Writing is such a humbling art.
Just when you think you have become good at it, when you have mastered the formula, when you have learned about everything there is to know.... along comes something (or someone) that knocks the smugness right out of you.
I met Ernie Jackson on Crystals 2007 World Cruise. I was the Memoir Instructor aboard ship, with the job of helping guests write and possibly even publish their life stories. I have a degree in journalism from a prestigious university. I have edited national magazines. I have written five books. In all, I have spent almost thirty years in the publishing business. I was smug. And then along came Ernie.
He wrote a memoir about sex. He wrote of some dark secrets from his past. He even cried when one of his stories about his mum was performed by a guest actor. These wonderful memoirs are here. You will recognise parts of your own life and you will learn from it.
I’m proud to have played a small role in the creation of this book. It’s the story of one man but, like all good memoirs, it’s the story of us all.
Never again will I be smug about anything that has anything that has to do with writing. I know now that as long as a writer is willing to be honest and brave, like Ernie, it can more than compensate for any lack of formal training. To write from the heart with heart is, I believe, the secret to this art.
Thanks Ernie, for teaching me.
Joe Kita.
Joe Kita has been a professional journalist for almost three decades. He is the author of five popular books, has written for numerous national magazines including Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan, taught writing at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, launched magazines in such diverse places as Korea and Kazakhstan, and appeared on numerous national TV programmes in the USA. Joe has been guest-lecturing on Crystal Cruises for the past four years. On Crystal’s World Cruises he teaches a unique course on Memoir Writing. Participants learn how to write a professional and entertaining life-story that can be published and/or passed on to their descendants. Joe and his wife, Maria, reside in south-eastern Pennsylvania and have two college-age children.
More about Joe can be found on www.josephkita.com.
