The fun began on Friday night at a cocktail party; at 1o a.m. on Saturday morning, it was early and still chilly for our outdoor panel discussion on the memoir. Despite the nippy weather, we had a great moderator in Mary Ellen Howard (on left), who asked probing questions. The audience was mixed in age and one person has started writing her memoir about growing up in China under Mao Zedong’s repressive rule.

Below are a few of the questions Mary Ellen asked the panel :

1. How do you balance faulty memory with truth in memoir?

2. Why did you write the memoir and who was your audience?

3. What’s the difference in memoir and autobiography?

4. What are the pros, cons and difference in traditional, small press, or self-publishing?

5. What’s the hardest part of writing a memoir?

From left to right, writers on the panel included me, Jean Ellen Whatley and Kathleen Finneran

Later that afternoon, I spoke again on a panel titled: One World, Many Voices, Multiculturism in the Literary World. Our moderator was Winnie Sullivan; fellow writers were John Han from Korea and Marcel Toussaint from France — sorry, no photos.