So many memoir writers visit Memory Writers Network wanting to announce their memoirs. I’ve created this page to give you a chance to do just that. Please add a comment to this page, briefly describing your book and providing a link to it.
Rules:
Only one comment per book
Keep the synopsis reasonably short. (Maybe 100 words or thereabouts.)
No spam or links to sites other than ones directly related to your memoir.
Office friendly. If the book or site are too sexy, I may not approve the comment.
Jerry, thanks for the forum.
My memoir is just out. Life Is Not Enough: The Memoir of a Contented Man is available on amazon. Here is the back cover blurb:
Bob Brown was tossed into the first wave of baby boomers. He arrived in a world of cold wars, atomic bombs, racism, revolutions, bikinis and music that would soon do the stroll into rock and roll.
There is absolutely nothing special about him. Yet his story is compelling. He has managed to ask the right questions and has listened well enough to understand the best answers.
God spoke to him for a while but then went silent. The famous and the not so famous became his teachers. He sought and found the meaning of life.
In this memoir of seeking the reason to get out of a warm, comfortable bed in the morning, Brown tells the story of what made sense to him.
He thanks his parents for making it all possible.
In 1988 my life fell apart and so did I, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I became what may have looked to others like crazy. But I’ve come to learn that , as Dr. Thomas Szasz has said, most of what we call mental illness is actually a normal response to unbearable circumstances. I had lost almost all of the people I loved most, but had to go on living for my daughter, who had suffered and lost at least as much as I. Climbing my way out of that deep, dark hole took more than ten years of wrestling with demons in the dark, but I made it. I wanted to tell people that it was possible, and how I had achieved that. So I wrote “Someone to Talk To – Finding Peace, Purpose and Joy After Tragedy and Loss,” http://amzn.com/0983214204 and it won a Nautilus Book Award. Since I don’t advertise or go around promoting the book, it is flying on wings of its own, and I trust it will reach the attention of people who will find something they need in there. The feedback has been wonderful, but all I really care about is that it helps others struggling through their own difficult and sad times.
WE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY, is about a girl who grew up in Seattle during an effervescent age spanning the 1950’s and 60’s. Behind the walls of a red brick house, her time-and-place-correct family consisting of mother, father, and four children, lived lives of shimmering innocence and optimism. At least on the surface.
The protagonist’s mother believed her family was fortunate, that her children were “privileged characters” and in many ways she was indeed spot-on. But a deep-down voice whispered contrary messages to the protagonist, insisting that something was wrong with Eddie, her little brother, when he suddenly morphed from bright and outgoing to troublesome and unruly. Although she voiced concern about Eddie, adults warned her to stop interfering, reminding her that they were in charge, which of course, they were.
During those days all adult authority, but especially authority of the parental variety, was the final word. Even so, at that time, in that place, among those people, language for some things did not exist. Everyone was busy choosing what they wished to become from a limitless menu, studying hard in school, riding in shiny cars with big metal fins, dancing to Elvis and the Beatles and the Everly Brothers, going out with boys, skiing, rowing crew, trying the latest fashions, working after-school and summer jobs, and always, always looking toward the boundless future.
Many years later, an adult Eddie shares a dark secret with his sister, who responds by sharing one of her own. He thanks her for long-ago help and then he returns the favor by rescuing her.
Hi Rosemary,
Thanks for stopping by. After checking with you offline, I now know you are a real person, and you have not yet published the book, which explains the lack of a working website.
I just reread your blurb, and got chills both times I read it. I love the “secret hidden within childhood that comes out later in adulthood” motif – whether it’s the secret of one’s adopted parents, (For example “Twice Born” by Betty Jean Lifton), or her father’s secret life in WWII (“Breaking the Code” by Karen Alaniz) or a mother’s wildly active sex life, (“Not the Mother I Remember” by Amber Lea Starfire). I also am intrigued by memoirs in which siblings play a major role, of which I have read very few (notably “Riding the Bus with my Sister” by Rachel Simon).
You’ll need some special structural techniques to show important information in childhood that comes out later in adulthood – for example in “Riding the Bus” the author alternates between childhood and adulthood. In “Breaking the Code” the author digs into her father’s recently revealed secret letters. In “Twice Born,” the author has a dialog with her biological parents. In “Not the Mother I Remember” she quotes liberally from her mother’s diary.
Good luck with the project. It sounds fascinating.
Best wishes
Jerry
Thank you for the forum! My dark comedy memoir, Off The Reservation: Stories I Almost Took to the Grave and Probably Should Have, will be free on Amazon from 3/27 – 3/29.
