Magical Memoir Moments
Memoir as Window to the Unfathomable Self: Stanley Fish on Charles Van Doren
Stanley Fish several years ago wrote his column in the New York Times about an essay by Charles Van Doren in the July 28, 2008, issue of The New Yorker. If you saw Quiz Show, directed by Robert Redford, you know that Charles Van Doren disgraced himself, his family, and perhaps even academic life, by participating in a rigged quiz show…
I Am Hutterite: A Lovely Memoir from the Canadian Prairie
I probably wouldn’t have found this book if it hadn’t been on sale at the Green Valley Book Fair, a huge book warehouse located close to Harrisonburg, VA. The hardcover price is 19.99, but at the Book Fair it was $5.00. Ach yommer, a bargain! I’m sure the author, who grew up Hutterite, would approve…
The Memoir Project: Marion Roach Smith's Video Book Marketing
One of my friends, Susan Neufeldt, whom I met at the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference years ago and who is writing her own book about wisdom, sent me a link to the NPR program that featured Marion Roach Smith, an author and teacher in the memoir field I had not heard of a week ago….
Dancing with Change, Part Three: Gramps and Granny Nanny Leave for the Big Apple
In a few days, Stuart and I will move a second time in less than seven months! Our journey has taken us from the Midwest to the South to the Northeast. By the end of this week, we will be living in a Brooklyn highrise. And by August 1, we will be sharing a new…
Beautiful Unbroken: Poetry on the Front Lines of Nursing
Guest blogger Lanie Tankard has returned, this time with a book on a subject new to this blog, nursing, but nursing as seen through the eyes of a poet. Don’t you love the variety of human experience available to all of us in memoir? And take a look at this lovely cover: Beautiful Unbroken: One…
Reader's Digest–A Fond Memory–And Now, a Memoir Source
Since television was not allowed in my Mennonite home when I was growing up, magazines, newspapers, and radio were an important link to the outside world. The magazines I read from cover to cover included The Saturday Evening Post, Boy’s Life, and Life. But these were special treats not always available. Usually, they followed some…
An Interview on Learning To Write by Learning to Read
This week one of my own favorite bloggers, prize-winning Canadian novelist Dora Dueck, interviewed me on her blog about an issue central to my reason for starting this blog: to learn to write by reading better writers than myself. You will want to click the link above and explore her thoughtful blogs, but in the meantime,…
In Praise of Sonia Sanchez: Living a Haiku Life
Poet Sonia Sanchez has never written a book called a memoir. But her work flows directly from her life. It’s not about her, however. She calls her “I” the “collective I” which is also a “collective eye” searching for justice and love in a world too often unjust and hate-and fear-full. Thanks to an invitation from…