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I grew up in a small town in Northern California and came from a family of writers. My father wrote professionally in business and advertising as well as writing fiction and non-fiction. My mother continues to turn out poetry at age 90. As a child, I was obsessed with reading every biography I could get my hands on in the elementary school library. From there it was a natural progression to begin writing stories about my own life. At age 16 I began writing more expressively and continued to do that into adulthood. As a Marriage and Family Therapist I have written numerous clinical articles.

Several years ago I began writing my own "Memoirs of a Baby Boomer" which is an ongoing autobiographical process. In January 2003 I introduced a column of mini-biographies called "Neighbors" in the Healdsburg Tribune. It was not much of a leap from "Neighbors" to the emergence of my memoir writing business, Sonoma LifeStories. Besides writing personal and family histories, I do professional ghostwriting, write and edit oral histories for the Healdsburg Museum and Historical Society, write a column for the Healdsburg Senior Center and facilitate memoir writing workshops in the Healdsburg community.

My passion is doing personal and family memoirs and local winery histories through Sonoma LifeStories. I love all aspects of this work. I love listening to people's stories which are always new and fascinating to me. I love working with my interview notes to put the pieces of the puzzle together into a cohesive and enjoyable narrative that interests people. I love the detailed fine tuning of editing over and over to produce just the result my client is looking for. And I love ending up with that tangible finished product that brings joy to others.
 

©2005-2015 sonoma LifeStories, Shonnie Brown; all rights reserved.
Phone: 707-431-2445   Email: shonnie@sonic.net