The Autobiography Workshop

At the Presbyterian Church at Franklin Lakes

730 Franklin Lake Road

                                  Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417

Directions to Church

Workshop members sit around a table in the center of the Covenant Room at the church. Each has come to share the story of his or her life and to hear what others are writing. New students are given a nineteen-page syllabus to help them get started, if they need help, and provide guidance as they continue to write their story. At each session an excerpt from a published memoir is provided so that students may see how others have handled autobiographical material, and a poem or parable or quotation is shared as food for thought.

Those who face the big picture windows think they have the best view. The others, facing the sliding glass doors or the clerestory windows enjoy their views as well. Depending on the season, they see  flowering weeping cherry trees, pink and white dogwoods, and rows of flowering crab apples circling the church; lush greenery; the varied colors of autumn, or snow-covered and frosted shrubs and branches. Occasionally the readings are punctuated with Oohs! and Aahs! as a red fox runs across the lawn or a doe and her fawn amble by.

Our workshops are limited to ten or twelve persons; two-thirds are returning students, generally. We write at home and meet for two hours once a week for eight weeks to share our writing and get feedback from our classmates. Most of us are retired and our ages range from the forties to the eighties. We have Fall, Winter, and Spring sessions.

At the beginning of each session, students are invited to ask questions or comment on the writing process, or any problems they have experienced as they write. This is not a class in literary criticism. We are not aiming to write best sellers, but rather to leave a record for our children and grandchildren, and to understand what we’ve done with our lives—where we were, where we are now, and where we want to go from here. Feedback is supportive and helps us to retrieve old memories. Gradually a group of strangers becomes a family of writers interested in hearing the next chapters in each others’ lives and continuing the connection.
The class is taught by Janice Rubin. For more information, contact her at   grimalkinj@verizon.net

At the age of twenty-two, Janice Rubin had earned a Bachelor´s degree in chemistry from Hunter College and a Master´s in psychology from Syracuse University. She married Donald, a mathematician who entered the field of computers at its inception, having  earned his Master’s at Syracuse University. A ten-year odyssey led from Syracuse, NY, to Washington, DC, to California, back to New  York and, finally, to New Jersey. They have lived in a small town in the foothills of the Ramapo Mountains since 1960.Two daughters were born, Rena in Washington and Ann in California. Ms Rubin remained a stay-at-home mother until her children  were in their teens, when she took a job as a news reporter for a chain of Bergen County newspapers. During her twenty-one years´ reporting and writing op-ed columns, she earned awards for investigative reporting, feature writing, enterprise reporting, among others.   She thought her life as a retiree had begun after she left journalism in 1990, but in 1994 she began to teach. In writing her memoirs as
 a gift to her children, she became aware of how great the emotional benefit of reviewing her life had been for her. She developed the  syllabus she subsequently used to encourage her students to examine their lives as a first step in finding out who they are and where they want to go from here. Now in the fifteenth year of a career she had not anticipated when she began her autobiography, she has no plans to retire.

She began collecting stories her students wrote, thinking that one day, when she had spare time, she would publish an anthology of the snippets of memories that had impressed her. She began to suspect that day was too far in the future for some of her students to see their writings in print, so she decided in 2000 to write Looking Back, Moving On: Memoir as Prologue and use her students’ writings as frosting at the end of each chapter.

It takes courage and perseverence to revisit the days and nights of our lives and write down what we find to make a record of our existence. Looking Back, Moving On provides the guide to begin the adventure and helps us through the pleasures and pitfalls, the joys and the sorrows that may be encountered. Rubin enables us to discover that, ultimately, the project is the gift of self discovery we give to ourselves, which enables us to go on to enjoy life to the fullest. Excerpts from her students’ writing contribute to our feeling of being part of the creative community.

The book is currently available from Xlibris, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and from the author.

Click on the book cover below to read the Foreword.

ISBN13: 978-1-4134-0669-6 (Trade Paperback)
ISBN: 1-4134-0669-6 (Trade Paperback)
Pages: 299
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Composition & Creation

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In 2001, Rubin and three of her longtime students wrote Four Lives: Despite the Odds, the memoirs of four women who made something of their lives despite inauspicious beginnings.

   Why are some people able to survive unpropitious beginnings, thrive and even excel, while others in equivalent circumstances cannot? The four women whose memoirs make up this volume met several years ago in an autobiography workshop. Despite early years that included physical, emotional and sexual abuse, deaths and abandonments, and the terror of living in a country at war, they remained sufficiently self-possessed and determined to go on to live productive lives, often giving back more than they had received.

   Theda von Schultz Bray survived World War II in Hitler's Germany and emigrated to the United States with her parents and sister. After marrying, she became a nurse. Honey Hilzen raised herself and the three youngest children of her mother's many marriages, maintaining a devotion to them throughout their often-tragic lifetimes. Peggy O'Hea lived in orphanages from age six to sixteen. She worked as an executive secretary and earned a bachelor's degree while raising her children. Janice Rubin earned a master's in psychology, raised two children, had an award-winning career in journalism and now teaches.

  How did they manage to do it? Was Theda’s loving family her protective shield? Was Honey’s willingness to accept help and learn from others her salvation? Did Peggy’s brightness, charm and independence give her the confidence to take on the world? Was Janice’s determination to matter her incentive? This book offers no answers, but there are enough clues in each of the four stories on which to base reasonable conjectures.

  The  book is available from Xlibris, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Janice Rubin.

Click on the book cover below to read the Introduction.

ISBN13: 978-1-4010-2479-6 (Trade Paperback)
ISBN: 1-4010-2479-3 (Trade Paperback)
ISBN13: 978-1-4010-5648-3 (Hardback)
ISBN: 1-4010-5648-2 (Hardback)
Pages: 498
Subject: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women