Three Memoirists, One Big Book Giveaway
TRY SOME HOSPITALITY, I always say, and when I do, the students in my memoir class frequently look a little stunned. They’re not in the room to learn etiquette, after all, so why would I mention the h-word? Simple: You cannot write memoir without it. Or didn’t you know that? It’s one of the many tactics I describe in my new book, The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. A little more on hospitality, and a chance to win one of six copies in a giveaway this week with two memoirist “sisters:”
I’m talking about being hospitable to your work, and that begins with taking notes. To do so, you need to get in the habit of carrying an index card in each pocket. That way, you can capture what you see, hear and remember. This does not require an expensive digital recorder, leather notebook or Cartier pen. That’s showing off. Being hospitable begins with the tools you need for writing what you know—index cards, notebooks, pens—and then paying attention to the goods, the scenes from your life you will choose among to illustrate your argument.
Argument, you say? Hold the phone. Can we be hospitable and still argue?
We can, and we must.
Consider the work of the women with whom I am running this book giveaway, Katrina Kenison and Margaret Roach. Both accomplished memoirists, they each have an argument, both of which are revealed from the moment you read their books’ titles. Katrina’s great memoir, The Gift of An Ordinary Day, and Margaret’s gorgeous And I Shall Have Some Peace There, both argue for the ability to find happiness, peace, and even some great provocation, right in your own back yard. Just like Dorothy’s red shoes, these writers both argue in their books, you already possess what you need to thrive. The gift is to see it that way. Would you like to see their arguments in a beautiful format? Katrina’s video is a fine, joyful persuasion to embrace her train of thought; Margaret’s book trailer conveys her argument beautifully.
And what a fine argument it is.
How to learn to find an argument worth making amid the enormous story that is your life?
Well, I said be hospitable, but I’m not going to give it all away away here. For more, I hope you’ll read my new book.
How to Win 1 of 6 Copies of
The Memoir Project
MARGARET, KATRINA AND I are each giving away two copies of my new book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life, and all you have to do to win is comment, answering the question:
What memoir that you have read mattered to you, and why?
Copy and paste your comment onto all three of our blogs to triple your chances of winning—again, each of us has two copies to share, and we’ll all draw winners at random (using the tool at random dot org) after entries close at midnight Saturday, June 18.
- Here.
- On Margaret’s book blog.
- And on Katrina Kenison’s, author of “The Gift of an Ordinary Day,” whose message has been heard not just in print but by nearly 1.6 million YouTube viewers so far.
Now we are pretty flexible, we three, so even if you don’t want to name a book, or have a title but not a reason why, that’s OK. Simply say, “I want to win,” or “Count me in” or some such, and your entry will be official. But remember: copy and paste it on all three blogs at the links bulleted above. Good luck! (And we can’t wait to see the booklist you help generate with your replies.)
—my last read was “Spoken From The Heart” –a very insightful memoir by Laura Bush.
I would love to win your book! I have thought writing would be something I would like to do and be good at, but have trouble filling in my small daily log……I never make anything sound interesting.
Latest memoir that was inspiring-Homeless To Harvard.
A mentor suggested that I trying listening to books on tape to help me with my anxiety. I went to the bookstore and purchased “It Happens Everday” by Isabel Gillies. There was no reasoning behind the purchase, other than I enjoy reading memoirs and that one looked interesting. I found myself spending more time in my car to keep listening to her. Her life literally changed in a moment and everything she once believed to be true was no longer. The ideas in her book have stayed with me and I’m realizing that I have to do what is best for me and my child and not necessarily what I believe to be good for everyone else around me!
Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamotte. And the rest of her non-fiction. Insightful, true, leavened with humor.
I usually am impressed by whatever I’m reading at the moment, which at this time is Margaret’s memoir. From troll dolls to Buddah and everything inbetween, I envy her garden life.
Having taken a memoir writing workshop with Natalie Goldberg last summer, I was inspired to start a memoir writing group at my local library. This endeavor has rewarded me with the joy that comes from expressing my self creatively and giving voice to my life. I have recently read Without a Map and The Memory Palace, both really good ‘mother memoirs’. Am reading right now, The Anthropology of Turquoise. by Ellen Meloy
The memoir I would like to read hasn’t been written yet. My mother claims to have gotten started, but she is 82 and who knows how much time she has left? If I won a copy of your book I would give it to my mother as a gentle prod.
The Road From Coorain is one of my favorite memoirs, I’ve read it 3 times (so far). Ker Conway describes her early life in the Australian outback so vividly and it’s inspiring to know how far she came. Having a mother with mental illness, Ker Conway’s experiences of her father’s depression and her mother’s mood swings really struck a chord with me. Am taking time off from paid work and would love some inspiration & guidance in writing my stories.
