Latest posts
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Lifelong learning: tips for memoir writers
After all the living to acquire our experiences, at some point we look back and wonder how to tell that story. And that starts up a new story, the experience of being a writer in adulthood requires lifelong learning.
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Ex-pat Brats Come of Age in Saigon
I discovered another author, Les Arbuckle, who like Hanna felt compelled to tell the story of his childhood in that war torn country. His book is called Saigon Kids, An American Military Brat Comes of Age in 1960’s. Despite the similarities between the two stories, they were also totally different, representing a stark contrast between the kinds of trouble a ten year old female and a fourteen year old male might get into.
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Memoirs teach cultural anthropology in modernity
Al Badre’s story describes far more than one man’s move from Beirut to the United States. The memoir represents a new way for all of us to find the best in ourselves and to see the best in each other.
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Coming of Age in the Shadow of Vietnam
A little girl’s view of Saigon, from inside the home of a top military attache, bursts with insight into the delicate balance that holds civilization together, shows how small actions can create large results, and how coming of age in a crazy world often requires a bit of craziness in response. The whole thing would look terrific on the big screen.
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How traveling helped them find themselves
In his memoir, Finding Myself in Borneo, McKee generously offers a front row seat to his adventure in an interesting part of the world. But I want more from a memoir than just exotic sights. I expect to learn about the author’s inner journey as well. McKee’s memoir satisfies that desire by showing me how his adventure in Borneo helped him launch from child to adult.
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Memoirs, privacy, fame, and family
Unlike Ed Sullivan who became famous for pretending to be no-man, Frank McCourt became famous for being everyman. His memoir, Angela’s Ashes was one of the early books in the modern memoir movement that demonstrated that sharing private life can raise social awareness.
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Author Interview: Memoir into Fiction
The novel Catch a Dream describes such an intense, extraordinary life experience. It surprises me that most of it really happened and that you started writing it as a memoir. Tell me more about the events that you actually lived through.
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Journals of Spiritual Awakening Turn into a Novel
How did Wendy Baez create such a moving story about a woman traveling, penniless, looking for handouts like a modern version of an ancient pilgrim? It sounds like the fever dream of a novelist driven to invent an extreme plot that would provide the backdrop for a modern Biblical story. But it wasn’t a fantasy.
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Memoirs that ask who is my father?
If you feel that your memoir writing journey is leading you toward this quest to make better sense of one or both parents, or you want to make better sense of people who have already written about that journey, here are some more examples.
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Memoirs heal the moral injury of rape
In order to survive the corrosive effects of her soulful wounds, Stucky felt compelled to wrap the whole painful ordeal, including a lifetime of heroic seeking for sanity, into a literary container.