Summary: Equal parts shocking and moving, Off the Reservation: Stories I Almost Took to the Grave and Probably Should Have is an absurdist confessional memoir, accurately detailing the reckless hijinks of a bipolar alcoholic with borderline personality disorder. This stranger-than-fiction true story spans over three decades, as Michael recounts his tales with wincing honesty. Eventually, the maniacal nights of booze, drugs, and sex give way to rude awakenings in empty rooms, jail cells, and beds of snow from a failed suicide by Mother Nature. Rossi learns most of his lessons—gradually, reluctantly, painstakingly—without imposing them on anyone. Thankfully for us, these unapologetic, darkly comic tales haven’t been taken to the grave just yet.
Thank you so much for your time. Here is the link if you have any interest.http://amzn.to/1v4kFGf
I love reading your blog. It’s given me such great insight on memoir writing.
I would like to share the memoir of a friend mine entitled, “When the Birds Stopped Singing: Living With the Wounds of War.” The author is Dr. Clemens Loew — a psychoanalyst, author, and co-founder of the prominent National Institute of the Psychotherapies. His work is a collection of personal essays told through the eyes of a Holocaust survivor, chronicling life’s adventures from childhood to the present.
In his memoir, he portrays his terrifying plight as a young boy hiding in Polish Villages and his protected years within the walls of a Catholic convent. His stories continue with his adventures in America, his adopted country, after the end of the war.
This memoir has made a great impact on me and it will do the same for you. http://www.amazon.com/When-Birds-Stopped-Singing-Personal/dp/1496180623
Thank you for the opportunity to share it.
Anoush
Thanks for your compliment about my blog, Anoush. (And sorry to have taken a few weeks off. It’s really fun to know there are people “out there” reading it).
And thanks for the recommendation for When Birds Start Singing. I am intrigued by this memoir. It is by a Holocaust survivor, which for many years I have avoided reading about because of the horror it awakens in my heart. This successful psychotherapist Dr. Clemens Loew seems to bring a fresh, healing perspective. I would like to take a closer look. Similar to the exile-memoir of Carlos Eire, in Learning to Die in Miami, who had to figure out his place in the U.S. the book appears to be both a horror story of escape and a success story of integration into a new world.
Best wishes,
Jerry
My book, Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Lost Innocence, Modern Day Slavery and Transformation, has recently been released and here is the link to my publishers site:
In Nobody’s Girl I share stories I have kept hidden for decades.
All of us have stories. In most cases, we allow the world to see but a fraction of who we really are, like an ancient undiscovered artifact whose tip pushing up out of the dirt feels the sun, but whose body lies deep beneath the surface. It’s a rare thing when somebody shares their most private moments, biggest mistakes, and innermost demons for friends and strangers alike to judge and pull apart.
–I have done my very best to express my thoughts and feelings as accurately as possible, and to do the same when talking about people, places, and events.
–Memory is imperfect, and there might well be passages in which I have mixed up people or chronologies.
–Above all, I hope this book gives an understanding of what continues to happen to young victims of human trafficking. What I went through years ago is exactly what victims are experiencing today. Nothing has changed in terms of recruitment methods, exploitation, abuse and manipulation. The most vulnerable are most often the most preyed upon, something that makes human trafficking so very evil.
My journey from victim to advocate has been a true transformation.
Barbara Amaya
Hi Barbara,
Thanks so much for stopping by and letting us know about this book – clearly it required incredible effort to turn such disturbing events into a story worth reading. One of the great things about the Memoir Revolution is the opportunity to turn real-world experiences into training and consciousness raising opportunities for the rest of us. Here is a quote I found about your book:
“In Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Lost Innocence, Modern Day Slavery and Transformation, ($13.95 Animal Media LLC Publishing, May 2015) author Barbara Amaya brings her 10 years plus of surviving horrific abuse, human trafficking, trauma, jail, drug addiction, cancer, infertility, overcoming adversity and eventual transformation to the public. Much more than a memoir or a cautionary tale, this book shares how vulnerable victims can arm themselves against violent human traffickers and what all stakeholders can do to make a real difference.
“As an expert in human trafficking and trauma, I believe that this book is a must read for parents, teachers, therapists and those working in the justice system.”
Dr. Mary C. Burke, Ph.D.
Director, Doctoral Program in Counseling Psychology
Department of Psychology & Counseling
Carlow University”
Quoted from: http://www.socialjusticesolutions.org/2015/04/03/book-alert-nobodys-girl-memoir-lost-innocence-modern-day-slavery-transformation/
Thanks, Jerry, for the opportunity to share my thoughts on my memoir project.
I’ve just set about drafting the memoir, while trying to develop a structure for it. It will be about my evolution from a regularly worshiping Muslim boy to an agnostic who lives a Western lifestyle, while cherishing his ties to Muslim groups.
I have been a researcher and journalist, who has studied the modernization and transformation of Islam and Muslim societies during the past decades. I would like my memoir to show that both myself and Muslim societies are evolving, albeit at different paces.
