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First Person Productions

First Person Productions creates life writing programs for individuals, families, businesses and communities — including books, interviews, workshops, and intergenerational programs. Here you’ll find resources related to these programs.

Memoir writing workshops:

Contact me for upcoming schedule.

We all have stories worth telling, but it takes two skills to tell them well: an ability to draw universal insights from personal experience, and a grasp of storytelling technique. That’s what you’ll gain from my memoir writing workshops.

The workshop includes six two-hour sessions. Each week we explore different aspects of the writing craft, then discuss priming questions to help you draw out memories and insights about a topic. You will write a few pages on a significant theme of your life history. Each meeting includes time to share what you’ve written. In our final session we will explore ways to organize and publish your life story for others to enjoy.

Previous participants have given Sarah White positive reviews:

“She made each session stimulating. I wish they could have been longer and more.”

“I liked her way of keeping the course on track, offering praise and critiques.”

But the participants are the real stars of this show!

“The read-and-share was the best part. It was wonderful to hear others with their different writing styles.”

“I was impressed with the excellent writing and integrity of the class.”

(names withheld for confidentiality)

Intergenerational programs:

Get Down to Your Roots

In spring 2005, 31 fourth-grade students at Lake View Elementary School in Madison, Wisconsin became family history detectives for a class project. I worked with teacher Susie Hobart to guide the students as they explored their family histories. I brought groups of older adults from a variety of ethnic backgrounds to the classroom for the students to interview. The students did additional research, then made artistic displays illustrating the facts they discovered. They displayed their exhibits at a festive school event and invited their families and friends. I wrote about the children’s experience for Googolplex.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seeking Sponsors, collaborators,  and venues

 

I enjoy bring Personal History programs to schools, neighborhood centers, libraries, seniors programs, writing and drama groups, and more. If your group would like to have its history recorded, or would like to sponsor an intergenerational program or writing workshop, please contact me.

My life stories

Long before I discovered professional life story work, I enjoyed writing essays drawn on my childhood memories and my travel experiences. Some of these have been published on Star Thrower, an online project dedicated to autobiographical narrative and funded by the Indiana Humanities council.


Billy Sunday’s Ghost Resort (Winona Lake 1965)
I spent my child's summers in northeastern Indiana, visiting my relatives in a strange religious resort…

Sarah’s Italy (Tuscany 1997)
I got you here, made the arrangements that led to your waking in a rented villa with a husband beside you and his best friend across the hall…

“Luigi and the Signora” (Venice 2001)
We had walked and walked for days and days, and once or twice we’d gone into a bookstore because I was on a mission. I wanted to see if there were do-it-yourself business books here, like the ones I write. Instead I discovered a love story…

Success is a Not a Destination, It’s A Trip
(text of speech to Wisconsin Women Entrepreneurs, 1998)
I started thinking about definitions of success and its dark shadow, failure, when I sold my business. I was at a Rotary Club luncheon, sitting next to a sometime/client of mine, and when I told him I was selling my business after 12 years, he asked me, "were you successful?" The room disappeared, heaven and earth paused in their motions, while I swung in a great cold gray void…

 

 

© 2003 Sarah White. Contact me with comments or questions. Home.