Memoir Writing Prompts

How is your family unique?

What is your first memory about school?
Something that you collect
An unusual talent or hobby
Your cultural heritage
Summer camp or vacation
When you moved (where from, what was it like moving, were you nervous or
excited?)
An illness, accident or embarrassing moment
An important friendship or family member
Someone who was/is an inspiration to you

ONE STEEP, MUDDY, ICY, MELTY METAPHOR (That is Also a True

Story)
The first time my (now) best friend and I decided to go for a hike, the
beginning interaction went something like this:
Were going for a hike. It wasnt a question.
When? I asked hesitantly.
Hmm, Saturday at eleven.
That was it. Straight to the point. Simple. Unquestioning. Demanding.
Apparently I agreed. I hadnt been hiking in a very long time. I wasnt even
sure if I had the proper equipment for hiking in my closet at home.
Waking up on Saturday was not fun. I searched my closet (not long enough)
and grabbed an old t-shirt, warm sweatshirt (it was a sixteen degree day in
January in Lethbridge), and pulled on a pair of old jeans. (Yeah, jeans.) I
grabbed my ugly brown Sketchers and a water bottle and headed out the
door, waving a single, tired hand at my aunt, uncle, and little cousins eating
breakfast in the kitchen.
We met near Starbucks in the University and planned out our route.
I was thinking well head out the doors in U-Hall that lead out to the coulees
and decide left or right from there, he said.
Hey man, I said yawning, Youre the one that knows the way around the
coulees. Ive never hiked them before, remember? I took a small swig of
water from my water bottle.

Awesome! New experiences are the best! Lets go have ourselves an

adventure!
He was too chipper, too much of a morning person. I was happy to see the
sun shining so bright and warm in January though. And despite my
exhaustion, I was actually looking forward to a hike in the beautiful coulees.
About an hour and a half into the hike we both decided to go off of the path
and found ourselves scaling a steep, muddy, icy, melty coulee. The
experienced hiker (him) had no problem whatsoever getting up the side with
cat-like reflexes. Me on the other hand, - clumsy, awkward, trips-up-thestairs me found myself clutching the side of the coulee while my ugly
brown Sketchers threatened to slip on the mud and send me sliding down
the steep hillside.
Help! I exclaimed. Or at least give me some climbing advice, I shouted to
the mountain cat standing chuckling at the top of the coulee.
All I can say is dont - DO NOT - grab that little tree to your right. That tree is
NOT your friend. Dont. Do. It.
I took another step. My foot slipped. My first instinct was to grab onto the
next thing that would keep me from sliding down the hill. (Yeah, I grabbed
the unfriendly tree). Remember, it was January, so plants are not cute and
fluffy; theyre sharp, thorny, and sometimes just plain evil.
Ouch, ow, ow, ow, oww.
That. Tree. Is. Not. Your. Friend! He laughed.
I know! I laughed. Well, now I laugh about it.

I decided to just power through the sharp pain in my hand and not worry
about sliding down the coulee. From any other perspective I probably looked
hilarious running up the side of a steep coulee. But I made it.
The view from the top of the river and the adjacent coulees was incredible.
We found a bench and laughed about (what I now refer to as) the tree
incident. It was then that I noticed that I had ripped the entire left inside
part of my jeans.
It was this moment that I learned to NEVER wear jeans on a hike. Ever.
We laughed harder.
That Bear Ate My Pants! By Tony James Slater
MONKEY! I shouted, as a brown slur swung out of the cage and onto the path.
The chase was on.
He skipped away with incredible speed, dodgning around the corner and heading for
freedom as though hed though of nothing but this moment for years. I bolted after
him, grabbing the edge of a cage to swing me round in hot pursuit. The monkey was
a good way ahead of me, and far more manoeuvrable. But I was faster on the
straight. I accelerated down the narrow corridor between enclosures, and was
closing the distance between us when he reached the steps down to the main road
through the farm. This was my chance if he paused, if he found the stairs
confusing, Id be on him. But no. Being a monkey, he didnt have much use for
stairs. He just jumped.
He made the ten foot leap to the ground with ease, landed on all fours, and scurried
off down the road. Pounding along behind him I had less than a second to make the
choice. If I slowed to negotiate the stairs even part of the way down,it would all be
over. Once he reached the trees by the first bend in the road hed be gone for good.
Time was up. I reached the top of the steps at a dead run and launched myself over
the edge.
In the seconds I was airborne my entire life flashed before my eyes. I seemed to
have spent a disproportionate amount of it chasing monkeys.

Somehow I landed on my feet, with bone-jarring force. I was only a step behind the
monkey my leap hap taken me considerably further than his but my body was
moving too fast for my legs. I managed to push off with my feet at the same
moment as I started to fall headlong on the ground. The result: I bounced forwards
another metre, sailing high above the form of the fleeing monkey, then crashed to
earth and flattened the sucker.
The impact knocked the stuffing out of me. It temporarily turned the monkey twodimensional. Pain shot through me. I felt like Id fallen ten feet onto a small primate.
For the monkey it must have been like being beaten around the head with a banana
tree. For a split second neither of us could move.