Here’s the challenge I face: If I focus mainly on my own evolution, the book would of course show my passion, values and checkered life. But I’m not an important person and I’m afraid, not too many people would be interested in it.
Islam, on the other hand, is a widely known subject and more people are likely to be interested in reading about its evolution. But if I focus more on Islam than on my own life, the book becomes essentially an essay, rather than a memoir.
I need help with deciding on the focus of the book so I can develop an outline for it.
Penny for your thoughts?
Thank you.
-Mustafa
Jerry, thank you for your blogs, they have given me many insights, idea’s and information on writing my memoir. I have 25 years of journals and don’t really know where to start. I’m excited to learn what I need to know to get started.
Hi Mustafa, Thanks for sharing your project with me. I can see that I ought to start a separate thread for questions and answers considering yours is the first of two really interesting questions I received today. I love talking about memoirs and am really delighted to offer my suggestions.
First, the whole notion of a spiritual coming of age is a huge part of our legacy as human beings – many of us go through the journey from child to adult trying to make sense of our belief systems and deciding whether or not what our parents taught us when we were children makes sense to us as we become adults. The subject is in fact one of my own main motivations for writing a memoir. Whether you are like me, a Jew who quickly became a secular atheist and then realized that without God he was drowning in confusion, or whether you are a Muslim moving toward agnosticism, as in your case, or a Muslim moving through worshipful piety of childhood, into fiery anger of Islamism during late adolescence and then back again later in life, as Ed Husain in the Islamist, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s complex journey through her religion, or Elna Baker’s journey through Mormonism in New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance, or Rhoda Janzen’s journey through the Mennonite religion in Mennonite in a Little Black Dress – these journeys of belief and culture are so crucial to so many of us, and anyone who reads the news or the history of civilization knows that the power of the search for inner truth can spill over into war on the destructive side, or social cohesion and harmony on the positive side. It’s part of the human stew and I encourage you to see it as an important story. I wrote the book Memoir Revolution specifically to address the notion you allude to in your note about not being an “important person” – you and I were trained in that anonymity as children, but the times have changed and now in what I call the Memoir Revolution, an increasing number of us are realizing we are important. I hope you will read and enjoy “Memoir Revolution” and come away convinced that it will be valuable for you to write this book. And here’s the amazing thing about writing the book. By developing your own journey as a young man struggling to find his identity, both in terms of culture and in terms of religion, you will make huge strides within your own world view to understand so much more clearly than ever before how “someone like you” fits in with the world. That, I believe, is an inevitable result of spending hundreds or thousands of hours crafting the story of that journey. The structure of “story” is designed to do exactly that. If you craft it well enough for others to read, you will also help the rest of us understand how “someone like you” fits into society, thus providing a benefit to the whole world. 🙂 Writing a memoir is a lot of work, but when you think of it as nothing more nor less than your attempt to construct the best possible contribution to the world, I think the work becomes a mission.
If in addition to telling a good story of your own evolution, you can artfully include some of the things you’ve seen or learned in your journey as a journalist, that could add what I call a nonfiction bonus – in other words, because you have earned a deep perspective by living through the transition yourself, your readers will bond with you and become interested in the things you can teach us.
I’ve written about the nonfiction bonus in these blogs and in Memoir Revolution. It’s a lot to absorb but it’s a wonderful, creative journey. Have fun!
Best wishes
Jerry
Hi Lorrie,
I’m so glad you are getting ready to start your memoir journey. Your 25 years of journals are fabulous preparation, because they have given you the gift of pouring the words from your mind and heart onto paper. Now you have to practice writing for strangers. So you have to build from the base you have established and then start climbing the mountain.
I think of the transition as having a few parts:
1) become aware of the difference between writing for self and writing for strangers and realize that you will need to learn the craft of editing and revising.
2) the building block for memoirs is the scene – if you could describe each scene, as if you were there, that would be a good building block – then put it into a file in chronological order to start building up the bones of your chronological story
3) your journal could provide some fabulous free-writing, real straight-from-the-heart flights of insight that could add enormous power to your public writing.
These are just a few thoughts about transitioning from journal writing to memoir writing. I hope it helps.
Hopefully you will read lots of memoirs, take a class on memoir writing, read books on the subject and start writing as if for strangers. Keep me posted! Have fun!
Best wishes,
Jerry
Jerry thank you for being so informative. I have put my journals into chronological order. I do need to take a class, which I intend to do. Thank goodness I have an editor to assist me. I look forward to reading more of what you have to teach. I’m very willing to learn.
