MEMOIR WRITING can be a messy process. When you begin writing a life story, it’s often in response to a strong inner urging to share your experiences — your challenges and triumphs, pain and joy — with others. You know, intuitively, there are others somewhere out in the world who […]
YOU’VE GOT A STORY to tell and you’ve been thinking about writing a memoir. Maybe you’ve already begun writing and have drafted a few scenes or anecdotes from your early life. And you’ve gotten good feedback from your friends or writing group. Or maybe you haven’t started writing, but whenever […]
WHEN YOU CONSIDER summers past, it’s natural for your mind to fly immediately to those of your childhood — those long, hot days of freedom from school and responsibility. I know mine does. I remember playing in the fields near my home, family barbecues and picnics, camping trips, and roller […]
MEMOIR IS USUALLY structured like fiction: roughly linear (either forward or backward), with or without a prologue, and often with an epilogue or afterward. It tells a story with a recognizable beginning, middle, and end. The novel story structure is solid and time-tested and works for any memoir. But what […]
IN MY EXPERIENCE as an editor and writing teacher, people often begin writing their memoir in a linear, this-happened-and-then-this-happened way. Or they try to cover too much ground, explaining a lifetime’s worth of events or relationship dynamics all at once. All of that is okay as a starting point for […]
TODAY, I’M EXCITED to share my email interview with Catherine (Clemens) Sevenau, author of an extensive and well-written online memoir serial, titled Through Any Given Door, and two published books: Behind These Doors: A Family Memoir, and a series of memoir essays, Queen Bee: Reflections on Life and Other Rude […]
I RECENTLY RE-WATCHED Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s 2010 TED talk on “The Riddle of Experience vs. Memory,” which is about the difference between what he calls the “experiencing self” (that part of us that experiences life moment by moment) and the “memory self” (that part of us that remembers our […]
TODAY, I’M PLEASED to host Eddie K. Wright, and his new memoir, Voice for the Silent Fathers. I’m in the middle of my own blog tour at the moment and appreciate this opportunity to feature another memoir writer’s work. Check out the blurb. Read the interview and brief excerpt. And […]
WHAT IS TRUTH IN MEMOIR? may be the most hotly debated question of all memoir-writing questions. We memoir writers talk a lot about “our truth” and how we define what that means. What is truth after all? Is there one truth or or many? Is truth subjective or objective? Are truth […]
YOU ARE WRITING YOUR MEMOIR. Memories are the basis of memoir, and we all know how fallible memories are. Naturally, you want your memoir to be as truthful as possible, so you set out to research the truth. You choose your methods: Interviewing family members and friends. Going to the […]
MEMOIRS ARE DRIVEN BY THEME. When you begin writing your memoir, it’s because you want to tell a story about a particular aspect of your life. It could be the discovery of a family secret, going through the loss of a loved one, overcoming an abusive childhood or addiction, or […]
THIS IS THE SECOND OF THREE ARTICLES, in which I discuss Bruce Springsteen’s memoir, Born to Run. Today, I’m exploring how Springsteen controls pace, voice, and tone in his writing. Voice and Tone: Springsteen describes the characters in his life I think one of the ways Springsteen’s voice and tone […]
