Magical Memoir Moments
My Dear God: How I Feel About Writing Another Book
Writing books is hard work. After writing, revising, publishing, and touring with a memoir, 2011-2014, I said I didn’t think I wanted to write another book. The only exception would be if I felt called again. When my friend Marilyn McEntyre asked if I would join her and others on a panel discussion at the…
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…
Ubuntu: A Philosophy of Memoir Writing
Welcome to the new look for 100memoirs.com! The old site still exists and has migrated to the new location, shirleyshowalter.com. I have now met the original goal of reading 100 memoirs! I discovered over the last three years and 315 posts that readers love lists of top memoirs for their own reading selection. So you…
Chinaberry Sidewalks: Another Excellent Crazy Childhood Memoir by Rodney Crowell
Welcome new guest blogger, Richard Potter. Below you can learn more about him and more about an excellent memoir from singer/song writer Rodney Crowell. If you love memoirists Mary Karr, Rosanne Cash, and Jeanette Walls, you will love this one also. By Richard Potter Chinaberry Sidewalks is my first direct exposure to a great American…
Mary Karr's Secret–Humility and Confidence–Interview in the Paris Review
Mary Karr has done it again. Maybe I should say that Amanda Fortini has done it–meaning that the interview Fortini published in The Paris Review with Karr as a subject is wonderful. If you haven’t read any of Karr’s poetry or her three memoirs, you will want to do so after reading the interview. If…
A Letter to Mary Karr
When Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe met for the first time, the President allegedly said, “So you’re the little lady who started this great war!” When it comes to 21’st century memoir, one can make the case that Mary Karr started the publishing phenom we now refer to as “the age of memoir.” Her The…
The Festival of Faith and Writing: A Feast of Flowers and Words
The Dutch know how to grow tulips–and writers! Every two years the good folks at Calvin College put on a Festival of Faith and Writing that attracts thousands of readers and hundreds of writers. And what a good time we have! This year’s headliners included Wally Lamb, Richard Rodriguez, Parker Palmer, Eugene Peterson, and Mary…
Mary Karr and Augustine: Spiritual Autobiography in the 21st Century
Edward Short’s review of Mary Karr’s Lit (which I also reviewed here), contains a few paragraphs very relevant to all memoir writers. I invite you to read the complete review here. Short’s insights are brilliant. Here are the four most relevant paragraphs to our concerns as we seek to understand the power of memoir to go…
Top Ten Memoir List from Mary Karr
As you know, the goal of this blog is self-education in public. I am trying to learn about memoir by reading and reviewing great examples of the genre, books about the genre, and offering some mini-memoir on the way. When readers search for good memoir reading lists, I want them to find this blog. What…