Los Angeles – October 30, 2006 - Memoirs Ink’s Third Annual Personal Essay Writing contest awarded $1,750 in total prize money this year to three winners. In order of first to third place, the winners were: Abby Sher for This Is; Jonathan Fine for Sugar Baby; and, Jessica Kirzner for Snow Angel. The winners’ complete essays are published at www.memoirsink.com.

About the winners:

Abby Sher is a writer and performer living in Brooklyn with her new husband, Jay. Before moving to New York, she wrote and performed with The Second City for five years. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The L.A. Times, REDBOOK, and Everyday with Rachael Ray. This winter, her first young adult novel if forthcoming from Scholastic.

Jonathan Fine is originally from Vermont, but now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is pursuing an M.A. in nonfiction writing at Portland State University. Jonathan’s work at Portland State has focused on immersion journalism, memoir, and personal essay. In 2006, he received the University’s Kellogg Award for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction.

Jonathan also teaches undergraduate writing classes and freelances as a writer and editor. “The Fine Print,” his column on English grammar and usage, was a regular feature of Multnomah Lawyer Magazine.

Jessica Kirzner spent her childhood in New Jersey, England and Virginia with her older sister Rebecca, her parents, and her dog, Sky. Throughout her life, she has loved and admired her sister, for whom this memoir was written. Jessica is currently an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is majoring in English and Jewish Studies. She teaches religious school and preschool, and is active in the University of Virginia Hillel Jewish Student Union and Blue Notes, an a cappella jazz ensemble at UVa. Jessica has been writing memoirs for several years, but has never before been published.

About Memoirs, Ink.:

Memoirs, Ink is a personal history service that creates and preserves family legacies. Their main business is to interview and write the life stories of ordinary and extraordinary people. Memoirs, Ink founder, Felice Austin, established the annual writing contest in the interest of promoting the telling of personal stories. Ms. Austin wanted to create a literary contest that would complement her company’s mission statement and support writers in this important genre.

Contact for Media Inquiries and Interview Requests: Jill Evans or Felice Austin for Memoirs, Ink. 310-204-5929 or memiorsink@gmail.com

LOS ANGELES – Mar. 10, 2004 - Memoirs, Ink., an innovative personal history service that creates and preserves family legacies, announces its second annual personal essay contest. The contest was created by Memoirs, Ink., founder Felice Austin in the interest of contributing to the writing community. Last year a total of $1,350 in total prize money was awarded to three winners. This year, they plan to give way $1750.

“The Memoirs, Ink., First Annual Personal Essay Writing Contest promoted our company’s founding belief, that everyone has a valuable story to tell, and allowed us an opportunity to give real money to deserving writers,” said Ms. Austin. “Last year’s first place winner was a new, unpublished writer. Since the announcement last September, she let us know that her win and her publication at Memoirsink.com helped her to get an agent and a book contract. That’s the kind of thing we were hoping for.

Memoirs, Ink.’s Second Annual Personal Essay Writing Contest reprises the original direction as Ms. Austin is looking for original, well- written personal essays, memoirs, or stories that based on autobiographical experiences with a first person narrative. Entries must be previously unpublished and limited to 3000 words. In 2005, prize money will be awarded as follows: First prize, $1000; second prize, $500; and third prize will receive $250.

Each contest entry requires a $10 entry fee. Entries should be sent to: Memoirs Ink Writing Contest, 468 N. Camden Drive, Suite 211, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. The contest deadline is Aug. 1, 2005 (postmark) and winners will be announced Sept 15, 2005.

To read the complete guidelines or to read last year’s winning essays, please visit: www.memoirsink.com/docs/contest.html.

Felice Austin is the inspiration and foundation of Memoirs, Ink., an innovative service that conducts research with families to write and preserve personal histories. In addition to the private collections she has authored through Memoirs, Ink., Ms. Austin’s fiction and non-fiction work have been recognized and published. She is also a photographer, and leader of a writing workshop in West Los Angeles.

Memoirs, Ink., is an innovative personal history service that creates and preserves family legacies. President and head writer Felice Austin founded the company on the belief that everyone’s story is worth telling. Memoirs, Ink., clients have included everyone from a housewife and mother who reflected on her wild life as a 50’s Los Angeles socialite, to an engineer who was at the forefront of aerospace development in the U.S., to a former fortune 500 CEO. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, with writers also in San Francisco, New York, and beyond. Further information is located online at www.memoirsink.com.

Contact for media inquiries and interview requests:
Felice Austin - Memoirs, Ink., 310-204-5929 or felice@memoirsink.com

News Release
September 2002

     Los Angeles—So much for fiction-people all over North America are putting down thrillers and romance novels and asking for biographies and memoirs—but not from their booksellers—from their parents. People like Kim Howard of San Francisco and Edith Cox of Los Angeles are part of the growing movement of people who are acting on the very human need to make sense of their lives. They are doing this by reconnecting with their family's experiences. Kim, a busy office manager, feared that her children would not know what an interesting woman their grandmother was. Kim wanted to preserve her mother's legacy. But where to begin was the problem—until she found Memoirs, Ink.
     Memoirs, Ink., is an innovative personal history service. Memoirs, Ink. takes the work out of writing a life story by conducting life-history interviews (6 ninety-minute interviews), usually in the comfort of the subject's home. They then transcribe the taped interview, and based on this material, create a biography, autobiography or memoir of the subject's life. Clients receive copies of the interview tapes and a bound version of the completed story in their chosen format. Memoirs, Ink. also ghostwrites Ethical Wills (a will written to your family while you are alive expressing personal values, hopes, desires, advice, etc.), Mini-Memoirs, and offers writing workshops. Their services range from several hundred dollars to 8-10 thousand dollars for a full autobiography,but most clients agree it is a small price to pay for what they receive.
     Memoirs, Ink. was founded by Felice Austin, a freelance writer and poet in Los Angeles. "Storytelling is one of the most ancient arts," says Felice. "There is something remarkable that happens to all of my clients when they tell their story, or when they listen to the story of a loved one. They find new enthusiasm, new direction, and see their own life in a new light. "
     Many of Memoirs, Ink.'s clients come from the "baby-boomer" generation, the generation that came of age in the sixties—that tumultuous time when everyone was turning away from their parents. Now they are hiring Memoirs, Ink. to write their parents and grandparents' stories. "She would never write her story herself, but she can sure talk!"said Kim Haleck about her mother.
     Edith Cox, however, who just turned 86, hired Memoirs, Ink. to do her own story, after much prodding from her children. "I wasn't sure about it at first. But after our first interview, I had the most amazing dreams. I dreamt about my childhood by the Hudson River and about Jim, my sweetheart. I didn't think it was possible to remember everything she got me to remember. It was like living my life all over again. I had so much fun."

     Felice Austin's own life story is what led her to start Memoirs, Ink. "My mother died when I was eleven, and didn't leave much written or recorded. So I began a quest to piece her life together on my own, trying to satisfy that powerful need for coherence and connection with the past. As I was going about talking to relatives and gathering information I saw a way that I could use my talents to help other people fill this same need."
     To learn more about personal histories, contact Memoirs, Ink. at info@memoirsink.com or 310-204-5929.