Meet Andrea Rice, Our New Memoir and Meditation Instructor

Memoir and Meditation?! That’s right! In our upcoming March/April round, we’ll be rolling out a new course that combines the traditional craft and workshopping of our Memoir I classes with meditation practice. Coming on board to teach this new offering is Andrea Rice, a former New York Times reporter and a current freelance writer and yoga instructor. We talked to Andrea about why meditation and memoir are a natural fit, what to expect from this class, her background in writing, her leash-trained cat, and more. Read on to learn all about her, and then sign up for the class, which starts at VAE Raleigh on Tuesday, March 17.

You're new to Redbud; welcome! Can you tell us a bit about your professional life before this: where have you worked, what have you been up to, what's led you to this point?

I got my first big break as a journalist when I landed a job in the newsroom at The New York Timesand spent six years working with and learning from some of the most talented writers and editors in the world. But a health scare in my late twenties pushed me toward yoga, meditation, and kombucha, and before I knew it, I’d become a yoga teacher myself. When I left the Times, I worked for a digital wellness publication called mindbodygreen until I decided to go freelance and fully integrate my passions for yoga and writing. Then in 2018, after 10 years of living in Brooklyn, my fiancé and I decided to leave the chaos of the city and moved down to the Triangle, where he was originally from. We got married. We bought a house. It took some time to adjust to the slower pace of things, but these days, I take solace in the peace and quiet. I spend the majority of my time writing, ghostwriting, editing, fact-checking and wearing many other hats for a number of clients from the comforts of my own home, cat in lap. You can also find me teaching yoga at blue lotus near downtown Raleigh, as well as at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

You are teaching one of our traditional Memoir I classes...but with a twist. Tell us about the meditation aspect of Memoir I and Meditation. How do you integrate these two practices together? How do they enhance each other?

The practice of writing and the practice of meditation are both practices of self-study. They require the same basic tenets: attention, commitment, discipline, and truthfulness. The core teaching of both yoga and meditation is to develop self-awareness so that we may understand who we truly are. This skill is vital to the writer, particularly the memoirist, who must look within to reveal the stories they wish to tell. I’ve found that integrating breathwork, gentle movement, and space for quiet reflection can help us get unstuck so that creativity may flow more freely. For these sessions, I’ll be leading guided meditations to steady the mind and offering simple suggestions to move energy around in the body, which allows students to move past any blocks and get out of their own way. I’ll also offer writing prompts and exercises that facilitate the inward journey. 

What would you say/what do you say to students who might want to learn about memoir but are skeptical of meditation, or vice versa? 

To the meditation skeptics: If stress-reduction, longer telomeres (which slows the aging process), and more gray-matter density in your hippocampus (which increases empathy) aren’t enough of a sell for you, a regular meditation practice will also make you a more patient and present human. Meditation has also been shown to enhance alpha brain waves which stimulates our creative thinking process.

To the memoir skeptics: We all have stories that we carry. Why continue to hold the weight of them on your shoulders? Personal essays, journaling, and memoir writing are practices of cathartic release. Whether you keep your prose all to yourself or share your work with the world, you’ll feel energetically lighter just by acknowledging that the story you’re telling had played a valuable part in shaping the person you are today.

Tell us about your favorite activity or lesson to teach in class, to give students a taste of what to expect.

As time passes and we change, so too does our memory. Sentence starters are always helpful tools when trying to hone in on the specifics of a memory. I like to start with a brainstorm of, say, 10 memories, and then offer a guided meditation that steers students into a particular head- and heart-space. After coming out of the meditation, I ask them to choose one memory from their list and free-write into it, beginning each sentence with “I remember.” Meditation teaches us to observe ourselves in the moment, and I’ve found that post-meditation, the memories come rushing forth with surprising clarity through this exercise. The writer is transported back to that particular time as an observer of the scene rather than a participant, seeing it as they are now instead of as they were then. This helpful, learned detachment helps them start to look back at the past self as a character. 

What's a recent book you read that you absolutely loved, and why? Also, if you read a book recently and didn't care for it, please tell us about that too--what kept you from connecting with it?

I loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls. It’s such smart, witty, and clear writing, and is a vivid time capsule of New York City theatre life in the 1940s and the implications of the Second World War. Although it’s a work of fiction, the narrative employs a popular memoir technique that’s written in the first person as a letter to a loved one. But what has struck me the most about this story was Gilbert’s idea that there are some mistakes that we can never forgive ourselves for; mistakes that we’ll always have to summon the strength to continue to live with.

What do you like to do for fun when you're not teaching writing or working on your own writing?

I love food and wine and cooking and entertaining, and, after a recent trip to the Italian Riviera, am obsessedwith making pesto and focaccia—the Ligurian way. If you’re not sure what I mean, watch “Salt Fat Acid Heat” on Netflix.

Anything else we should know?

We walk our cat Bela on a leash and she was discovered on Instagram by Adventure Cats. She is featured in the book Adventure Cats: Living Nine Lives to the Fullest, by Laura J. Moss, as the “Brooklyn Urban Adventurer.”