Have you ever liked an author’s second book more than, let’s say, their first? It’s not that an author’s latest book is better; it may be because the writing was different. You may have enjoyed their work of fiction over their first nonfiction book. I’ve always been a writer. I journaled through my anxious teens and in college, I recorded [...]
I completed a final draft of a blog post (I had started it as a Word doc) last week about how our most vivid memories come from our childhoods. I explored why that might be. I fired up my laptop to post the blog the next day, but was stalled as my computer ran updates. Twenty minutes later, I logged [...]
As a writer, I am asked how I come up with something to write about. The question usually precedes a comment—that it is difficult to write in such a vivid and transparent way as to put oneself in the setting and in a character’s mind. Writing memoir evolved from years of my journal and note-taking to recently publishing a book. [...]
In 2016, I wrote an essay, I Called You a Memoir, where hope said yes; my completed memoir wasn’t just a vision, but a reality. Working on a memoir was the most labor intensive task I’ve ever attempted as autobiographical timelines covered the surface like a fog that skews a real picture. When I made my way through self-discovery to [...]
It seems that some of us are always trying to find our figurative home. Maybe for others, they always feel at home. I had written in my memoir, Under the Birch Tree, about making connections and discovering my self. I wondered if my discoveries would continue though my story had come to an end with the publication of my book. [...]
For all memoir writers who have published or hope to in the near future . . . via Of Memoir and (Self) Forgiveness
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com Our time is filled with input. We stare at screens of many kinds– desktop computers, laptops, phones, iPads, televisions – being inundated by someone else’s thoughts, a type of pre-programmed programming. We become sedentary in body and in mind where our bodies cease to move through a sensory environment and our minds become [...]
Michelle Obama’s recently released memoir, Becoming, has sold more than 2 million copies in 15 days. The number of copies sold in a short period of time did not surprise me. The long awaited release, characterized by preorder numbers and publicity, drove anticipation. Why were so many eager for the book to be in hand, to hold it as if [...]
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com I recently had an opportunity with the National Association of Memoir Writers (www.namw.org) to talk about my memoir, Under the Birch Tree and other points about writing my book. During this hour-long virtual book club, the topic was transforming autobiography to memoir. However, so many points to make in so little time, so thought [...]
Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi on Pexels.com When recently rifling through a slush pile of started-but-never-finished blog posts, I came across one I remembered where noise in silence appeared to be the topic. I thought about what is silence and the absence of it. Are we ever really in a state of silence? I thought I'd pick up where [...]