Writing Your Family History Workshop
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Sponsored by Chateau de Balsac
Led by Lisa Carlson
September 29 - October 6, 2025
Transport yourself into the past while enjoying the rich ambience of the storied twelfth-century Chateau de Balsac, where a long series of noble families lived, building, expanding, and refurbishing the working property over centuries. Your senses and emotions will easily transcend time in this elegant Aveyron hideaway as you reconnect with your own roots and heritage while learning how to research and write your personal family history. You’ll be spending time with a small, congenial group of writers, each on a mission to research and write their family histories.
Workshop leader Lisa Carlson guides you through the process over five days.
Introduction and Overview
Every family has a distinct history filled with the remarkable stories their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles told, as well as the fond memories, milestones, lessons and values that helped us become the people we are.
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Maybe you’ve always wondered about your family history or have recently taken the initial steps to delve into it by interviewing a parent or other relative, hiring a professional genealogist, or scanning the web for archival material. This workshop is designed for those who have been curious about their ancestors and family origin stories and now want to learn how to organize their family’s histories into a cohesive whole, whether it be a collection of anecdotes, a full memoir, or a format of participants’ own design.
Suggested Prep
Before arrival at Chateau Balsac, participants are encouraged to think about what stories, photos, and facts about their families they have access to. You should bring a list of supporting information to the workshop for discussion about the scope of your project, which can focus on anything from one person's story to an arc of history spanning several generations. If you have any digitized information to bring in a thumb drive or on a personal device, it can help form the basis for starting an outline for the story you wish to tell.
Workshop Description and Goals
Workshop leader Lisa Carlson will help participants organize the elements needed to bring their family stories and legacies to life in a format that immortalizes their family’s essence, preserving their stories for future generations.
The sessions cover how to research and source documents, sort through and choose photos, and interview family members to put together the core of a family’s story. Then participants will outline the manuscript and write the beginnings of their family memoir, with the workshop leader as guide.
At the end of these sessions, participants will have acquired the tools they need to continue the project on their own.
The class format combines short introductions to family history writing and research with engagement by participants in a supportive, nonjudgemental environment for sharing stories and developing a narrative flow for their family history projects.
Instructor Biography
When Lisa Carlson was a young woman living in New York, she interviewed her great aunt and tape-recorded the interview, which eventually led to her turning her great aunt’s story into a screenplay draft. Lisa shared the stories with other family members and encouraged her cousin, an ancestry enthusiast, to continue doing deeper research into their mutual roots.
Laura O.Magnus, Lisa’s great aunt
Lisa is a seasoned writer and editor who has frequently worked with new authors engaged in doing their own family history research. She has helped many clients organize their material and put their stories and legacies into book form.
Additionally, Lisa spent 5 years interviewing residents for Bay Area local monthly magazines, Berkeley Hills Living and Montclair Living, crafting monthly cover features about her neighbors’ lives for thousands of residents to enjoy.
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She taught copyediting at UC Berkeley Extension’s Certificate in Editing for five years and is a longstanding member and former chair of Bay Area Editors’ Forum. She’s a former National Writers Union officer and a member of the Authors Guild. Lisa has taught creative writing and tutored immigrant and African American children.
Raised in Latin America, Lisa speaks Spanish and French, did her Junior Year Abroad with NYU in Paris, majoring in anthropology and French, and subsequently worked at the Cinémathèque Française and in publishing in France. She’s a writing coach and edits fiction and non-fiction books. She lives in El Cerrito, CA.
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During this workshop, Lisa will give feedback to participants on the organization of their outlines and writing of initial chapters of their family histories. Much of this will take place during the sessions. For participants interested in further development of their family legacies, Lisa offers a second-level workshop and is available for personal coaching sessions.
Instructor Contact
Lisa Carlson,
7443 Stockton Avenue, El Cerrito, CA 94530 USA
(510) 926-0976 Text / WhatsApp