Workforce Retraining: Becoming a Memoir Writer After Retiring From Another Career by Neill McKee: A WOW Blog Tour
Posted by Kathleen Pooler/@kathypooler with Neill McKee/@MckeeNeill
“There comes a time in your life where you’re called to not only reinvent yourself but to rebuild your spirit. It’s so relevant today.“
Wilmer Valderrama
Welcome to Neill McKee’s WOW Blog Tour! Neill has a fascinating story of working internationally and sharing the lessons learned through these travels.He recently said on Twitter “Memoir writing has become a means of sharing lessons learned while working internationally.” Neill is the author of Finding Myself in Borneo, a chronicle of his adventures during 1968-70 while teaching in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo). Neil shares how he took up memoir writing after he retired from another career. I’m sure that took a lot of soul-searching.
Welcome, Neill!
Author Neill McKee
Workforce Retraining: Becoming a Memoir Writer After Retiring From Another Career
I retired from international development work at the end of 2012, after directing a large USAID-funded development communication project in Washington D.C. I dabbled in the field of innovation and organizational development with a few consulting contracts for a year, but decided that for me, 45 years of such work—as a volunteer teacher and program administrator, filmmaker and multi-media producer, manager and facilitator—was enough. So, I started doing evening classes in creative writing while still living in our wonderful riverside home in Maryland.
Writing gave me time “to stop and stare,” and I also developed a dire need for more sunlight than Maryland had to offer, perhaps due to the fact I’d spent so much of my life working in the tropics. After my mother died in Ontario, my wife and I decided to head west to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where there’s significant sunshine 330 days of the year. On arrival, we joined the Albuquerque International Association (AIA) and ABQ Global Ties, two great organizations which have kept me connected to my past career. It was a great awakening to me that “fly over America” is so active in international affairs with tons of like-minded people. I found five former Peace Corps volunteers on my block, alone, with about 2,500 in New Mexico.
I put a lot of energy into what I call, tongue-in-cheek, “Workforce Retraining.” Senior residents can take courses at the University of New Mexico for $5.00 per credit hour and I registered in a Master’s-level workshop in Creative Nonfiction with a great professor, Diane Thiel http://www.dianethiel.net/. Soon after arrival, I found myself writing my memoir stories to schedules and sharing my prose for critiques with a group of mature students—a fast way of learning. In 2016, I registered in a similar workshop in poetry. I also joined Southwest Writers (www.southwestwriters.com), an active association of over 300 people pursuing “the writing life” here, many have retired from previous careers and others have been writers all their lives. We meet the first Saturday and the mid-Tuesday of every month for presentations, sharing, announcements, and workshops.
Retraining as a creative writer is a lot of work. I hired a good literary editor and learned to revise, revise and revise again. Being a visual thinker probably helped me a lot. After about 50 revisions and reviews, I published my first memoir, North Borneo Sojourns: Finding Myself in Sabah. It’s about my first job out of university as a Canadian volunteer teacher and then program administrator in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo) in the late 60s and early 70s, and experiences on a number of follow up visits to Borneo. It’s also where I started my career as a filmmaker. See buy page: www.neillmckeeauthor.com/buy-the-book
I’m working on three others: childhood and youth, a global filmmaker’s diary, and a travel memoir on the search for the stories of my ancestors in Scotland, Ireland, Canada and the US. All are great fun to research and write, while taking breaks to bask in the sun, walk, swim and drink wine with friends! So, with a little “workforce retraining,” I found a new vocation in a great new environment.
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Thank you Neill for sharing how you reinvented yourself after traveling all over the world. You show how challenging, yet rewarding writing is!
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Paperback:260 pages
Publisher:Nbfs Creations LLC (January 8, 2019)
Language:English
ISBN-10:1732945705
ISBN-13:978-1732945708
Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1732945705/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0%20/?tag=wowwomenonwri-20
Book Synopsis:
Finding Myself in Borneo is an honest and buoyant chronicle of a young Canadian man’s adventures during 1968-70, while teaching secondary school as a CUSO volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo). Travel with Neill McKee on his unique journey through vibrant Asian cultures as he learns the craft of teaching, the Malay language and local customs, and gains many friends in his small community. He climbs the highest peak in Southeast Asia–Mount Kinabalu, has a love affair, and navigates Borneo’s backwaters to make his first of many documentary films. McKee travels by freighter to Indonesia, where he discovers the scars of that country’s recent genocide, a contrast to his hilarious motorcycle journeys in Sabah with his American Peace Corps buddy. They make a hallucinogenic discovery–North Borneo is, indeed, J. R. R. Tolkien’s famed Middle-Earth of The Lord of the Rings! The enterprising duo establish the North Borneo Frodo Society, an organization Tolkien joins.
McKee’s second Sabah sojourn and other return trips offer the reader the opportunity to match the early anecdotes to what in fact happened to the land and people who touched his life, and he theirs.
About the Author:
Neill McKee is a creative nonfiction writer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. McKee, who holds a B.A. Degree from the University of Calgary and a Masters in Communication from Florida State University, lived and worked internationally for 45 years and became an expert in communication for social change. He directed and produced of a number of award-winning documentary films/videos and multi-media initiatives and authored numerous articles and books on development communication. During his international career, McKee worked for Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO), the International Development Ressearch Centre (IDRC), Canada, UNICEF, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; Academy for Educational Development, Washington, D.C. and FHI 360, Washington, D.C. He worked and lived in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda and Russia for a total of 18 years and traveled to over 80 countries on short-term assignments.
Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah is Neill’s first Memoir
Find Neill Online:
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1839945.Neill_McKee
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MckeeNeill
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neill-mckee-b9971b65/
Website: https://www.neillmckeeauthor.com/
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How about you? Have you reinvented yourself after retirement? What factors went into your decision?
We’d love to hear from you. Please join in the conversation below~
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Next Week:
Monday, 3/11/19:
” A Researcher is a Detective by Sheri Hathaway”
Sheri is an award-winning poet and author. She is currently writing historical articles for a Canadian farm magazine aid is working on her first book about the life of her parents.
