A WRITER’S JOURNEY

TO MEMOIR WRITING
John Jack Wigley
MEMOIR
• French: mémoire: memoria, meaning memory
or reminiscence) is a collection of memories that
an individual writes about moments or events,
both public or private, that took place in the
subject's/person’s life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memoir
I developed an early love for literature
as a child.
 While most boys my age would play
tumbang preso or siyatong or climb
guava trees and catch spiders under the
scorching heat of the midday sun,
.. I would get the storybook my mother
gave me during Christmas and holler at
the young kids, about four or five years
old, to come and gather around the
wooden staircase of Lolo Jessie.
I would borrow the kiddie blackboard,
ruler, and chalk of my neighbor and
read aloud passages from the
storybook.
If I saw inattentive kids who seemed
uninterested in listening to my retelling
of Why the Pineapple Has Many Eyes or
Chicken Little, I would bang on the
board.
 I would ask the kids who said what and
what happened to whom in the story.
They would answer in unison as I
flashed illustrations from the book.
I was fascinated by the stories that I
was reading to them, totally lost in the
world of Pina, the disobedient child,
and Chicken Little, the innocent fowl
who thought the world was over after
an acorn fell on his head.
One day, I thought to myself, I will be
writing my own stories.
1. How did the author become
interested in the art of writing?
2. What were the first books that he
read that got him into writing?
3. Does the author's story remind
you of a similar experience? Share it
with a partner.