Below is a sampling of topics that Mimi Schwartz, a veteran teacher and presenter for 35 years, offers to libraries, writers’ conferences, Holocaust centers, university classrooms, synagogues, and teacher institutes. For more information, contact Mimi.Schwartz@att.net
TALKS
Reentering History through Storytelling
The everyday lives of people are lost to history unless we gather the stories while we can. Using her reentry into Holocaust history through the memories of once-good German neighbors—both the Jews who fled her father’s village and the Christians who stayed—Mimi Schwartz reveals the way in which oral history can help us to understand what history books can’t tell us.
Why Small, Good Deeds Matter – A Lesson from Kristallnacht
In 1938, a Torah was rescued on Kristallnacht in Germany—not by Jews but by their Christian neighbors. Who did it, why, and does it matter? These questions, at the heart of Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father’s German Village, provide a springboard for insight into the struggles for decency in climates of hate and violence—be it Nazi Germany, Bosnia, Rwanda, wherever—and what that means for us, as neighbors, today.
Book Club Talks
If you read Good Neighbors, Bad Times or Thoughts from a Queen-sized Bed and want to know more, author Mimi Schwartz is happy to answer questions—either face-to-face or electronically. Contact her at mimi.schwartz@att.net.
Note: Discussion Questions are available under Writing Talk for Good Neighbors, Bad Times and for Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed.
WORKSHOPS
From Memory to Memoir
The longer we live, the more stories we have to tell. But how do we turn fragments of memory into stories that others want to read? This writing workshop provides ways to get started and then shape life experience—about childhood, current life, or family history. Includes hands-on activities for getting started, finding voice, using research, and revising that are all part of Writing True, the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction by Mimi Schwartz and Sondra Perl.
Family Memoir as Holocaust History
Much has been written about the Holocaust, and yet there are many more stories to tell—by those who lived through it and by those who are looking back, trying to understand. Using her own work and that of others, Mimi Schwartz provides techniques and caveats to help those who want to write about the Holocaust from first, second, or third generation perspectives. How do I start? How do I gather fragments of story I know into a complete piece? How do I research what I don’t know? These questions and others will be covered.
Other Popular Lecture and Workshop Topics
 Memoir as History: the Next Generation Looks Back
Writing a Community Memoir
Using Research to Tell True and Interesting Stories
The Power of Creative Nonfiction
Finding Voice in Nonfiction Writing
The Art of Revision
Writing about Family: Tips and Caveats
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