What This Is

A small group of women — five of you, and me — at my château in the south of France. Five days of morning writing sessions, one-on-one time with me, afternoon excursions into the countryside, and evenings to let the work settle over chef-prepared meals.

Finding the shape of your story and getting it onto the page.

By the end of five days, you will know what your story is, where it begins, and what it means. You will have written parts of it. That feeling — of having finally having a clear direction for your writing — is what you take home.

The women you write alongside will become something more than fellow participants. There is something about hearing someone's intimate story — and being heard in return — that creates deep and lasting friendships.

What You Will Actually Learn

Before I wrote my memoir, I did courses, read widely, and sat with other writers. Here is what changed everything for me — and what we will work on together:

• How to mine your memories. We start here, on day one. Not with the story — with the raw material. Small, specific exercises, ten minutes at a time, designed to surface the moments you have stopped noticing because you have lived with them so long. What emerges in those ten minutes usually surprises people.

• How to find what your story is actually about. Most people arrive with one story in mind. Often by day two they have found the real one underneath it — the thing the surface story was pointing at all along. Helping you locate that is one of the most important things I do.

• How to find your entry point. Not at the beginning. Not at the end. Somewhere precise and charged — the moment that contains the whole story in miniature.

• The difference between memoir and journaling. A journal records what happened. Memoir asks what it meant — and it needs an arc: a before, a middle, and an after. Understanding this early saves months of confusion.

• How to handle time and memory. Memoir is not entirely chronological. Learning to compress, slow down, and move through time is one of the core skills of the form.

• How to write from inside the emotion without drowning in it. There is a difference between feeling something and rendering it on the page. We will find that line.

• What to leave out. The story you are telling is not everything that happened. Knowing what belongs on the page — and what belongs only in your memory — is a skill, and a significant one.

Settle into the château. Get to know the other women, the house, the rhythm of the place. An opening conversation — no writing yet — where we take stock of where everyone is, what brought them here, and what they are carrying. Dinner together. The work begins tomorrow.

This is where we start. Not with the story — with the memories beneath it. Short, focused exercises, ten minutes at a time, designed to surface the specific moments, images, and details that tell you where your story actually lives. We look at different ways of collecting and sifting memory until something catches. One-on-one time with me. An afternoon excursion to let things settle.

We write. With a clearer sense now of what the story is and where it begins, the morning session moves into drafting — finding the opening, following the arc, staying inside the voice. Optional sharing in the afternoon, always in a safe and generous circle. More one-on-one time. The story is taking shape.

The final full working day. We return to what has been written and go deeper — into the emotional truth of it, the structure, what belongs and what doesn't. By the end of this day, you have clarity about your story. You will understand what it means. That feeling — of having finally done it — is what you take home.

People leave before noon. There is coffee, a slow breakfast, time to sit with what the week has been. No agenda. Just the particular quiet of a group of women who have done something together that they didn't quite believe they could.