While I have read a number of memoirs, they have all inspired me to write my own. A few Christmases ago my lovely, and very thoughtful, daughter gave me a beautiful leather-bound book, entitled “The Story of a Lifetime – A Keepsake of Personal Memoirs”. In the Fall and especially the Winter, during those quiet times when I find myself inside and with a comfy pillow to support my back and a steamy cup of tea I truly become a welcomed witness to those long-ago personal memories. In my best catholic-school hand, my pen flows across the pages all that I remembered, felt, believed, wished. What a journey to go back in time! This gift from my daughter will be my treasured gift back to her, only completed, and I pray it will pass to my descendants so they will know who I was. Love to win a copy of The Memoir Project, it could only enhance my “memoir”.
Blood,Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton is the most recent memoir I’ve read. I found it to be exquisitely written, very moving, especially when she spoke about her marriage. It is rare for me to come across writing thar resonates so clearly with an experience I have lived—
I thoroughly enjoyed And I Shall Have Some Peace There (and should have written to tell you so months ago). What an original voice you have, and what a brave willingness to reveal potentially embarrassing personal stuff — a necessary attribute of any successful memoirist, I guess. I especially enjoyed the italic asides of you talking to yourself. Thanks, Margaret, for the many chuckles. A year or two back, I went on an infidelity memoir jag. First I read Happens Every Day by the talented Isabel Gillies, and loved it — the story of a woman who uproots her life to trek halfway across the country with her professor husband, only to have the bastard take up with a colleague in his department. It’s riveting and raw. Then I read Julie Metz’s Perfection, about a woman who discovers posthumously that her husband had been a serial cheater. I found that one annoying, in a Park Slope kind of way. Moved on to Cleaving by Julie (Julie and Julia) Powell, a tell-all (tell too much, if you ask me) about an affair she had, which made her apparently still ongoing marriage look pretty publicly pathetic, and by the time I got to Mary Karr’s Lit, I must have had it, because I couldn’t make it through. However, I later returned to the genre, reading and relating to Meghan Daum’s very amusing Life Would be Perfect if Only I Lived in That House. I’d very much like to read Marion’s book, though I have no desire to write a memoir myself. I’m too busy reading them.
I couldn’t put down A Homemade Life and was pleasantly surprised to find that the recipes were just as solid as the writing. It inspired me to start scribbling notes to my own story.
Among many others, Learning to Fall: The Blessings of An Imperfect Life, by Philip Simmons, and There Is A Season by Patrick Lane.
One of my favorite memoirs is by children’s author Jean Fritz called “Homesick: My Own Story” which chronicles her experiences as an expat child living in China. Lovely story.
Would love to win the book!
I enjoyed this post and thank you for offering the book giveaway..
My birthday is a few weeks away and I’d love to win “The Memoir Project” because I would like to capture my mother’s story in writing and I’ve never attempted to write a memoir before.
Unfortunately, I could not choose just one…
Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert. My dream adventure! One of my all time favorites. How amazing to have the ability to take such a trip! Raw, real life…. Elizabeth definitely describes issues I can identify with in spite of the privilege issue.
Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate, Wendy Johnson. Written by both a Zen and Gardening Master, this is a real treasure, packed full of gardening and life wisdom. This book can be read over and over again for new insights this very dense volume reveals each time.
Stolen Lives, Malika Oufkir. A life that could not be more different than mine. The princess describes heartbreaking circumstances and unimaginable horrors born of a foreign culture. The story is told with a certain grace that is admirable. This book makes me feel grateful for being born in this country, and for my life here.
Up Tunket Road, Philip Ackerman-Leist. I am currently reading this book. Philip was a philosophy major and is currently a professor at Green Mountain College in Vermont. He challenges the idea of the homesteading philosophy, that of being self sufficient and instead shows how interdependent we all are. A fabulous personal account of the Vermont culture, homesteading successes and failures, with unassuming, heartfelt descriptions of relationships and tales of personal growth. More proof (as if I need any?) that living close to the land gives life meaning.
True Compass, Edward Kennedy. My Grandfather was a police man in West Roxbury, MA and knew Ted’s father Joseph. The Kennedy family has so much publicity and hoopla surrounding it I could not help myself… the last of the Kennedy brothers and the end of an era.
Wish my grandma who rode motorcycles and farmed while wearing sparkling earrings would have written a memoir. We kept telling her to but her claim was “no one would believe it!”
I love memoirs and one that I made my students read was “Zlata’s Diary”. She was a girl growing up in Sarajevo during the war in 1992.
Thanks for the give away!
And the title of my memoir for my children is Fragments. I would love to read the book to make my writing more colorful.
Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman, brought me into the life of a girl, uprooted by war from Cracow to Vancouver, and into her struggle to learn a new language and discover an identity. Hoffman is an insightful and elegant writer, literary and intimate in her spiritual and intellectual journey. Her story brought me closer to my half-sister, who also left a war-torn country as a girl and came to America with our mother who had married an American soldier. Because of Hoffman’s book, I have a deeper understanding of what it must have been like for my sister to leave everything she knew and loved—people and places and things, and what it means to always carry that nostalgia while striving to create “ a translation of one’s self.”
“Falling Through the Earth” by Danielle Trussoni, about a daughter of a Vietnam Vet, and what it means to be that daughter. It was amazing to see how much of my life could be reflected ins someone else’s, far, far away from me.