Hi Jerry, I published my memoir “See You Now – A Memoir of Shane’s Triumph Over SMA” on Smashwords last month. When my 22 year old son died, his story and our story with him burned within me. I had to write it. Shane was special, he lived 20 years beyond the doctor’s prediction of death by 2 years old. There were no books available to me on how to help your child live with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). There were only books on how to help your child die with SMA. I wanted to leave behind the secrets that life can be happy and you can go on even if you have to use a ventilator to breathe and a computer to talk like Stephen Hawking. Now I need to have someone objectively read this book for me. I can gift a free copy to anyone who is willing to do that for me. Thank you for providing a forum for those of us with the burning need to share our story.
Hi Lisa, thank you for sharing your story. I know how hard you worked to care for your son, and then like so many others, you have these life memories that seem to demand to be told – this is the way we are doing it in the Memoir Revolution. Instead of being stuck with those fragments of memories, we find the words and craft them – this is the adult version of the instruction parents give to their kids – “use your words” – by using your words you find your own truth and by polishing and promoting those words you share your truths. None of this is easy!! But the rewards are sublime for authors as well as readers. I hope some readers are can offer to help – my own big heart wants to say yes, but I can’t commit right now. This is one reason why I hope that all of us who love memoirs read lots of them – by reading memoirs we gain our humanity as surely as by writing. Best wishes, Jerry
Hi Jerry,
It all started a year ago when I submitted an essay at the end of session in a course on English writing skills at Berkeley. On persuasion from other class participants, the essay has turned into a book ready for publication. “A Journey through the Past” is the story of childhood and beyond, written in the backdrop of Indian and Pakistani cultures with anecdotes carrying humor and tenderness. Next step is hunt for the literary agents and the publishers.I hope every thing goes well; I am excited for the moment I have the printed book in my hand along-with many others.
Hi Asif,
Thanks for sharing the journey of writing your memoir. I am cheering you on. Keep writing! Stories are the best antidote to war. To counterbalance all the powerful misunderstandings we need a lot of really good stories.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Jerry,
Over the past five years I’ve gone from crying and shaking while writing short snippets of my childhood memories, to preparing to put my memoir “Secrets in Big Sky Country” out into the world. My voice and knees still shake at times, but my voice is loud and clear and unashamed. Thank you for allowing me to announce my book on your blog,which, by the way, has proven so helpful to me in my process of getting my story out there. The following is the the back of the book description of “Secrets in Big Sky Country” :
“Statistics say that as many as one in three girls will be sexually abused at some point in their childhood. Mandy Smith is one of those girls. Beginning at age three, Mandy’s stepfather begins to molest her. When she finally breaks the family’s code of silence at age fourteen, she is shunned—abandonment that leads her down a dark path. When she finds herself pregnant as the result of rape, the deep love she feels for her unborn baby surprises her—and gives her hope for the future. But just as she is in the midst of making plans for their new life together, her parents perform one final act of deception, a betrayal that sends her into an abyss of depression, disordered eating, and PTSD.”
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Big-Sky-Country-Memoir/dp/1631528149/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1438714235&sr=1-1
Hi Mandy, Thanks so much for sharing your memoir here. Congratulations for finishing it. I love hearing the story of your evolution from the beginning of the writing project to the end. Writing your memoir has “made you more comfortable in your own skin” as it has done for so many others. Your thanks for my blog is really lovely and is a validation of the effort I put into encouraging and supporting this journey to transform life into a shareable story. The terrible setbacks of childhood can be offset by compassion from others, as well as by attempts to develop beyond our limitations. Writing a memoir can help with both the compassion as well as the self development. Best wishes, Jerry
I think memoirs are a good way to pass on information that can help others. My memoir Follow in the “Tigermans Footprints,” is an incredible story of how after losing my job due to back injury and finding myself in serious financial difficulties, I decided that once fit, to become an expat worker. This resulted in my experiencing an incredible working life, one most only dream about. In the course of 19 years, I travelled to 15 countries spread through the Middle, Far East and North Africa, with my working mainly on high class interior fit-outs to several palaces and a variety of five star hotels.
The book includes a variety of interesting, crazy, hilarious and some life threatening situations, which started several years earlier, when offered an overseas contract by a previous company. As a result, I was in Iran during the 1978 revolution that led to the downfall of the Shah. On a later contract I had a spoon thrust into my throat by a wild eyed work colleague, on another, I survived a near death occurrence while out snorkelling. Another crazy adventure was running in the dark through the jungle, with just a torch to guide the way. Apart from these incredible experiences, it gave me an insight to a variety of different cultures, when working with non-English workers. It also enabled me to visit numerous exotic locations at little or no cost.
My memoir is intended to show that even when life seems useless, by thinking positive, you can get back on top. Just remember. “The Impossible We Can Do, Miracles Take a Little Longer.”
A real live Horatio Alger story: my Dad!
http://thebernardolcottstory.com
Inventor, divorced 5 times, wrote patents, wrote to Einstein, picked up chix at The Stork Club. Something for everybody!
