Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir

If you're planning to write a straight autobiography, you don't need this book. But if you have literary ambitions for telling your story in a creative way, you'll find this guide really helpful. The technical concepts are partly drawn from fiction writing, but some are specific to the memoir genre. For me, the most helpful idea was the distinction between the remembering self and the experiencing self - the two "I's" that appear in any well-written memoir. I'd read about this in another book, but the explanation here drove it home more vividly and clearly. This enabled me to figure out a creative and appropriate way to start my memoir. Thank you so much.

Particularly for a first time memoirist, this book has a lot of good advice. For me, the best part was the structure of building a scene - from catalyst to climax and denoument. And the laying out of 5 or 6 different ways to structure a memoir. Although I' ve read a number of writing books, both of these were new to me, and immediately useful. The book also has a great bibliography (actually two) of memoirs and books about memoir - that's worth the price of admission. Less satisfying for me were the other chapters on craft, much of it seemed like watered down advice from many other writing books. Overall, well done, well worth the time and money.

If you're writing your memoir, or summoning the courage to begin, hurry to get this book. When people ask me to teach someone how to write, I answer, "What's important is to teach them how to think." And that's what this excellent book does for anyone interested in writing about their own experience. The writing is clear and entertaining, a joy to read. But better still, it provides a path with guideposts for thinking about memoir writing, with pauses for practice in shaded boxes and with shining examples of published memoirs woven throughout: Didion, Doty, Sexton, Dillard, Oates, Goldberg, Walls, and others."Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir" will ease your struggle with questions such as Should I write about my life? or How can I organize the chaotic jumble of my experience? or What should I include or leave out? or How will others react to my revelations? or How can I make my writing interesting? Drawing on the tools of fiction and creative nonfiction, it will help you identify and apply techniques for building a successful memoir: the "occasion of the telling," your unique narrator voice, the creation of scene, the necessary details. Although I am an experienced writer, this book has given me valuable new insights and has emboldened me to continue my own memoir writing along the path these authors have so intelligently and elegantly laid out before me.

Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir is co-authored by Lynn C. Miller and Lisa Lenard-Cook.It contains a wealth of writing recommendations—including addressing the challenges of “structure” and “tense.” I use this book in my memoir writing workshops and recommend it to attendees. It is a valuable writing resource. Ginger Swanson, Ph.D., Santa Barbara, CA

For years, I taught memoir, using essays I admired as my textbook. But I wish I'd had this terrific book to help the students through the difficult process of remembering and writing well. The tone of the book is both serious and cheerful, and the authors are encouraging and knowledgeable. I recommend this book to anyone starting out on a memoir--or picking up one begun and abandoned. And I recommend it also to anyone teaching memoir. It will smooth the way for teacher and student alike.

This book helps create the right "mindset" for writing a memoir. I will reread it a few times before I get writing, but I have created many short outlines and notes to get started. It's the only book I've read to give me real ideas and focus! Very clear.

This is a user-friendly work that gives a great insight into the art and craft of memoir writing. Definitely worth buying!

I haven't read enough of the book to tell you what I like and don't like