July 24, 2014
IT’S POSSIBLE THAT the single most popular questions I get in my manuscript services practice are why and when to write an introduction. People...
July 3, 2014
WHEN AMY DAWS wrote to me about her recently published memoir, I asked her about her writing challenges in the project, which led us...
June 19, 2014
IT’S THE BIRTHDAY of the Writing Lessons column. It’s been a year, and in that time some of the greatest current memoir writers have...
May 6, 2014
ARE THERE RULES FOR WRITING MEMOIR? For instance, can your story be enlarged by the story of someone else whose life parallels or informs...
April 22, 2014
MUST MEMOIR BE CHRONOLOGICAL? In a word, no. How is your story best told? How can the reader best absorb it? These are the...
April 8, 2014
MUCH LIKE FINDING MEANING IN LIFE, finding the message in your memoir writing requires some digging. I would argue that in both life and...
March 25, 2014
FINDING YOUR WRITING VOICE requires experimenting. It’s as simple – and complicated – as that. And when I say this to my classes, I...
March 18, 2014
HOW TO WRITE ABOUT YOURSELF is one of the most difficult assignments facing memoirists. Who are you, and what role do you play in...
March 4, 2014
BECOMING PART OF AN ANTHOLOGY is a great achievement for a writer. Along with the obvious joy of allowing you to keep fine company...
February 24, 2014
SPEAKING WITH A STUDENT recently, I was dismayed when she claimed that hers was not an “exceptional” story. There was no death, no loss,...
February 20, 2014
SOMETIMES THE WORLD of writing is just plain wonderful. Or so it has seemed in the last week. See if you do not agree...
February 18, 2014
HOW DO YOU FIND TIME to write? This is the question I get most – online, in person, in email, and on the phone...
