The first memoir I ever read—Road Songby Natalie Kusz—pierced me in ways I did not know were possible. Kusz had written, in this elegantly crafted book, of an Alaskan childhood, a life-changing accident, early motherhood, and family love. She had written, I mean to say, of transcending truths. I have spent much of my life ever since deconstructing the ways in which true stories get told, and writing them myself. I’ve taught memoir to five-year-olds, Ivy League students, master’s level writers, and retirees. I co-founded Juncture Workshops, write a monthly newsletter on the form, and today create blank books into which other writers might begin to tell their stories.
Yes, it’s the old chestnut, and forgive me, but we must read to write, we must wade into other worlds to understand what is at stake, and what is possible, when we begin to shape our story for the page. Noble’s anthology begins with a quote-worthy meditation on the lyric essay and its manifold forms. It carries readers forward with a range of essays and commentary by writers both well-known (Dinty W. Moore, Diane Seuss, and Lidia Yuknavitch) and up-and-coming. The flash, the braid, the collage, the mosaic, the hermit crab—all the forms are here, waiting to be admired and adapted.
What is a lyric essay? An essay that has a lyrical style? An essay that plays with form in a way that resembles poetry more than prose? Both of these? Or something else entirely? The works in this anthology show lyric essays rely more on intuition than exposition, use image more than narration, and question more than answer. But despite all this looseness, the lyric essay still has responsibilities-to try to reveal something, to play with ideas, or to show a shift in thinking, however subtle. The whole of a lyric essay adds…
This (almost) palm-sized book became an instant classic when it was published in 2008. Here, the reader watches the great memoirist, Abigail Thomas, at work, translating daily scenes into passages that resonate with universal appeal. It’s as if you are watching over her shoulder as she works. Writing a little of her own life, she’ll stop and look up and say, in so many words, join me. “Write two pages of what you have too much of,” she advises, after writing about a woman who ate only clams for months. “Write two pages about the softest thing,” she suggests, pages later, after she was “trying to recall the softest thing and remembered a white ermine muff.” Look to Thomas for the ways in which the every day becomes a story.
If living is an art, it must be practiced with diligence before being done with ease. Yet almost nothing in our culture prepares us for reflection on the great themes of existence: courage, friendship, listening, dignity—those everyday virtues that can transform our world. Because AARP believes it’s never too late (or too early) to learn, they, together with Sterling Publishing, have created the About Living series to address these crucial issues. Each entry will be written by only the best authors and thinkers. Thinking About Memoir, the first of these volumes, helps adults look back at their past and use…
A fresh take on the difference between trauma and hardship in order to help accurately spot the difference and avoid over-generalizations.
The book integrates the latest findings in brain science, child development, psycho-social context, theory, and clinical experiences to make the case that trauma is much more than a cluster…
“One of the first discoveries I made when I began to return in a reflective way to earlier parts of my life was that there was often very little connection between events that by rights ought to be capitalized—important trips, moves, friendships, deaths—and the experiences that had in fact left the most vivid deposit in memory,” Birkerts writes in this little book that packs a punch. Focusing on Coming-of-Age Stories, Fathers and Sons, Mothers and Daughters, Trauma and Memory, Birkerts deconstructs well-loved texts to teach us how their writers chose to manage time.
Memoir is, for better and often for worse, the genre of our times,' Birkerts writes. This piece of elegant literary criticism seeks to understand what makes some memoirs memorable and others self-serving. Birkerts argues that the memoirists strategies for presenting the subjective experience of time reveal the power and resonance of the writer's life. By examining Virginia Woolf's A Sketch of the Past, and Mary Karr's The Liars' Club, Birkerts describes the memoirists essential art of assembling patterns of meaning.'
Sometimes we just want to know how it feels to be someone else living the writer’s life. In this collection, forty-six writers ranging from Roxane Gay and Billy Collins to Edwidge Danticat and Amy Tan answer one single question: What inspires you? My favorite response comes from Marilynne Robinson, who writes “I’m drawn to that movement toward essentials, away from all secondary definitions, all extraneous props, and ornaments.” What about you? What inspires you? Why are you writing in the first place? You’ll ponder that question while you read these short pieces by writers who shine a light in dark places.
A stunning masterclass on the creative process, the craft of writing, and the art of finding inspiration from Stephen King, Elizabeth Gilbert, Amy Tan, Khaled Hosseini, Roxane Gay, Neil Gaiman, and more of the most acclaimed writers at work today
"For artists in need of a creative fix, Light the Dark is as good as a visit from the divine muse." -Bookpage
What inspires you? That's the simple, but profound question posed to forty-six renowned authors in LIGHT THE DARK. Each writer begins with a favorite passage from a novel, a song, a poem—something that gets them started and keeps…
We all want peace. We all want a life of joy and meaning. We want to feel blissfully comfortable in our own skin, moving through the world with grace and ease. But how many of us are actively taking the steps to create such a life?
No frills, this book. Just good stuff. Chapters on the state of nonfiction today and on the ways to end an essay. Essential talk about “the ethics of writing about others” and “the necessity of turning oneself into a character.” Thoughts on the lyric essay and on research as it applies to nonfiction. Lopate blazed many a trail for teachers and writers of nonfiction. He is perennially relevant.
A long-awaited new book on personal writing from Phillip Lopate—celebrated essayist, the director of Columbia University’s nonfiction program, and editor of The Art of the Personal Essay.
Distinguished author Phillip Lopate, editor of the celebrated anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, is universally acclaimed as “one of our best personal essayists” (Dallas Morning News).
Here, combining more than forty years of lessons from his storied career as a writer and professor, he brings us this highly anticipated nuts-and-bolts guide to writing literary nonfiction.
A phenomenal master class shaped by Lopate’s informative, accessible tone and immense gift for storytelling, To…
In a range of provocative and personal essays, nationally renowned memoir writer and teacher Beth Kephart explores new ideas on the craft of memoir and offers an arrangement of question cascades and exercises designed to carry readers into and through their own true stories. How do we remember to remember? What is the art of the moment? Can your story be your obsession vessel? How do you manage time in memoir? What is the art of the suppose? These questions, among many others, stand at the heart of a book that is now becoming a staple in classrooms and workshops. Finally, with more than 100 memoirs cited throughout, this book is designed to expand your memoir library.
The plan was insane. The trap seemed to snap shut on Bruce and Maggie Tate, an isolation forced on them by the pandemic and America's growing political factionalism. Something had to change.
Maggie's surprising answer: buy a boat, learn to pilot it, and embark on the Great Loop. With no…
Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration
By
Mark Doherty,
I have woven numerous delightful and descriptive true life stories, many from my adventures as an outdoorsman and singer songwriter, into my life as a high school English teacher. I think you'll find this work both entertaining as well as informative, and I hope you enjoy the often lighthearted repartee…
