BLOGGING ABOUT MEMOIR is the next obvious step for someone who has been writing memoir for years. You’ll find my blog here on this site, where you’ll see that I divide that writing into four topics. Follow along, please, and come and comment on what you read.
I began writing memoir about my family while still in my twenties in a story in the Sunday New York Times Magazine. That pieces, as well as the book that followed, was about my then 51-year-old mother, and her battle with Alzheimer’s disease. A fine crash course in how to use my family as the illustration of larger universal themes, those early writing assignments taught me that I am not the story. I am the picture in the frame, the lozenge in the wrapper. I merely illustrate some larger theme. Memoir is not actually all about me. A hard lesson, but you’ve got to learn it — that is, if you want anyone to read your stuff.
The Sister Project was the first website to which I contributed, and while it remains my first love, we’ve put it on hold for now, though do go have a look. It’s a multi-user platform, where we explored the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say, there were four writers. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we made room to listen in about it or expressed it on TSP. We’ve got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia. And then there’s those blogs of ours. Mine was called She Said/She Said, since it was me writing with my ever-fabulous big sister, author, garden-writer and blogger, and former editorial director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Margaret Roach, cribbing on the side, sometimes refuting what I say, other times confirming, and all the while being what big sisters can be. I have started a blog category here on this blog by that name. It’s where I explore the differing versions of the family memoir. After all, your sister still says that you started the fight, remember? I Learn more about TSP.
What I discovered in the years writing for TSP is that there is a sisterly way to share what I know about writing what you know. So here we are, with a new blog, a new book, and a whole other side of me. It’s my authentic self, I discovered, since after years of having what I called a “fully funded curiousity,” where I was off reporting on myriad things all over the world, I’ve come home to roost to teach what I’ve learned. The best way to do that, of course, is to hear from you.
I’ve kept the email, so write me (email to roachsisters [at] gmail [dot] com).
