Magical Memoir Moments
Twenty Tips after Forty Years of Marriage: A Mini-Memoir
Marriage does not come with an instruction manual. Wise couples get some kind of counseling, often from the minister who marries them. They hear about marriage being complex and sometimes challenging – and listen without believing– in the same way that people in good health receive stories about dying. If ever a two people qualified…
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Memoir to Read and Reread
When Joan Didion’s husband John Gregory Dunne dropped dead on December 30, 2003, he was in the middle of a speaking a sentence in their living room. She was mixing a salad for their dinner. As I write these words, Stuart and I are about to sit down to eat the dinner the two of…
Eight Tips for a Great "Staycation": A Mini-Memoir
You know that feeling you get at the end of an exotic vacation to Disney World or New York City or Istanbul? Or the feeling in August that summer is slipping through your fingers? A feeling akin to nausea? You wish you had time now to organize your pictures, mow the yard, sit on the…
Don't Call Me Mother: A Memoir That Teaches When to Hold 'em and When to Fold 'em
Willa Cather once said that nothing is more exciting in life than to get inside the skin of another person. Sometimes I get that feeling when I make a new friend or have a deep conversation with an old one. Other times books transform me in a similar way. I love reading just for the…
Why Blog? Seth Godin and Tom Peters Explain the Benefits
Remember how to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice? Blogging gives those of us who are spending the majority of our time doing something else the chance to write, get feedback, write, get feedback, and get better! But Godin and Peters say it so powerfully in this video link that you will want to…
Papa Hemingway's Memoir: A Moveable Feast Redux
If you write a memoir, don’t die before you publish it! That’s one lesson to conclude from the ways in which the Hemingway family and scholars have debated in print over the posthumous memoir A Moveable Feast. Below you can listen to son Patrick Hemingway and grandson Sean Hemingway describe the newly “restored” edition of…
Tips for Writers from National Association of Memoir Writers
Sharing writing tips is one of the goals of this blog. So today I pass along a few tips from the National Association of Memoir Writers. I recently joined this organization out of interest in finding other memoir writers and locating expertise in the genre. I look forward to exploring the blog, CD’s, teleseminars, newsletters…
Boy, Did I Love Lucy: A Mini-Memoir
If a genie had appeared to me when I was ten and offered me anything my heart desired, the answer would have poured out of me. Some girls want ponies. Some want Barbies. Some are generous enough to think of others first, asking for world peace or food for the hungry. Others go straight for…
Memoir Contest News: Win $500
The good people at the journal Memoir (And) sent me a request some time ago about their contest. I should have notified you in May, but you still have until August 15 to get an entry together. Here is the description. You can click on the website link above for more. Good luck! The Memoir…
"But Enough About Me: What Do You Think of My Memoir?"
Books about memoir tend to be serious. Writers theorize about the role of memory, wonder about its reliability, and offer suggestions about how to write artfully. This one is different. Nancy K. Miller has written a witty and thoughtful book about memoir. She writes about her own life while splicing in bits of contrast and…