Whether it’s a funny tale about the time you did such-and-such or the story your great-aunt used to tell, you can learn to get those stories onto paper with the help of one of the many writing groups throughout the Capital Region.

Writing groups offer support, constructive criticism and camaraderie for new and experienced writers. Some groups specialize in the writing of poetry or articles for a particular market. For example, there’s a writing group in Glens Falls for people interested in writing for the children and young adult market. There’s another group in Albany for poets.

But not everyone has their eye on becoming a published author. For some writers the motivation is as personal as preserving family or local history.

Mary Sanders Shartle is well known for leading memoir writing workshops around Saratoga County. A published poet, Shartle began leading writing groups in 2002 at the request of her friend, Elaine Handley, herself a writing workshop leader. And though Shartle has heard a lot of great stories since then from the people who have taken her classes, the memoirs she cherishes most were written by her grandfather, who died in 1931.

Without his writings, she said she wouldn’t know him. “The writings show his way of looking at things and they are so different than mine. Without his words, I wouldn’t know his world or his culture,” she said.

“Writing your memoirs is a tremendous gift of your life and culture. Think about it: Three or four generations hence your descendents won’t know about the things that are common in your life, like cars. There may not be gas-driven vehicles. You need to describe it because the experience will not exist in anybody’s mind in four generations,” she added.

Getting started

Sometimes, when leading a group, the would-be writer will say, “ ‘I’ve had a stressful life. I don’t remember anything.’ But after coming for awhile, it is as though a dam burst and the memories start to flow. One of the tricks is to do it enough to find your voice,” she said.

Handley noted that some people don’t know how to get started. “Their children or grandchildren have asked them to write down the family stories, but they feel overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin,” she said.

Writing groups help because participants write about one slice of life at a time rather than trying to write down an entire life’s story. Of course, participants who have been attending workshops for a decade — Handley has been leading groups since 1997 — have “quite a collection” of stories to share with family and friends. “It’s very satisfying,” she added.

If you’re interested, there are plenty of opportunities. Writing groups are popular at senior centers and are often offered through school district continuing education programs, colleges and libraries.

Lee Merrett, who co-leads a writer’s circle through the Academy of Lifelong Learning in Saratoga Springs and another group in Glens Falls, said some participants use their writing as an outlet. “They are at a point where they are assessing their life,” Merrett said. They use writing as a way to process their lives and get a sense of what happened, family themes and to pass along their values.

A former teacher, Merrett knew that once she retired she was going to set time aside for writing. She joined a writer’s group and began.

In a short time, she was freelancing for local newspapers. Writing and storytelling are in her blood, she said. Her father used to tell tales of his life as one of six children of a missionary living on the Klamath Indian reservation in Oregon. On a family trip, Merrett traveled to the reservation and used her father’s writings along with her own memoirs in a self-published book titled “Storied Landscapes: Our Journey.”

Touching the past can be an emotional part of memoir writing. “Written words are powerful. Sometimes seniors cry as they recall children who died or life during the Great Depression. There is a great respect among the writers for those who share their stories,” Shartle said.

compassionate response

She added that seniors have expressed to her the emotional benefit of writing down even the most bitter memories and having the others in the group respond with compassion.

Shartle offers programs in Burnt Hills, Halfmoon, Saratoga Springs and Clifton Park. In a typical class, a topic will be presented and the group will write anything about that topic for 10 minutes. One recent topic was aprons. “Write everything you know about aprons,” she will tell the group. After the allotted time, writers share what they have written, or not. Generally, “people get excited.

“They bounce their ideas around, a discussion follows and this furthers other memories,” she said.

Once in a while Shartle said it can be a show and tell experience as seniors bring in mementoes from the past such as a scrapbook containing every newspaper clipping concerning a loved one’s battalion movements during World War II.

“The last page was a newspaper headline: Germany surrenders,” she said.

In another case, a woman brought in a mortar and pestle lovingly passed down by generations of cooks and used to crush nuts for a treasured family recipe for Baklava. Another story shared by a 90-year-old woman were the childhood memories of growing up on a farm in Halfmoon.

Carol Gregson, 82, is a retired art teacher from North Creek who joined a writer’s group in 1992. She self-published her first book four years ago, about her experiences raising seven children in the Adirondacks after her “handsome sailor of a husband” died.

One of the joys of a writing group is having your words heard. “Writers want other people to read their stories,” she said.

The critiques of fellow writers, and the rewriting suggestions made all help participants polish their words and become better at their craft. And they like that their stories will survive even after they’re not around to tell them anymore.