To give you an idea of what I do as a memoir consultant and developmental editor, I’ll share some about the path I helped this author take to complete his memoir and have it successfully published.
Read more →Posts Tagged Creative Nonfiction
This topic has been on my mind for — well, almost twenty years. When I started teaching memoir back in 1996, twenty-two people circled a big table at the local junior college. Stories so ready to tell poured out of them. Some of those stories kept my students awake at
Read more →Recently, I finished preparing the over-fifty first-person tales of life through a century for “100 Years in the Life of An American Girl.” There are five or six stories in each decade/chapter and each one of those chapters opens with a short cultural history of the decade, offering a colorful
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It all starts with the first draft. A first draft gives you something to work with so you can get to where you want to go. It’s a necessary step, and hardly the last one.
Read more →“Reality” – From Chapter 10 “100 Years in the Life of an American Girl: True Stories 1910 – 2010” (publishing summer 2013) “Reality” – Chapter 10 — The 2000s, Dylanne White At 10 Dylanne’s three greatest wishes were to be allowed to wear make-up, get a new pair of skinny jeans,
Read more →What’s new in your life? Whatever is new in your life makes a great writing topic. It’s where the energy is. Even if you’re already working on something else, try this: 1. Make a list of what’s new in your life right now — the standouts. Go for 3 to
Read more →“The Gen X Poster Child” — from Chapter 8, “100 Years in the Life of an American Girl: True Stories 1910 – 2010” (publishing summer 2013) “The Gen X Poster Child” Jenny Isenman, Maryland Born in 1973, Jenny grew up an only child in an affluent suburb with a bedroom
Read more →Journaling was my first best friend growing up. I didn’t know it with that first hardcover diary with lock and tiny key someone gave me for my 10th birthday, but it wasn’t long before I found out just how good it was to write about what was going on and
Read more →Some people worry their life stories won’t translate to the page, that they’ll sound dull (“this happened, then this happened, then this happened”). It doesn’t have to be that way. It’s all in how you shape it. Think of how we live. This happens and then that happens, and then
Read more →Writing the stories of your life doesn’t happen in a day. It takes more than inspiration, writing when the urge strikes. It takes time and dedication. It wants the details that lift the story off the page, that take a reader there along with you, that share you with them
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