Thanks for your look/see!
“An Incredible Talent for Existing: A Writers Story” (Open Books Press, February 2016)
It is 1965, the era of love, light—and revolution. While the romantic narrator imagines a bucolic future in an old country house with children running through the dappled sunlight, her husband plots to organize a revolution and fight a guerrilla war in the Catskills.
Their fantasies are on a collision course.
From my vividly evoked existential childhood (“the only way I would know for sure that I existed was if others—lots of others—acknowledged it”) to writing my first children’s book on a sugar high during a glucose tolerance test, I take the reader along with me, I take the reader along on what I hope is highly entertaining personal, political, and psychological adventure.
“This memoir takes us into the heady, rollicking—and ultimately terrifying—sixties. We are right with her as she tries to find herself through sewing and sex and psychology. And we breathe a sigh of relief when she finally realizes what one of her high school teachers knew long before she did—that he would have her books on his shelf.” —Deborah Heiligman, author, Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith, a National Book Award Finalist
I finished my raw/rough draft memoir on Christmas Day. I wrote it in the style of a novel and published it to a free blog site (WordPress.com). Wishing to stay anonymous, I created a Facebook page to post the links to my blog writing. I wrote almost everyday. When I finished, I had a little over 4800 readers from 19 different countries (WordPress records the stats). My advertising was purely word of mouth. My memoir details my childhood, failing out of college, enlisting in the US Army, being deployed to combat as a Medic and ultimately my honorable discharge. The theme is how I grew into a drug addict.
Hi Pamela Jane,
Congratulations on your life of writing, and on writing about that life. Oooh. I love books about writing books – living in an age when the industry is changing, I can finally see, looking back across my life, how books have been with me, helping me learn how to become a complete and better person. Swimming through culture depends on books, and now in the age of memoirs more people like you are telling the story of a life of passion for books, writing them, sharing in their production, teaching, and of course drinking them in.
As for “the sixties” woohoo. With us boomers growing to that age when we are trying to figure things out, more of us are ready to dig in and try to understand the story.
I hope to have this book on my list (so many books so little time). Thanks for stopping by to let us know.
Best wishes
Jerry Waxler
Dear Twisted Medic,
Thanks for letting us know about this blog, and congratulations for completing the difficult task. Of course it is difficult for any civilian to understand the horrors of war, and even though I know all wars have pockets of horror – many of us have come to understand the extreme psychological torment that arose from Vietnam. I applaud you for tackling this challenge and trying to find the words that would enable you to organize those horrible memories into a narrative.
My own “belief” – or is it a hope – is that writing a memoir can help one find the path to healing – healing aspects of memoirs include, 1) “finding our words” – that is even by simply writing out the misery, one gains authorial control over it – 2) knitting broken things together into a whole narrative, that is, when parts of ourselves seem broken away from other parts of us – such as a combat vet having a part of his life that cannot coexist with his civilian life – then writing the story helps collect those fragmented parts into a narrative and 3) finding the hope at the end, in which the hero of the story finds higher ground.
Clearly by the end of the war, you had sunk into a deep hole. I wonder if you might attempt to add a chapter (an epilog) or a second volume that would tell the story of how you dragged yourself out of that hole and back into sufficient sanity and safety to be able to look back on it and tell the story.
Best wishes
Jerry
Hello! My memoir/self-help book is being released in Feb, 2016. Here is the description:
Loss is one of the most difficult experiences one can endure. It sends you rock bottom and demands answers to difficult questions. Fortunately, the pain comes with a choice: to either fall victim to suffering or grow wiser because of it.
In LOSS: Life’s Opportunity to Soul Search, Misty Nichols tells the story of her 29-year-old brother’s suicide, her divorce, her father’s debilitating stroke, and the loss of the future she had anticipated—all of which occurred within a year’s time. But, by choosing to learn from grief, she found her true self, the answers she needed, and the happiness she desired.
Nichols then shares 24 Truths that helped her overcome adversity and claim happiness. With each truth, she includes a challenge to help you journey toward freedom from guilt, confusion, emptiness, and pain. The goal is to claim the best of you. Your soul-searching journey begins now.
http://www.facebook.com/lifesopportunitytosoulsearch
-Misty Nichols
Jerry,
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Your words are very insightful and empathetic. Once I saw that people were actually reading my words I created a Facebook page to post the blog. I wrote in the flow of a novel, so the story was easy to follow.
It was, in fact, extremely healing for me to do write it this way. I had shoved that memory into a room and shut the door. I painted over the frame and removed the doorknob as well. This experience has been a rediscovery of the door, the opening of the room and describing its contents to anonymous strangers.
