For the past six months, I’ve been teaching a weekly workshop, How to Write Your Memoirs, at a retirement community in Basking Ridge, N.J., 20 minutes from my home in Short Hills. Most of my writers are women in their 80s; a few are in their 90s. None of them have ever tried this genre of writing before.

“But our stories will die when we die if we don’t get them down on paper now,” they tell me.

My inspiration for this class is Nancy Aronie’s Writing From The Heart workshop in Chilmark that I attended in July of 2000 with Lisa, then age 42, my only daughter of six children. At the time, I was struggling with my writing. But somehow, sitting in Nancy’s “sacred circle” — under a spreading pine tree on her property with Lisa next to me, her arm around my shoulders, and all the voices opening up around me — I was able to break through my blockage and tap into feelings that I could finally put on paper.

I went on to graduate from Sarah Lawrence College with an MFA in writing in 2005 and since then have written two memoirs. One of them, Some Kind of Lucky, was published by Vineyard Stories in 2014.

In my workshop I try to simplify the complex art and craft of memoir for my seven eager participants, who are tasked each week with writing at home, and then reading aloud to the class a three-page story (no more than 750 words).

“Use description and dialogue to create scenes,” I urge them. “Show, don’t tell. Trust your memory. And don’t forget to reveal your feelings.”

Each week, if they are not sure what topic to tackle, I give them a prompt: an early childhood memory, a favorite (or unfavorite) holiday, a prized possession, a special gift (it doesn’t have to be tangible). When I remind them that the essence of writing is rewriting, I am usually greeted with frowns. But these elderly beginners all have stories to tell.

Maggie, who is 95, was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, and for her first 12 years of education attended nearby Punahou — a private, coeducational school founded by American missionaries in 1841 and best known to many as Barack Obama’s alma mater. Maggie walked to school barefoot with her neighborhood friends.

“I was lucky if I didn’t get a kiawi tree thorn in my foot to make me late for the 7:45 school starting time,” she wrote.

Her college years were spent in the U.S., heralded by an arduous five-day trip (before the advent of commercial aviation) on a Matson Line ship to California, followed by a transcontinental train ride several days long to the East Coast.

“In the summer of 1941, I was 21 and had returned home from completing my education,” she wrote. “My father faithfully turned on the radio every evening, following the news of Europe exploding in Hitler’s war. Our president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was doing all in his power to keep us out of the conflict.”

Her story continued: “It was a beautiful, balmy Sunday morning in early December, clear blue sky, bright sunshine, the smell of coffee perking in the kitchen. Mother, Dad and I had just gathered around the breakfast table when we heard guns exploding in the distance . . . . Mother and I went outside as bombers swooped over the house with big red circles on their wings. Rising suns meant Japanese. Looking out towards Pearl Harbor in the distance, we could see huge clouds of swirling black smoke.”

A few hours later, President Roosevelt declared Dec. 7, 1941 a day of infamy and the U.S. was at war with Japan.

Louise is in her 80s. Her earliest memory is of a little house on the prairie with no electricity or running water. She knew from a photograph that when her parents married in 1933 during the Great Depression her mother wore a brown print dress at their simple wedding.

“For many years after the wedding,” Louise wrote, “Mom wore the dress to church every Sunday or when she had to dress up for a special occasion. When the dress became too shabby for church, she wore it for housework. Eventually, after many washings, it was faded and full of holes. However, she did not throw the dress away. It went into a big cardboard carton called the rag box. When I was 12 or 13, I was taught to cut or tear those old rags into one-inch strips that we then sewed and finally crocheted together. Thus, my mother’s brown, printed wedding dress ended up as part of an area rug in front of the kitchen stove.”

Dee, age 90, can trace her roots back to Charlemagne, with a family tree to prove it. Her first story focused on her Irish ancestry. In 1856 in County Mayo, her great-grandfather Francis Cormack (the English government did not allow the Irish to preface their surnames with “Mc”) inherited the family farm and decided it was time to get married.

“He went to church on a bright Saturday morning in February,” she wrote, “but the bride did not appear. After waiting a sufficient period of time, the men repaired to the local pub to commiserate with Francis. It wasn’t long before the matchmaker appeared, having heard of the tragedy. ‘Have no fear, Francis,’ she consoled. ‘By the end of the day, I’ll have ye a bride.’ So all the men cheered and had another pint. Well, sure enough, the matchmaker returned, announcing that ‘Bridget Forrestal is willing to marry Francis, but before she does he has to buy her a pair of shoes.’ It seems to have been a happy marriage, as the couple produced six sons and two daughters.”

I do love hearing and helping to refine these stories, and am hoping to start a second workshop soon at another retirement community nearby. Meanwhile, my original set of writers have bonded and are learning to trust each other. Each week their memories continue to open up, and they are digging deeper and sharing. I have tried to create a safe and nurturing space for them, reminiscent of Nancy Aronie’s sacred circle in Chilmark that allowed me to blossom, and it seems to be working.

Joan Bowman is a longtime summer resident of Chilmark.