Magical Memoir Moments
Tom Callanan's Biking Memoir: A Story of Transformation
Last summer my friend Tom Callanan rode from Kalamazoo to Martha’s Vineyard–921 miles–in eleven days. Was he young? Not really (55). Was he an experienced biker? Not really–prior to this trip he just rode in the evenings for an hour or so. Was he crazy? Well, maybe. But at least he lived to tell some great stories…
Keith Taylor's Memoir Essay: At Springhill Farm
Keith Taylor directs the Bear River Writers’ Conference and a whole lot of other things, chiefly, the undergraduate creative writing program at the University of Michigan. He’s a giant among the writers of this state and beyond, offering his writerly wisdom and love of nature freely and fully. Keith and I discovered one connection deep enough to…
100 Top Memoirs: Sue Silverman's List Will Give You Even More!
I had the great good fortune this weekend to attend the Bear River Writers’ Conference, about which I will say more later. Sue Silverman, author of two bestselling memoirs, led an excellent workshop on memoir. I purchased and will review her craft book Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir at a later time. In that…
Another Mennonite Memoir: The Steppes are the Colour of Sepia
My fellow memoir reader Clif let me know that the review I wrote of the following book has now been published in the Mennonite Quarterly Review.It has not been posted online yet, so here it is for those of you who are Canadian, Mennonite, or just interested in good family stories. The Steppes are the…
Memoirs for High School Students: Do You Have a Suggestion or List?
Last weekend three of my college friends and I met in the beautiful home of my friend Tina in Virginia. We first spied each other in September, 1966, when we played hookey from college orientation sessions and walked to the local pizza shop instead. We have remained in each other’s lives ever since. Tina is…
Kay Redfield Jamison's Nothing Was the Same: A Review from WomensMemoirs.com
Lanie Tankard has honored me with several guest blogs, and womensmemoirs.com has hosted guest reviews from both Lanie and me. So it is only fitting that when Lanie reviews a new memoir–Kay Redfield Jamison’s Nothing Was the Same— for Matilda Butler on womensmemoirs.com, I want to share it with my readers also. Here is a…
Memoir as History of Awe: Richard Kauffman on Theolog
Richard Kauffman is book editor for The Christian Century magazine and a personal friend. He created a blog post recently about memoir and has granted me permission to copy and past it here. If you like, you can also visit the site Theolog itself and check out the other blogging done there on subjects of…
Five Best Memoirs: A New List by Norris Church Mailer
Every so often I “Google” key words related to this blog–like “best memoirs,” ” memoir blogs,” and “top ten memoirs.” If you do the same–Google “best memoirs”–right now, you will come across this article in the Wall Street Journal by new memoirist Norris Church Mailer. I have not read her memoir about life with her husband…
Defining Memoir–With Tongue Firmly in Cheek
Thanks to Richard Gilbert, whose wonderful blog Narrative I highly recommend, I can include a link guaranteed to induce a chuckle. One of the goals of this blog focuses on the quest to understand memoir as a genre. What differentiates it from other forms? Why is it both popular and maligned in the contemporary literary…