Prescott Valley Public Library: Meeting the Ancestors: How Speculative Memoir Can Help You Connect to Your History, September 20, 2025. (In Person program)- Pre-registration required.

Prescott Valley Public Library will be offering Meeting the Ancestors: How Speculative Memoir Can Help You Connect to Your History on September 20, 2025. Join us for this free writing workshop, where you'll explore two powerful tools to help As Shakespeare said, ?What?s past is prologue.? What if the voices of your ancestors could help you tell your story? What would change? What would stay the same? Our lives are bound to the lives that came before us, and if we?re able to listen, we might find our dead have been speaking to us all along. Speculative memoir is an umbrella genre in which the questions of the memoirist?s book are addressed through speculative elements, which may include ghosts, metaphors, what ifs, imaginative scenarios, and fantasies. Using the speculative to imagine the lives and inner worlds of our ancestors can unlock powerful connections within our stories, both on and off the page. We?ll look at a few examples of speculative memoirs that specifically connect to the past, explore ways to use the device in your own work, and do some generative writing exercises. Bring something to write with and on! This workshop is for adults only. Laraine Herring is a retired professor of creative writing and psychology. Her memoir, A Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens, was released from Regal House in 2021. She?s also the author of a trilogy of writing books, including Writing Begins with the Breath, the editor of Becoming Real: Women Reclaim the Power of the Imagined through Speculative Nonfiction, and the author and illustrator for The Grief Forest: a book about what we don?t talk about. She?s currently working on another memoir called Solving for X: A Speculative Memoir of Mothers, and the second book in the Grief Forest trilogy: Bunny and Barncat: a book about grieving while loving what leaves, which will be released in 2026 from White River Press. laraineherring.com Pre-registration is required. Saturday, September 20, 2025 12 -2 PM Crystal Room More info? 928.759.3040