MOTHERS are fertile ground for memoir writers — we have innumerable stories arising from their temperaments, parenting styles, and influence. Most of us have observations and judgments about our mothers that, let’s face it, they’d rather not read in an essay or book written by one of their children. Yet, […]
THIS IS THE THIRD AND FINAL ARTICLE IN THE READ LIKE WRITER SERIES, in which I discuss Bruce Springsteen’s memoir, Born to Run. Today, I’m exploring how Springsteen structured his memoir and how that might inform our writing. Warning: this discussion of structure contains spoilers and is intended for those […]
SOME PEOPLE only write their stories when they’ve got nothing to lose. But others write their truth even if they’re risking their reputation, their livelihood or their close relationships in order to do so. Certainly we can see this in books and movies. Take The Help as an example. This […]
WITH THE APPROACH of St Patrick’s Day, I got the idea that it would be appropriate — and fun — to write a piece about taking writing inspiration from Irish memoirs, meaning memoirs written by Irish authors. But I quickly realized that aside from Angela’s Ashes, that great classic of […]
This is the second in a series on moving from memories to memoirs. Click here to read Memories to Memoirs, Part 1. One of the great challenges (and satisfactions) of writing memoir is dealing with fragmented memories. We may remember only a snippet of an event; we may be haunted […]
Our greatest desire, greater even than the desire for happiness, Is that our lives mean something. This desire for meaning is the originating impulse of story. ~Daniel Taylor I believe that everyone’s lives, however “ordinary,” are filled with experiences that speak to universal human experience and are therefore interesting to […]
