life writing


7 Life-Writing and Memoir Blogs You’ll Want to Follow 22

IN ADDITION TO WRITING AND TEACHING about journaling and memoir writing, I enjoy visiting other journaling and memoir writing sites for additional inspiration, new approaches, and different perspectives on writing about and through life. What I have discovered in doing so, is that there are really very few blogs out […]


Domestic Violence: A Personal View 10

OCTOBER is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Last October, I wrote about domestic violence and offered some journaling and memoir writing prompts to help confront the subject head on. But I wrote as someone on the outside looking in. Someone looking on with concern and compassion. Someone who had not personally experienced […]


Why Research is Important to Your Memoir 16

AS ANYONE WHO HAS WRITTEN ABOUT MEMOIR KNOWS, memoirs are much more than memories put to paper. And they are more than journalistically written true stories. Memoirs are comprised of two important elements: scene (narrative) and reflection. Without reflection, you do not have a memoir — you have a vignette or […]


From Memories to Memoirs, Part 9: Dialogue in Memoir 6

Dialogue does the heavy-lifting work – carrying details, setting the scene and moving the plot forward.  ~ J.H. Mae Perhaps more than any other writing device, dialogue brings your readers into the immediacy of scene. It provides a method for showing, not just telling about, a person’s character and personality, as […]


From Memories to Memoirs, Part 1 — What is Memoir? 8

Our greatest desire, greater even than the desire for happiness, Is that our lives mean something. This desire for meaning is the originating impulse of story.   ~Daniel Taylor I believe that everyone’s lives, however “ordinary,” are filled with experiences that speak to universal human experience and are therefore interesting to […]


Memoir vs. Legacy Writing and Why You Might Want to Do Both 4

A confused student recently asked me about the difference between legacy writing and memoir. “Aren’t they pretty much the same thing?” she wanted to know. “Aren’t they both just writing about life?” “Well, yes and no,” I said. Not the clearcut answer she probably wanted. Yes, they are both forms […]


Writing Through Anger 18

Anger is a negative emotion—that’s what we’ve been taught and what our culture believes. But is it true? Is anger “bad”? Years ago, in the midst of divorce, I came to the surprising realization that I had been angry for a very, very long time. Because I had considered anger […]


BlogTalk: Memoir Writing Advice

Advice for beginning writers abounds on the Internet—much of it quite good. Continuing the memoir writing theme roundup from last week, I’ve collected a few articles of encouragement and guidance for those of you who are endeavoring to write about your life. By way of encouragement, Telling HerStories blogger, Sheila […]


BlogTalk: The Power of Story Telling

When we write about our lives, we are not simply recording events: we are telling stories. And when we write those stories for others to read, we hope to engage our readers by sharing our life experiences in such a way that it affects them emotionally, makes them think about […]