One of my greatest personal challenges with co-writing the memoir THE NATURE OF SHADOWS was a total ignorance about the subject matter. I was coming at Augustine’s life with all the preconceptions and bias and indifference that his target audience would bring to the page. In the book’s introduction, Augustine addresses some of those cultural […]
Arguably more than any other genre, memoir leans on the concept of theme to be potent and focused and effective. Whereas autobiographies are careful to detail the entire scope of a person’s life, memoir is a snapshot. That snapshot can last a day or a decade, so long as there is a unifying point. One […]
Elie Wiesel was one of the most beloved writers of the 20th century. He wrote more than 40 books in his lifetime, two of them memoirs. His most notable and enduring work, Night—although considered a novel and not a memoir—was an emotionally-charged narrative informed by his time in Auschwitz during World War II. On memoirs, […]
By nature, memories are unreliable. They are time travel through a blurred and distorted lens. They capture glints of light and pockets of darkness through the filter of our present-day attitudes. So how do savvy memoir authors go about recapturing a season of life with confidence in memories? They don’t. During the nearly twelve months […]
My first attempt at Canva! Yay! But that's not really what this post is about. I'm not a huge sitcom person. I prefer my stories to come to me fully-formed, longer structure, the beats of storytelling less obvious and canned. But the premiere of CBS's new show (Sept. 23) hits close to home for me. […]
Let's be honest: virtual assistant technology has a long way to go. It's equal parts helpful and equal parts repeating yourself like you do at Sunday brunch when your Aunt May forgot to turn up her hearing aid. Until the obstinate woman in my echo dot responds in a helpful way to my "Alexa, finish […]
