote our stories and shared them with each other. We read three books, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Diary of Ann Frank and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and we discussed what we had read.

I had support from the community for this work. I told people what I was doing, and they provided funds to purchase what I needed. At the end of the twelve weeks, I wrote a script based on the stories that had been shared and I recruited actresses, a director, a stage manager and musicians. Together we staged a performance that took place inside the prison for all the women and the staff to see. The class members sat on the front row and got to see their own story performed; they felt its impact on the audience. Then the performance was staged in a local theatre for public audiences to see, to get to know a little about the women serving time in our county jail. It was transformative for all of us. I did that for seven years.

What are you reading now?

I am currently reading How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith. I met Mr. Smith a few weeks ago here in Memphis. He was here for a stop on his book tour. I told him about my memoir, and he seemed interested. That made my day.