We write to tell a story or a tall tale, to narrate our personal stories, to explore our past and write towards an epiphany, to figure out what happened, or for personal enrichment.
How to go from ideas to writing our stories?
Writers Forum hosts free writing workshops on the Zoom Platform, featuring a variety of teachers, workshop leaders, and experts in the writing arena.
We welcome beginning and experienced writers.
ZOOM URL will be posted February 2026
Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Telling Your Life Story
Presenter: Kate Farrell
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Pacific Time
FREE ON ZOOM
The value of writing a memoir lies in its capacity for self-reflection and healing, preserving legacy for future generations, and building empathy by sharing your unique perspective. Unlike a chronological autobiography, a memoir focuses on a specific period or theme, allowing you to craft a cohesive and meaningful narrative from your lived experience.
By sharing your vulnerabilities and triumphs, your story can inspire others who have gone through similar experiences. Your words can be a powerful guide for someone else on their own journey toward healing. A well-told personal narrative can help readers connect and fosters a greater sense of empathy.
However, memoir writing is often an emotionally intense process that can resurrect old feelings and traumas. We’ll discuss the ups and downs of writing a memoir, how to find support and use techniques in the process. For two of these four points, we’ll write and share our experiences.
Kate Farrell, storyteller, author, librarian, founded the Word Weaving Project: Learning through Storytelling; published numerous educational materials on storytelling, and contributed to and edited award-winning anthologies of personal narrative. Farrell’s award-winning recent book is a how-to guide on the art of storytelling, Story Power: Secrets to Creating, Crafting, and Telling Memorable Stories. Kate is the founder of Woven: Telling the Heroine’s Journey based on her work with storytelling, finding profound meaning in the archetypes of feminine fairy tales. She shares her process in workshops and on Substack. Kate is now under contract with Sibylline Press for publication of her book, The Fairy Tale Heroine: Live and Create Her Journey, to be released Winter 2027, as part of their Imprint, Sibyl Writing Craft.
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Truth Telling in Memoir
Presenter: Samantha Rose
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Pacific Time
FREE ON ZOOM
In memoir writing, we set the intention to tell a truthful story about our own lives but often, truths that were buried or unknown, come through in the writing. This is the sneaky surprise of writing—you begin by telling one story, and the writing tends to lead you in other directions. When this happens, especially in memoir writing, you must decide: am I going to give these new "truths" space? Give them a voice? Or will I edit them, or delete them all together?
In the spirit of truth-telling, I will discuss the truths that emerged for me while writing Giving Up the Ghost and how they shifted the story I was telling—not only on the page, but also the story I'd been telling myself for much of my life.
More broadly, we'll discuss how to navigate the truth when writing family members and other loved ones into our stories who may have a different memory or experience of the same event. How do we determine whose truth is "right"?
And finally, we'll discuss the healing and transformative power of writing about the hardest, scariest and most deeply buried things, and how channeling these stories onto the page can set us free.
If time allows, we'll write and reflect on the following:
What small or big truth mattered most to you in your writing? What was important to get "right"?
Was there a memory or a piece of the story that shifted for you during the writing process and became a new truth?
How has writing about something difficult helped to change your perspective about an event? Release buried hurts? Heal a relationship with someone else, with yourself?
Samantha Rose is an Emmy award-winning television producer and a New York Times, USA Today internationally bestselling ghostwriter of nearly twenty titles, some that have been selected as Reese's Book Club and Target Bookmarked Picks.
Her writing has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah and Harper's Bazaar.
She is the principal of Yellow Sky Media, a boutique editorial agency in Petaluma, California, where she lives with her son.
Her new book, "Giving Up the Ghost" was awarded Best Memoir at the 2025 San Francisco Book Festival.
"Giving Up the Ghost" is her first title written under her own name.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
Presenter: Debra Koehler
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Pacific Time
FREE ON ZOOM
Debra Koehler will share her writing journey, from believing she couldn't possibly be imaginative enough to write fiction, to producing a four-book fantasy series, the first of which she self-published August, 2025.
She will share tips on how to keep going with your writing project even when you get so fed up you want to throw it away. Which she did. Multiple times. Only to pull it out of the recycling bin, smooth out the pages, and keep going.
Debra will also cover how using intuition to trust her story, as well as her writing process, helped her move beyond the setbacks and blocks that can be part of any writer's journey.
Inspired by her elementary school English teacher, who read Edgar Allen Poe to a batch of fourth-graders, Debra Koehler penned her first story at the age of nine riddled with words like “eerie” and “utterly dreadful.” (Fan fiction, anyone?) Horror quickly went by the wayside, but her love of writing remained. Today she writes cozy/epic fantasy with humor and a touch of romance.
Debra lives in Northern California with her husband, daughter, and three rescue cats, one of whom bangs on her bedroom door at five every morning demanding to be fed. The early start gives her plenty of time for taking long walks, writing, knitting, reading, more reading, and . . . oh yeah . . . reading.
Her debut novel, Amoran: A Cozy Contemporary Portal Fantasy with Humor and a Touch of Romance, is available where paperbacks and ebooks are sold.
Midwest Review of Amoran:
"Original, deftly crafted, and a fun read cover to cover with a genuine flair for the kind of imaginative and humor laced storytelling that will appeal to fans of fantasy, romance, and unllikely heroines drafted to save the universe."
A review on Goodreads:
"Utterly charming! What a delight to find an adventure (with a bit of mystery, magic, and the risk of peril) which is also bright with curiosity and strong relationship ties. Amoran is a fascinating world I can't wait to revisit! I'm dying to know what happens with the major thread left to be resolved in a future book."
Thursday March 26
Presenters: Samantha Rose and Debra Koehler
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Pacific Time
FREE ON ZOOM
Samantha Rose and Debra Koehler will share the business side of their writing journeys, from researching to publishing to promotion.
It will be fun to hear different strategies that led to the goal of publication.
Samantha Rose is an Emmy award-winning television producer and a New York Times, USA Today internationally bestselling ghostwriter of nearly twenty titles, some that have been selected as Reese's Book Club and Target Bookmarked Picks.
Her writing has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah and Harper's Bazaar.
She is the principal of Yellow Sky Media, a boutique editorial agency in Petaluma, California, where she lives with her son.
Her new book, "Giving Up the Ghost" was awarded Best Memoir at the 2025 San Francisco Book Festival.
"Giving Up the Ghost" is her first title written under her own name.
Debra Koehler lives in Northern California with her husband, daughter, and three rescue cats, one of whom bangs on her bedroom door at five every morning demanding to be fed. The early start gives her plenty of time for taking long walks, writing, knitting, reading, more reading, and . . . oh yeah . . . reading.
Her debut novel, Amoran: A Cozy Contemporary Portal Fantasy with Humor and a Touch of Romance, is available where paperbacks and ebooks are sold.
Midwest Review of Amoran:
"Original, deftly crafted, and a fun read cover to cover with a genuine flair for the kind of imaginative and humor laced storytelling that will appeal to fans of fantasy, romance, and unllikely heroines drafted to save the universe."
The Write Spot, a seven-book series features writing that entertains as well as offering inspiration for writers.
All of the stories, vignettes, and poems in The Write Spot books include writing prompts. These books are like portable writing groups.
The Write Spot books are available from your local bookseller and as both print and ereaders from Amazon.
“Writing isn’t about the destination – writing is the journey that transforms the soul and gives meaning to all else.” —Sue Grafton
