What inspired you to write your memoir?
I have the kind of childhood, that upon revealing, often elicited the response, “Wow, you should write a book!” I was in a writing group with Adair Lara and found myself writing stories about growing up in my unconventional family. Eventually I decided to string them together into a cohesive tale, partly to make sense of my childhood, partly for catharsis, partly for the record.
About your Book:
Say Uncle
…a memoir
When the author of Say Uncle, Chris Voisard, was a little girl, she remembered feeling like she was Marilyn of the Munsters. Something was off, but what?
At five, her Sicilian Papa left their Chicago apartment to move to California, never to return. Heartbroken and puzzled, Chris and her pregnant mother moved in with Gogo, the author’s British grandmother, Beba, Gogo’s new, young husband, and their son, George. George was a year younger than Chris, and felt like a brother to her. Little did she know how much of a brother he actually was. Chris spent her days looking out of the Chicago apartment window, wondering what she had done to make her Papa leave. It would take a couple of decades for her to find out.
Gogo, the tempestuous, eccentric matriarch moved the family of six out to suburban California and became the caretaker of the three children. Gogo practiced yoga, blamed missing sewing scissors on Poltergeists, had a pet fairy named Joey, and talked to her dead brother, Ron. The author absorbed the paranormal exposure along with the teachings of the Catholic Church offered by Beba, trying to make sense out of, yet relying on, her unconventional foundation of faith.
Life got even weirder for Chris when she was ten and her mother married a Bohemian artist named Ray in a backyard wedding ceremony, complete with a psychedelic wedding cake, and plenty of pot and jug wine. The author had wished nightly on the stars to move out of Gogo’s crazy house, but life with the controlling, tight-fisted stepfather on the rural coast was worse. Chris went from being the good Catholic girl to hooking up with bad boys and all that goes along with that wrong turn.
The puzzle pieces came together during that fateful phone call to her father when the author was in her twenties. The ramifications of the revealed secret radiated our like concentric circles, touching every member of the family in dramatic ways.
Chris Voisard brings honest, humorous writing as well as emotional and spiritual insights in this memoir, which shows how the detour is often the Path. Say Uncle
not only gives child’s eye details of adults who have gone off the rails, but also turns an unflinching eye on the adult author, showing how patterns of deception pass through generations. Through tumult and upset, the deeply dysfunctional, yet uniquely vibrant, family manages to endure, and Say Uncle tells what it is like to slowly, bumpily heal, by way of a story that is a testament to the fact that the detour is the path.
The story is told with love, humor, and the hope to show survivors of chaotic families that even the most painful family secrets ad lies can ultimately be our most valuable teacher.
Chris Voisard is a writing and journalism teacher, and lives in Half Moon Bay with her daughter Reyna.
How did you decide how to publish your book and where is it published through:
In the early days of my writing project I had an agent, Doris Booth,who I met her at the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference. She was editing my book and shopping it around. During this process, my computer crashed during an electrical storm (yes, with no back up) and almost half my book was lost, unfortunately, along with my agent. The Universe had spoken, and I rewrote the second half of the book, but had difficulty finding an agent in the quickly changing industry. So I published my book through CreateSpace a subsidiary of Amazon. Self publishing and self promotion seem to be “where it’s at” for many authors now.
How do you see writing a Memoir as different from writing other genres of books?
The writer can’t hide. You are exposed and vulnerable when writing memoir, unlike writing fiction where you can veil the truth and disassociate from the story . Emotional honesty and the ability to look at yourself critically takes a certain kind of bravery. In some ways, memoir is easier than fiction because the writer doesn’t have to keep track of the details or imagine characters, only observe and remember as accurately as possible. Putting your life into a story arc is the creative and tricky part of the process.
Author Bio:
I am a teacher, writer, and artist and still live in the coastal town of Half Moon Bay where I grew up. I have one daughter, Reyna, the illustrator of my children’s book, Micah and the Monsters. Her illustrating talents can also be seen on my greeting cards page.
My childhood was a little… unconventional, and eventually I felt like the stories had to be told. If you think your childhood may have thrown you off track, you might be interested in reading my book, Say Uncle, that shows that sometimes what feels like a roadblock leading to an out of the way detour, is actually the perfect way to go. My second memoir is due out soon, with the working title of Crazy Loves.
Besides writing and painting, I hold 3 teaching credentials, including one in English and Studio Teaching…… I also give children’s art lessons, and will execute a killer and creative birthday party for a child of any age.
I have undergraduate degree from UC Santa Cruz is in Aesthetics and Learning, and I also have a Masters in Education.
Website(s)
Author Home Page Link
Link To Book On Amazon
Link to Book for sale via other sites
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebooks
Twitter
Pinterest
