This blog is all about writing memoirs. In it, I offer tips and techniques, based on the workshops I teach, as well as book reviews of a variety of published and self-published memoirs, as well as interviews with memoirists and others.
Editor reviews are provided by professional editors who evaluate a blog based on the following criteria: Frequency of Updates, Relevance of Content, Site Design, and Writing Style.
As my memoir took shape, a more troubled and prickly young man emerged than I ever realized. However, when I saw this flawed character on the page, it didn't look as bad as I had always feared. Instead, I realized many heroes have edgy, even repugnant...
In the following list of memoirs, I show a number of examples of how memoir authors experienced this complex transition from childhood into adulthood. By seeing how this period contained so much dramatic tension for these authors, you may gain some...
Emerging into adulthood is sometimes dubbed "launching," a term that reminds me of a woman in a fur coat smashing a bottle across the bow of a ship being sent to sea on its maiden voyage. My launching did not include getting hit with a bottle of...
Recently, I saw a memoir "American Shaolin" by Matthew Polly, a young man who dropped out of Princeton to study Kung Fu at the Shaolin Temple in China. I was stunned to learn the place was real and even more astonished that it still existed. At first I...
Funderburg went on to read a passage from her recently published memoir, which I have not yet had an opportunity to read, called "Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home: A Memoir." It's about discovering her relationship with her...
