Everyone has stories to share and many people have a desire to write about their life. Wanting to write and doing so are two different things. The immensity of such a project can overwhelm us. This workshop will help to make that desire a reality.

Participants will be introduced to a method I call "Palm- of-the-Hand" writing, after the "Palm-of-the-Hand" stories of Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata. After deciding on story possibilities, the method helps focus the writer's energy into completing short individual pieces about their life.

These workshops have been very successful in helping people to write extensively about their life experiences - whether for family members or to someday be published in a book.

Michael Czarnecki is a poet, oral memoirist and small press publisher originally from Buffalo. He founded FootHills Publishing in 1986 and since then FootHills has released over 400 chapbooks and books of poetry. In 1994 Michael gave up other work to devote his time and life to poetry. Since then he has made his living solely through the creative word. In the last 20 years he has given hundreds of featured readings throughout the country. His Poems Across America Tour in 2013, a 14-week journey, featured a reading in each of the 48 contiguous states.

Michael has published 17 books, the two most recent being YOU and Ten Days in Huntington Wildlife Forest. When not out on the poetic road Michael lives with his family on their 50-acre homestead in the northwest portion of the Susquehanna Watershed in NY.

More information about Michael can be found on his website:

www.foothillspublishing.com/poetguy/index.html

and he posts a new photograph and new spontaneous poem everyday on his Facebook page:

www.facebook.com/michael.czarnecki.35

Registration: https://www.theriverhousewv.org/event-registration/palm-of-the-hand-memoir-workshop-2-4pm