A Home Across the World: Writing Memoirs of Exile and Belonging

Catherine Taylor was born in Aotearoa New Zealand and grew up in Yorkshire, England. Her memoir The Stirrings explores many of the aspects – both personal and political – around coming of age in the 1970s and 80s and also what Janet Frame called the “roots crisis” of being from one place – Taylor’s maternal forebears arrived in Aotearoa on the first settler ship – and ending up in another, on the other side of the globe. In her masterclass on memoir Taylor will examine the challenges of writing personal history and also look ahead to her next book which will focus on the hidden life of her New Zealand grandmother.