On May 23, Fremont Area Writers will host author Lisa Montanaro speaking on Zoom about writing family secrets. Every family has its secrets including Montanaro’s own large no-nonsense Italian-American family. In this talk, Montanaro will present techniques for uncovering the dramatic potential that lies beneath the surface of family history and how to navigate these secret histories with sensitivity and nuance.
Squeamish about probing family secrets? Her tips and techniques can be applied to any secret. Incorporated into novels, short stories and memoirs, they add emotional authenticity and dramatic tension in a way that will resonate with readers. The presentation is interactive and includes time for questions so that listeners will come away feeling more empowered to include family secrets, real or imagined, on the pages they share with the world.
Montanaro came to be a novelist in a roundabout way. She traveled the path of a performer, worked as an instructor and interpreter of the Deaf to put herself through law school, and became a lawyer specializing in employment law. She left law to start a productivity business.
For her debut novel, Everything We Thought Was True, she drew inspiration from family history and examined the corrosive nature of secrets, both those we keep from others and those we keep from ourselves. The book won first place for Best New Fiction/Debut in the 2025 American Writing Awards and first place for LGBTQ fiction in the 2024 International Firebird Book Awards.
Fremont Area Writers is one of 21 branches of the California Writers Club. Meetings are free and all writers are welcome. You do not need to live in Fremont to attend. More information at cwc-fremontareawriters.org.
Lisa Montanaro on Writing Family Secrets
Saturday, May 23
2 – 4pm
Via Zoom
Request link from Scott Davidson
sc**************@***oo.com
