The Process of Writing Memoir

by | Jun 9, 2015 | Writing

In sharing my work for critique with other writers, I am learning that the process of writing memoir can be hard for writers of other genres to understand. I find I often get the same feedback over and over, and it’s not always possible to incorporate all...

Crafting Stories from our Vast Experiences

by | Nov 23, 2009 | Writing

I’m thick into National Novel Writing Month, but I saw this book at a friend’s house, scanned the introduction, and have to record this great description of “story” versus “experience”: There is a difference [between story and...

On Traumatic Memoir

by | Aug 31, 2009 | Writing

This explains so much! [T]rauma-based accounts are often private salvage operations. Rather than assuming continuity, they must, at the deepest level, reflect and somehow compensate for its destruction. For a trauma is a rupture, a break … whether brought on by a...

Truth in Non-Fiction and Memoir

by | Aug 31, 2009 | Writing

[S]cholars have demonstrated the essential fictive nature of all memory. The way we remember things is not necessarily the way they were. This makes memoir, by definition, a form in which reality and imagination blur into a “fourth genre.” The problems of...