Magical Memoir Moments
Summer Adventures: It’s Not Just About the Grandkids
If it seems like my recent posts have all been about grandchildren, you are right. Seven of my last ten essays featured grandchildren in some way. These three littles are moving rapidly in time and space, and I want to capture as many memories as possible. I know many of you have older grandchildren (mine…
A Lancaster County Wedding: Celebration of Faith, Family, Friendship, and Farming
Our niece Valerie, the youngest of my mother’s grandchildren, married her sweetheart Nate yesterday. The whole family labored for months to restore an old mill to a usable space, mow the grass, pump out the overflow from the creek, pick the flowers for centerpieces, put up and take down chairs, tent, and then get dressed…
Writing as Spiritual Practice: A Guest Blog Post
How do you view your work? Is it a paycheck, an obstacle to your real life, a source of anxiety, or just something you do because everyone else does it? Do you cherish the dream that your work could be a calling — something that challenges you and makes you stronger and better? Something that…
How to Write About Family: Honoring Self and Other in Memoir
Today’s post comes to you from Annette Gendler, a nonfiction writer who teaches memoir and blogs about memoir. Annette has published many personal essays and is seeking a publisher for her book-length memoir about forbidden love between a German and a Jew, a love which succeeded despite great odds. She offers her advice on how…
The Memoir Shadow: Greeting the Child Self
I’ve been visiting my family — my mother and three sisters and one brother — all of whom live close to our childhood home of 304 E. Newport Road, Lititz, PA. This morning I took a walk along the linear park that runs through the meadow and along the creek of the land that was…
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…
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…
A Million Little Pieces of Memoir Genre Trust
Like most of my readers, I am an admirer of Greg Mortenson and think what he has done in Afghanistan and Pakistan–building schools (helping girls, especially) and building relationships of trust–is the best way for Americans to interact with the people of Central Asia. A vast improvement over drone strikes and endless war! Yet the…
2010 in Review: 100memoirs.com Gets a CheckUp from WordPress
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2010. That’s about 29 full 747s. …