Visiting Artists: Peggy Rambach, Writer

Writer Peggy Rambach of Andover, MA is the author of Fighting Gravity (Steerforth Press, 2001) and ffers workshops in memoir writing, poetry and fiction writing.

Peggy worked with three separate groups; clients, staff and parents over the six weeks of her residency. These students made a commitment to this class and personal memoir writing. Peggy's goals were simple but challenging. She asked her students to write about themselves, choosing something that was meaningful to them. Sounds easy, but it quickly became very personal and very emotional.

Peggy continued to press her students to be more specific, to talk about the physical aspects of what they were describing. "What was it exactly that made you afraid? What did you hear? What did you smell? Tell me how his face looked."

Revise after revise, the students polished their work. The combined goals of learning good writing techniques and creating a personal memoir led the students to delve deeper each week. The writers learned the benefits of reading to each other by giving and receiving praise and showing respect for the courage it takes to share these personal stories. They learned the value of a critique through constructive comments and the satisfaction of seeing their writing improve over time.