Pages of Our Lives: Memoir Readings at Harbor’s Edge
On March 26 and 28th, participants in the Harbor’s Edge Pages of Our Lives memoir workshop performed a reading series for the community. Over the two day series, fifteen writers shared their stories with more than one hundred fellow Harbor’s Edge residents, family and friends. The stories were as varied and individual as the writers themselves. No two narrative voices were alike. In such polarizing times, it’s truly a gift to share one another’s true stories, honestly and artfully told, and the Pages of Our Lives group did just that.
Audience members laughed, teared up and reminisced along with the writers. Their words took us from the bottom of the world–one Pages member recounted his time on the Navy crash crew in Antarctic waters at sixteen-years-old, when he was too young but enlisted anyway–to an ice cream shop in Riga, Latvia in 2024, where a writer finally completed a multiyear (and multi-continental) goal to pay a specific kindness forward. We learned about economics through the price of eggs, and the hub of small southern towns as a country store filled with laborers seeking BC powder and a cold Pepsi after a long, muggy day. The audience experienced crystalline moments, some minute and others massive, that changed the trajectories of writers lives. We sloshed through mud and rain at Woodstock as our stomachs rumbled from hunger. We were reminded of the linguistic shorthand our families used, nicknames and whistles, and the jokes that weave through a lifelong marriage.
The readings were a team effort. One writer developed laryngitis the day of his reading. A fellow Harbor’s Edge resident, who happens to be a 99-year-old former actress, stepped in to read for him so that the audience (especially his daughter) could enjoy his work. She had been recently lamenting the deep difficulties of approaching 100 years on earth, wondering what new experiences remained for her. She awoke to her skills being needed and appreciated. The workshop is made possible through the support of Tidewater Arts Outreach and The Muse Writers Center, and the group continues to meet twice a month to turn lived experience into art.
The memoir group meets twice each month. They are a dedicated group of writers and workshoppers who help one another find the perfect word for the events in life that leave us speechless.
Find out all of the way the Muse helps bring the transformative power of the literary arts to writers throught our community. Visit our outreach page and get involved.