Tag: hope
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Tragedy and courage in memoirs
After all these years of reading memoirs, I’m deepening my understanding of the grieving subgenre, and seeing how the horror of loss leads to the wisdom of acceptance. In Losing Malcolm by Carol Henderson, the author almost goes mad. To compensate me for accompanying her to the depths, she lets me climb with her to…
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Your Memoir Teaches Recent Cultural History to Kids
So Karen Prior’s memoir, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me resonates on multiple levels. It shares the experience of one woman’s coming of age. It offers a brief overview of intellectual history. It explores the role of books in the upbringing of children. And it shows how one woman is fulfilling her end of…
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In Memoirs, Misery is Simply a Step toward Hope
So I inched my way into Here I Stand, ready to bolt if it didn’t feel authentic or if I felt strangled by helplessness or despair. The deeper into the story I traveled, the more I trusted this author to maintain authorial control, guiding me through difficulties and then back out to safety. She achieves…
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An agent teaches writers to face their hopes and fears
However, occasionally I look up to the cathedral in the sky, where happy published writers hang out at tea parties, and I wonder if I will ever gain admission. To learn how to storm those gates, I recently attended an all day workshop on the subject. The event was hosted at one of the region’s…
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Story extends my optimism to infinity
by Jerry Waxler, author of Memoir Revolution: Write Your Story, Change the World When I was 20, I fought desperately against my future. I refused to become an adult until I understood why I should. Looking back years later, I see my rebellion against the future was a big mistake that caused me and my…
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