The Story Ideas Virtuoso is Deb Gallardo. Her site offers story ideas and writing prompts for creative and fiction writers, but many of them can work for brainstorming memoirs or as a foundation for group story-based activities.

For example, Gallardo suggests the Innocent Bystander idea in which:

You overhear a conversation at work. It’s strange, curious but nonsense. Unfortunately, what you’ve heard is a plot to control the stock market and now you’re considered a threat. You’re fired, discredited and assaulted. The only way you can clear your name is to unravel the plot.

But you could just go with the first part of this idea to tell your own story of overhearing a conversation at work (or elsewhere). Or turn the prompt into a group activity by asking group members to tell a story about an overheard conversation. I would have a doozy for that one: My mother told me at age 8 that she had overheard a conversation between my father and a frequent houseguest that revealed an affair between my dad and the guest. You can bet that incident shaped my feelings about my parents (and marriage) for many years to come.

Some of the types of story ideas and prompts on the site include:

• Story Ideas-Hidden Wonders to Stir Your Writer’s Imagination
• Creative Writing Exercises & Prompts
• Still More Story Prompts & Writing Resources
• Story Ideas for Your Blog
• Creative Writing Exercises — Description & Character
• Creative Writing Exercises — Character Sketches
• Story Ideas — 25 Story Starters
• Story Ideas — Online Story Idea Generators: This is one of the most interesting sections: Script-based generators in which the user refreshes/reloads his or browser, or to generate a new idea. All of these seem to come from the same source, http://www.sff.net/, more particularly the writer’s group, CALLIHOO, led by Julia West.