There were times when I became overwhelmed and questioned my motives for writing. There were days where I thought people were getting tired of me. Other days I didn’t want to write at all. Once, I stepped away from writing for over two months. When I started I published every day. Ultimately, it was the the readers who encouraged me to continue.
I ended the story abruptly on purpose. Yes, I experienced the healing power of articulating memory into written words. Also, I loved researching the facts that helped me “knit the broken things together”, as you beautifully explained. Surprisingly, the biggest gift I received from this project was finding a passion for writing for an audience.
Over the course of writing, once i saw people were in fact reading it, i researched how to publish a novel. As i am sure you are aware, my research results unanimously informed me to keep writing. I was unsure where to go with that information yet i stayed open to recieve a message. Last week I accepted an invitation to submit writing to a web based literary platform for new writers. My writing was approved and now I write a journal series about being a single father.
As I prepare to dive back into my memoir, surgically reconstructing it, I will in fact end the story with hope as you suggested. I trust that when i get to that point, the words will be there for me.
My hope is to publish that memoir when I feel it’s ready. The end goal, when it’s all said and done, is to be able to physically hand my daughter MY book. That would be something to be proud of, I believe.
Sincerely,
Rich Landry
aka TwistedMedic
Trading Places: Becoming My Mother’s Mother by Sandra Bullock Smith
http://www.sandrabullocksmith.com/book.html
Writing a memoir is a search for insight. Memoirs allow us to contemplate, question and evaluate. But more importantly, memoirs allow us to share our experiences. My memoir was told through the lens of the role reversal I experienced when caring for my mother.
Caring for my mother changed me. Writing a memoir about caring for my mother changed me. It’s cathartic to read about those moments with the healing power of time on my side. I think of the things I learned and how those lessons can help me in the future. I have received touching feedback from readers about how my book helped them feel like they were not alone in their similar journey. That’s the kind of power of you want from your memoir – a story that transports you and your readers through the past and helps you in the future.
Hi Sandra,
Thanks for letting us know about your caregiving memoir, Trading Places. I love this simple statement: “Caring for my mother changed me. Writing a memoir about caring for my mother changed me.” And you go on to say that when people read your memoir, it changes them, too. You have a lovely way with words in your email and blog, so I imagine your book is lovely as well.
Best wishes,
Jerry
Hi Rich,
I love that you found a way to “open that door” and let the demons out without destroying yourself. And I love the way you leveraged the vast audience of the internet to draw you out of isolation. My belief is that Stories are an ancient system for gathering together the impossibly difficult parts of life, and turning them into something shareable. (Hard living makes good reading.) That’s great that you want to share it with your daughter. Perhaps there will be other wounded warriors who would also benefit from knowing about this method for shining light into the dark corners of your memories.
Best wishes,
Jerry
I’ve completed a memoir called “River Girl: Plumbing the Depths” about a dysfunctional childhood set in country NSW, Australia in the 40s, 50s and 60s. It asks questions about memory, nature versus nurture, and destiny, written with an ironic/psycho-spiritual touch. Have you got any suggestions for publishers who might be interested? I’m also considering sel-publishing. Thanks for the suggestions of other similar memoirs. “Unvraveling Anne” by Laurel Saville is another one I’ve read.
My memoir Follow in the Tigerman’s Footsteps sub-titled The Adventurous Life of an Expat. It covers 19 years of working on mainly high-class interior fit-outs to several palaces and a number of five-star hotels in the Middle Far East and North Africa. As an expat I lived a life most only dream about, with my book intended to show that by being positive you can climb back from the pits of despair and into the driving seat of your life. For sure, there is far more to life than a boring 9-5 job. Read and see what kind of life you could have. http://www.colinguestauthor.com
Rock bottom is a place you never want to call home yet for many homeless teens it a place they call home. This quote summons my message of homelessness and giving up. “I think this is what we all want to hear: that we are not alone in hitting the bottom, and that it is possible to come out of that place courageous, beautiful, and strong.” ? Anna White,
Where are you in your life? This led me to write The Journey home a Memoir. This was not an easy task. Hope that many can learn from my lessons. http://patricemfoster.com/
I love the space you’ve carved out here for memoir authors. I have a new memoir, Resilient Ruin, A memoir of hopes dashed and reclaimed, releasing Nov. 1, 2016. Here’s a description that will appear on the paperback’s back cover:
A teenage girl breaking free.
A cunning classmate on the prowl.
Can she recover after they collide?
Orphaned as a child, fourteen-year-old Laura finally rebels against her abusive guardian. Living on dreams, rock ’n’ roll, and kisses in moonlight, she believes whatever comes next can’t be worse than what she’s already endured. She has no idea how far she will fall before she can build a better life. Resilient Ruin is a poignant personal story that recounts a rocky, ultimately inspiring journey. If you like brave, unaffected heroines; striking scenes and characters; and pacing that keeps you turning page after page, you’ll relish this masterful memoir of survival and learning to forgive.
