Executive Producers Marni Freedman and Tracy J. Jones, in association with the International Memoir Writers Association (IMWA), announced the eighth annual San Diego Memoir Showcase will take place at The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla on Thursday, Dec. 8 at 7 p.m.

This one-night-only event (theconrad.org/events/8th-annual-memoir-showcase/) will be full of brazen, short, and compelling true stories based on the theme, “What. Just. Happened?”

Eight winning submissions and a 2020 fan favorite were selected for this year’s showcase. This much-anticipated event matches writers with local writing coaches and then hires professional actors and directors to bring their stories to life. Seven of the eight winning writers live in Carmel Valley, La Jolla, Mission Valley, Ocean Beach, Poway, Scripps Ranch, and University Heights.  

“This year the stories are beyond fantastic,” Freedman said. “From stories of a transgender person’s first day as a woman, to a little Iranian girl in Tehran watching the U.S. hostage crisis unfold on TV, to a young woman tripping on acid who meets her birth father for the first time. You can’t make this stuff up!”

This year’s showcase will feature a special presentation by Gill Sotu, the poet in residence for the San Diego Writers Festival. The full list of winners can be found on the IMWA website: sdmwa.org/memoir-showcase/.

From April through June, memoir writers submitted personal stories fitting the theme.

A panel of judges reviewed 200 entries and chose the eight finalists. These eight writers, along with 25 others deemed honorable mentions, will have their pieces published in the sixth volume of the San Diego Memoir Showcase anthology, Shaking the Tree: Brazen. Short. Memoir. in 2024.

Freedman and Jones are incredibly proud of the Memoir Showcase since its 2014 inception, as it celebrates needs in society today: joy, diversity, creating a collective conversation, and strengthening the bonds of community. “This year you will hear pieces that will make you laugh, make you question what you think you know, and touch your heart with their poignant honesty,” Jones said. “Be prepared for an unexpected ride.”

The International Memoir Writers Association (formally the San Diego Memoir Writers Association) is a community of writers committed to the craft and business of memoir writing.

Learn more about the organization at: internationalmemoirwriters.org.