The writers I know will not get an $8 million contract for their books.

They do not expect to make the best seller list, or achieve fame and fortune, but the stories they write are valuable to them, to their family and friends, and to those who enjoy and appreciate reading history.

I teach a course on How to Write Your Autobiography. I also assist individuals who are writing a life story, or the stories of their life.

These ``historian-authors'' write in their own words and style, chronicling their family and personal experiences. Their stories pour out, often freeing thoughts, ideas, dreams, and disappointments that they had bottled up for many years. And in the process, they get to know themselves better.

Many find that exploring and sharing their deepest thoughts and feelings is a satisfying, and, at times, therapeutic experience. The process allows them to find a new voice; reexamine the stages of their lives; record the events, the people, and the milestones that have shaped them; and pass along their time-tested philosophies of living. The stories are treasured legacies for family and friends.

Some proceed on a chronologically, reaching back to their ancestors and forward to their grandchildren. ``A Dinosaur Looks Back,'' a 365-page self-published tome by Allen J. Gerber, a retired dentist from Longboat Key, Fla., is organized by decades. Chapters include, ``The Terrific Twenties,'' ``The Sizzling Seventies,'' ``The Nifty Nineties.'' Writes Gerber in the prologue, ``My dear children, this is the story of my life as I, at the ripe age of eighty-seven remember it. ... This is the story of a dinosaur who just happened to escape the ravages of old father time and still found time and energy to look back and remember what was!''

Gerber researched not only his family's history but also the political, social and religious events of the times. ``This story begins thousands of miles from Longboat Key,'' and takes us to Russia in February 1885, where ``The Cossacks are just four kilometers away'' from the village of his grandparents who decided to ``pack our things tonight and leave before daybreak.''

Others prefer to focus on select circumstances that made a difference in their lives, for example ``Oh the Places I Have Seen'' (written by a traveler) and ``The Homes I Have Lived in'' (written by someone whose family moved a lot).

My students' writing enriches my life and allows me the privilege to enter their world and be touched by the wealth of their memories.

Reading a vignette titled ``The Princess Arrives at Last'', I could actually feel the excitement of the occasion: ``It was a cool day in early December 1947, when Lucille told me, after our lunch, ` feel sort of strange; it may be on its way.' I retorted with a wise guy pun, 'I am ready, willing, and unable to do it for you.' .....Then, the miracle happened! I kissed the little mother first. When the nurse asked, 'Daddy, would you like to hold your baby girl?' my knees started to tremble!''

These autobiographers may be obscure in the writing and publishing world, but they are among the countless people who have quietly affected our world without even being aware they were doing it.

The English essayist Llewelyn Powys wrote, ``Each family, however modest its origins, possesses its own particular tale of the past, a tale which can bewitch us with as great a sense of insistent romance as can ever the traditions of kings.'' How true. And, that is why I encourage the writing of the story(ies) of our lives.

Sophia Nibi lives and writes in Wellesley, MA