Magical Memoir Moments
Two Memoir Course Syllabi from Poet and Professor Jeff Gundy
Melanie Springer Mock contributed our first course syllabus, and now, I am happy to say, we have two more from Professor Jeff Gundy of Bluffton University. Jeff has published numerous books and poems. His latest collecton on Amazon is Spoken among the Trees, which you can check out by clicking on the book cover. Jeff’s…
The Power of Memoir Giveaway: Just Around the Corner
I am looking forward to a week of reading, writing, exercising, meditating, and blogging–another wonderful “staycation” like the one I described last summer. On Wednesday of this week, writer, teacher, and therapist, Linda Joy Myers will be doing a guest blog about the memoir writer’s relationship to family and friends–“How to Write Your Memoir and Still Go…
Laughing Out Loud: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress
If you too made the bedposts shake while you read Rhoda Janzen’s Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, you might enjoy this guest post over at womensmemoirs.com. The book uses seven classical elements of comedy to great effect. Thanks, Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett, for the invitation. While you are on their site, check out…
Uncle Joe from Brooklyn: A Mini-Memoir
Below find a delightful story with a great twist ending. Guest blogger Lanie Tankard, freelance writer and editor from Austin, TX, is back again! Lanie took a Writing with Heart class from Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett, who presented an excellent workshop in Austin, Texas, on February 5, 2010, preceding the Story Circle Network national lifewriting conference….
The Help: A Bestselling Novel with a Memoir Message
The Help spent 379 days in the Amazon Top 100 list. It has 1,751 reviews on Amazon.com and rates 4.5 stars. It is a novel, but, as Lanie Tankard argues, it deserves consideration from a memoir perspective. The Help by Kathryn Stockett New York: Amy Einhorn Books (Putnam), 2009. Available in hardcover, paperback, audiobook, CD,…
Laughter and Family in Memoir Writing: Guest Blogs and an Upcoming Giveaway
“What makes us laugh out loud?” is the question I am asking as I re-read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress. Next week I will try to answer that question for a guest post I plan to send to Matilda Butler at the great website Womensmemoirs.com. If you have not discovered this website, I recommend that you…
Why Are We Here? Roger Ebert's 100 Answers to that Question in Films
Scroll slowly over this picture. Do you recognize the famous film critic Roger Ebert? I knew that Ebert had battled cancer, lost weight, and kept on going. What I did not know, until I saw that picture and read the article in Esquire about him, was that he has also lost his physical voice and most of…
Who's Being Bagged–Alexandra Penney or the Buyers of Her Memoir?
Remember when we looked at one of the casualties of the Bernie Madoff scandal–artist and blogger Alexandra Penney who got a book deal to tell her story? Here’s the blog post from February 12, 2009 catalogued under the catagory “memoir in the news.” Just one year later, the book is not only written but published,…
Black is Universal: E. Ethelbert Miller Radio Interview on Speaking of Faith
E. Ethelbert Miller spoke to Krista Tippett recently on her American Public Media program “Speaking of Faith.” Tippett described the conversation as a “jazz riff,” and I think you will agree that Miller, who is poet, spiritual seeker, memoirist, and director of the Afro-American Resource Center at Howard University, weaves together a beautiful cloth melody…
Five Google SB Memoir Ad Parodies–Which One is Best and Why?
It had to happen. Since the Google Super Bowl Ad was creative, popular, and infinitely repeatable, we had to start seeing parodies of it. But so soon? Three days after the Super Bowl, five parodies, from light to dark in tone, have reached Mashable! You can watch them here! Google must be bursting with pride, since…