National Seminar “Writing Memoirs, Capture Memories”

On Monday, September 26, 2022, the English Literature Study Program held a National Seminar on “Writing Memoirs, Capturing Memories.” This seminar is a seminar held to learn and explore memoirs. This seminar was held on the online platform zoom Cloud meeting. The National Seminar on “Writing Memoirs, Capturing Memories” was held online so everyone could quickly attend this seminar, especially college students.

Based on an interview I conducted with one of the committee members of the National Seminar “Writing Memoirs, Capturing Memories” Adrian Ray, the committee as well as the contact person at the seminar, this seminar does not have a target or requirement to be able to attend the forum, which means that anyone can attend this seminar. This seminar is free to participate in from various circles. Based on the results of interviews that have been conducted, most of the seminar participants are students of the Class of 2021 and new students of the Class of 2002.    

We can see from the picture above that most of the participants in this seminar are students. Most of the students who attended this seminar were students who did have an interest in writing. This seminar attracted the attention of the audience because this seminar brought in direct speakers who were very experts on memoirs. Mr. Ngadiyo is a Memoir and Founder of the Memoir Writing Community. The speaker explained a lot about bios. Like, how to write a good memoir and how we can capture the memory. Where when a person feels that one of the memories in his life is meaningful and essential, he may be interested in writing it down into a story. Sounds easy, but it turns out that writing a memoir is not as simple as it seems. This writing skill is even very confusing and challenging for some people. A memoir is a life story written by itself into a story. In addition to explaining memoirs, according to Ray, this seminar was interesting when Pak Ngadiyo shared his personal story about him. He has been diligent in writing dairy since elementary school. And that made him very happy. He also realized that his passion was in writing personal stories. After studying many things, it turns out that they can develop the genre.

According to Ray, the interaction between the speaker and the audience was well-developed during this seminar. The speaker gave some tips to the audience for writing a memoir. Then the speaker explained that writing a memoir is essentially writing for yourself. The memoir opens the memories and facts of life that happened, and the biography enters the most private space in the self. The memoir, when written, is undoubtedly full of soul. In addition to the interaction between the speaker and the audience that was built very well, the interaction between the moderator (Nurrahma Restia Fatkhiyati, M.Li) and the audience was no less exciting. He moderates or guides during the discussion and question and answer session between the speaker and the speaker. After holding this seminar, it is hoped that the audience will understand memoirs, perpetuate memories, and write memoirs.