Prior to my memoir going to press, my hybrid publisher forwarded me “first pages.” As a first-time author, I was unaware of such a thing, a PDF file of how my finished book would look. First pages was essentially a last call, an opportunity to use a phone-a-friend lifeline to correct errors missed in copyediting or proofreading, and to check [...]
I recently read about Greg Weinman in the Chicago Tribune newspaper who inherited over 2,000 newspapers, historically headlined, his father had collected for nearly a century. He needed to dispose of them because he is moving and no longer has the space to store them. Libraries and universities didn’t want them so he will lay them out on his driveway [...]
While I was writing my memoir, I had envisioned my book’s cover to be a picture perhaps of an elegant landscape in oil paints of wispy birch trees with their wavy leaves in soft greens, peeling bark in degrees of white to muddy grey and tan. The image would speak to you, inviting you to join me on my search [...]
There's a lot written about starting a memoir, how to do it, how to organize it, if you have enough reflection and takeaways. And then there’s how to structure your memoir, too. But what happens after you’ve completed your revisions and edits, when you believe you have a finished work ready for the eyes of prospective publishers? Not so fast. Did [...]