Here’s a link to the book’s landing page: http://resilientruin.com. I will also provide a review copy in .mobi, epub or pdf format for memoir lovers willing to post an honest review on Amazon.
If anyone wants to contact me for a free review copy, send me a comment via http://wordforest.com.
Hi there, I think it great to read about others memoirs. Mine, Follow in the Tigerman’s Footsteps sub-titled the Adventurous Life of an Expat covers the 19 years I spent working in 15 countries spread through the Middle, Far East & North Africa.During this time I enjoyed an array of adventures, some funny, some cray with others life-threatening. In general, I lived a life most only dream. A treatment pilot episode has been completed in conjunction with Voyage Media, who think it could be used as the basis of a television series. As such, we are now looking for an interested producer. Either way, it has been a great experience writing both the memoir and the treatment. I wish all other authors success in their writing.
Remember Tigerman’s words, Positive thoughts lead to positive results.
I have been blogging my memoir since May 2016. This is a great resource for memoirists. Thank you. Some of your memoirs look fascinating and riveting. I hope to have my own published soon. http://www.thelastdaughter.org
I’m so happy to discover this page. My sincere thanks for allowing me to tell you a little bit about my memoir, “My Four-Minute lIfe; The Journey of a Very Human Songwriter.”
“My Four-Minute Life” is Jesse McRae’s brilliantly conceived memoir of seven-plus decades as a human being, told in stories, lyrics, philosophies, and opinions predicated on a fifty year love affair with songwriting.
The way he tells it?with earnest, hard-won insight; rugged examination; an eye for the exquisite; tender humor; and unstoppable love? you can’t miss the fact that his story is also the story of his songwriting craft, and thus, it seems like the biography of a living body of work.
http://www.myfourminutelife.com
Hi Rich,
“I’m Alway Going Somewhere,”my first memoir, was written and published in 2015. The book is a contribution to the amazing history of mapping and intelligence gathering in Latin America.
I was hired in 1968 as a civilian Geodesist by the Inter American Geodetic Survey (IAGS) based out of Ft Clayton in the Panama Canal Zone. Our government, including the military, became concerned about the effects of political unrest and Communist influence in the Latin American region. During its 25 years of existence the IAGS was able to get American personnel on the ground in 17 Latin American countries to make detailed maps created to U.S. standards and provide valuable intelligence to our U.S. Department of Defense.
The book’s national press release stated, “this is a wonderfully written and vivid piece of history that has been missing for over 45 years. Hauser uses his keen sense of observation as he and his fellow workers convey what it was like to work in smothering jungle, traverse uncharted rivers, and work with a reclusive, unfamiliar people.” It is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.
It took me a year to write this book and I only wish I had started it sooner. Writing ones memoirs can be so stimulating and produce a true sense of pride.
My second memoir, “Inherently Dangerous,” is being published this month along with setting up a new web site.
Thank you,
Paul Hauser
Hi Paul, It sounds like you had one of the more interesting jobs around. I hope you stop back with a description of the new book and a link to the website. In case anyone is interested in checking out your current one, here’s a link. Beat wishes, Jerry
Hi Jesse, I checked out the website. It’s so interesting!! I’m listening to a Jesse McRae song right now while writing this. “Kinda Like You.” Cool! Here’s a quote from the review on the website:
“I finished my first complete song in 1965, and by then I had discovered that writing calmed me and relieved the pressure of whatever was percolating beneath the surface,” he writes. “I had no clue as to what that might be. I had simply never learned to identify, acknowledge or process emotions. In fact, I had become a master at suppressing them. Achieving even a minimal understanding of that was still years in my future, but I was at least aware that writing songs was an outlet of some sort.”
I love to know about the evolution of your self-understanding. Thanks for stopping by.
Best wishes, Jerry
THREE DAYS IN DAMASCUS (Palewell Press) is about my three-year journey through love with an Iraqi refugee in Syria.
While traveling to Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to interview Iraqi refugees and hear their stories, Kim never expected to fall in love. But that is exactly what happened. This book is the story of an American woman and an Iraqi man set against the backdrop of the Iraqi refugee crisis and the brewing Syrian civil war.
With roughly 65 million refugees worldwide including approximately five million Iraqis displaced from their homes since the U.S. led invasion, this timely and somehow humorous memoir examines the lives of dozens of Iraqi refugees, including one named Omar, trying desperately to survive in a world blind to their plight.
Breaking assumptions, stereotypes and expectations, the author fights for Omar in a whirlwind Middle Eastern romance and subsequent three-year intercontinental, internet relationship in the shadow of a revolution.
A tale of culture, war, devastation, redemption and hope.
