Memoir is a corner of your life, one phase, not your autobiography, not your whole life, but one part of it. It’s about growing up in a family of crazy people, or growing up in an environment so conservative and staid that you thought you were the crazy one (perfect childhoods are hard to write…
Writing Memoirs
Writing Memoirs
The Shapes of Memoir
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 9 Comments
So how do you structure a memoir? One of my students asked me this in my advanced non-fiction class last week and as usual I had to say, I don’t know. I’m pretty good on the structure of a personal essay (if you’re looking to get an essay published in a magazine or newspaper there…
Writing Memoirs
The Book of Your Heart
by Barbara Abercrombie • • 11 Comments
I read my students term papers for UCLA Extension last week, and the majority were excerpts from the books they’re writing. A few of these students came to class with their idea for a memoir fully formed, but most came with bits and pieces of ideas, a notion of where those pieces might go if…
