The Essential Arc of Your Story

The Essential Arc of Your Story

Every week I talk with people at different points on the writing journey. Some people have an idea for a book, some have finished a first draft, some have started writing and want to know the best next steps. With all the writers I work with, we start by considering

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“Why Does My Story Matter?”

"Why Does My Story Matter?"

The question can come any time of the day or night: “Does my story matter?”

It can stop you in your tracks. 

The question doesn’t usually come asking for an answer either. Why is that? Because the question is more an expression of self-doubt than a real question asking for a real answer….

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What Makes a Good Memoir?

What Makes a Good Memoir?

Writing a memoir is a creatively challenging experience, even for the most experienced of writers. It is creative nonfiction at its finest—a story carved from out of lived experience and shaped to tell an engaging, important story. It’s often a story drawn out of a situation, like Kimberly Rae Miller’s

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Video: Memoir & More

Video: Memoir & More

  I spoke with Mag Dimond on Facebook Live, on her show, “Writers Coming Together.” We talked about writing memoir — what’s needed in a book people will want to read — and much more. I talk about what I learned creating my book Girlhood in America, about some of

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The Power Is In the Details

The Power Is In the Details

We live in a world of specifics. Specifics define people and places. Specifics point to the moments that make up the bigger picture. They are the details that give writing a feeling of immediacy. They take your readers along with you. Well-chosen details bring the world of the story to life.

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The Virtues of Vulnerability

The Virtues of Vulnerability

When is a writer vulnerable? How about every day. In her still-popular Ted Talk, “The Power of Vulnerability,” a research professor who has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy, and the best-selling author of several books on related topics, Brene Brown says that part of

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Including a Disclaimer in Your Book

Including a Disclaimer in Your Book

  Whether you are self-publishing or using a traditional publisher for your memoir or other nonfiction book, you may want to include a disclaimer on your copyright page. Disclaimers serve to protect the author and publisher against liability when their book’s topic might invade someone’s privacy or result in a

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