This isn’t supposed to be a love story.
http://www.threedaysindamascus.com
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Days-Damascus-Kim-Schultz/dp/0995535108/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480383957&sr=8-1&keywords=3+days+in+damascus
Thanks so much! Would love you to review the book!
Wow. What an interesting underlying premise. So many of us feel drawn to the pain in that part of the world, wondering how we can help. Your story about finding your heart drawn beyond the cultural catastrophe to the heart of another individual sounds fascinating, exactly along lines of what I love about memoirs. As you can see from the dates of my blog posts, I have slowed down considerably in my book reviewing, but am still just as engaged as ever in the infinitely fascinating, unique passion play of human experience. Best wishes, Jerry
Hi Jerry,
In a follow up to your November 30, 2016 comments regarding my new book, I am happy to report INHERENTLY DANGEROUS has been published and is available on Amazon.com
The responsibility for the identification and control of airborne aircraft throughout the world is know as airspace management. In the US Air Force, resonance, strategic and tactical aircraft are considered weapons. Personnel trained in maneuvering aircraft from the ground or in the air for combat purposes are known as weapons controllers. Most civilians know that an air traffic controller keeps aircraft apart; a weapons controller drives aircraft together, which is in and of itself inherently dangerous.
The roots of this narrative reach back to the mid 1960s when I graduated from college and was going to be drafted into military service. INHERENTLY DANGEROUS is my personal narrative of four years and four months as a weapons controller officer in the US Air Force, including sixteen months in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.
All told the US Air Force flew some 5.25 million sorties over Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. To the best of my knowledge no accident in Southeast Asia was ever attributed to a weapons controller.
Information for the book was derived from personal experience, recently declassified Southeast Asia Air War Documents and two of my fellow US Air Force officers graciously added their combat stories to round out this history. The book contains never before published maps and photographs.
My best to you Jerry.
Happy Holidays.
Paul Hauser
A History of a Pedophile’s Wife is a powerful biography of a 1950’s child and about the many secrets a religious family can hold. While neglect lies at the tip of the iceberg, a colossal social structure lurks below.
Canadian writer, Eleanor Cowan, writes about a mother-blaming culture that protects the very institutions that perpetuate child abuse.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Pedophiles-Wife-Canadian-Teacher/dp/1631927159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490624099&sr=1-1&keywords=A+History+of+a+Pedophile%27s+Wife
Hi Paul,
Thanks for stopping by. (And huge apologies for not seeing your posting waiting for approval.) For hundreds of millions of people entering retirement age, the Vietnam War is one of the most profound influences, either directly as a warrior, as a protestor, as a child of parents whose lives were irrevocably altered, and so on. Now, finally through personal narratives we can reflect on what those years meant to us, how we were affected, and put together the pieces. Collectively sharing our experiences, it will, in my opinion, be one of the great social healing experiences of our time. Thank you for contributing your narrative to this important work.
Best wishes,
Jerry Waxler
Hi Jerry, My book An Expat’s Experiences of Living in Turkey covers how I first came to live in Turkey in 1988 when offered a contact here.Since then I have enjoyed living here although there were times of sadness, joy, grief when my wife died suddenly from cancer, and my being cheated out of most of my money and my beautiful old Chevy convertible. However, every cloud has a silver lining and my came at the age of 72 when I married a Turkish lady three years younger. From living down on the Turkish Mediterranean Coast we live happily in Istanbul one of the most vibrant cites in the world. included are a variety of information re living in Turkey and a section on Istanbul.
Book link
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-expats-experiences-of-living-in-turkey-colin-guest/1125996488?ean=9781508056706
Hi Jerry, Thank you for this opportunity.
My memoir just released, and I am very excited about it. “My Playboy Story:Hopping from Richmond to Hollywood” describes my transition from a small town in Virginia to the industry of Hollywood. It goes through my reactions to the different lifestyles and tells the story of how I found a second home at the Playboy Mansion. It’s a very positive story, overall, with a bit of humor. It’s now available in the iBooks store, in the Kindle store, and on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/My-Playboy-Story-Richmond-Hollywood-ebook/dp/B06XBVXMF1/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490156360&sr=8-1&keywords=my+playboy+story
WOW, a blog where you can leave your story.
Here’s mine–
It’s called “Waking Mathilda” and is available on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Waking-Mathilda-Memoir-Childhood-Narcolepsy/dp/0998694029/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492393132&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=waking+mahtilda
Released 4 weeks ago. Doing well. Self published and being auctioned for film.
Thanks for you awesome blog.
BW–
Claire Crisp
Sincere congratulations on Waking Matilda.
Your important book is already doing so well on Amazon (29 reviews!)
Has your library ordered copies? I’ll highly recommend it here in Calgary, Alberta.
Wishing you all the best, Eleanor Cowan, Canadian author.