How I Became a Serial Memoirist by Lisa Cheek

I didn’t know much about memoirs when I decided to write one. But what I did know – I was a serial storyteller. Being a film editor for twenty-five years, I told hundreds of stories through film. Most were only thirty seconds while some were full ninety minute features. Many of them comedies, my favorite story to tell. Making people giggle gives me great joy. It makes me smile. 

Growing up as a child of the seventies meant I watched tons of television, experienced both movie theaters and drive-ins and I read books – lots and lots of books. Story surrounded me. The entire Nancy Drew series collection taught me how to solve a crime should I ever need to. Or so I thought. Then when I entered my double digit years, I read Enid Blyton stories of teenage girls in England. Girls in English boarding schools fascinated me – being on their own with no parental supervision. Books babysat me, kept me company when I was lonely and taught me things I didn’t learn anywhere else.

Although I wrote for both television and radio very early on in my career – just out of college, I didn’t embark on writing long form until my forties where my first teacher only taught fiction declaring “No one reads memoir”. So I followed his instructions and turned my personal adventure into fiction. My second writing teacher held the same belief of teacher number one with a more explicit phrase “Memoir is dead”.  So I carried on writing my tale as a novel, told in third person. The magic that came from sharing my adventures with friends who would enthusiastically encourage me to put it on paper was gone. The story fell flat. It lost all its power and charm.

Then in 2021, I attended a writers retreat where I met many memoir enthusiasts. Writers, editors, and publishers of memoirs – spectacular memoirs. I went home and rewrote my tale, embracing it as the memoir it was meant to be. And by changing genres, owning it as my true story, the book came alive. The loneliness in my story became visceral. By owning all of it, I have the opportunity to share my tiny human moment on this planet of eight billion people.

When I set out to write the first book, I’d always envisioned three separate stories. Each with an inciting incident that changed me and my outlook on life forever. “Sit, Cinderella, Sit” is about four months of my life. It’s been said that writers tend to circle the same themes in their books. A question or two that they want answered when they write their stories. I’m not sure that I know exactly what mine are yet other than what is family? And how do families come together and stay together?

My second memoir, “The Big Day” came from a blog I wrote fifteen years ago. It’s exactly as the title says, it’s a memoir about one day in my life. It’s filled with fragments and snippets and moments. I’m a writer who likes white on the page. A lot of white. Space around words speaks volumes to me, so my second memoir has much more white on the page. I’m a huge fan of Abigal Thomas’s “What Happens Next and How To Like It” and Maggie Smith’s “You Could Make This Place Beautiful”. So much can be said with style and voice and layout.

Writing the second memoir was easier because I had read many more memoirs, taken as many memoir classes as I could, and attended memoir book events. I’m even in two memoir book clubs now.

As I embark on my third memoir, I know that even though I have written two previous memoirs this third one will be different. I know more about somethings, yet it’s important to continue to be curious as I write this next one. It will be written with the same voice probably because I feel I’ve found mine, but I was a different person in these particular ten day than I was in the last two memoirs. Or at least I like to think so. I was in a different place when I wrote the two previous memoirs. Both as a writer and a narrator and also as the character in my book. I like to think we’ve all grown through each experience, but I won’t know until I finish it. There always a surprise learning at the completion of a memoir.

So I’ll leave you with this. Memoir is alive and well. People do want to read it to feel less alone in the big ol’ world. It’s my genre. It’s what I want to read because it’s our history of the human experience.

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Lisa Cheek’s writing began after a twenty-five years editing feature films and TV commercials. Her first memoir, “Sit, Cinderella, Sit”, was a People Magazine pick, an Amazon Bestseller, made Zibby’s Most Anticipated Books for 2025 and was a Next Generation Indy Award finalist in Women’s Literature. She’s written for both radio and television and is published in LA Poets and Writers Collective. Her second memoir, “The Big Day” comes out September 22, 2026. You can find her musings “One Minute Thoughts From A Pink Head” on Substack. She lives in LA with 2 dogs, 2 cats, and her husband, Big Johnson and has several scripts in various stages of development while working on her next memoir.

Sit, Cinderella, Sit: A Mostly True Memoir

For fans of Abigail Thomas and Sloane Crosley, a debut memoir and (sort of) Cinderella story about a woman who’d been told she was “too old” to create magic who flew to rural China, edited a film without speaking a word of Mandarin, and discovered her own power. Listed in People’s “Best Books of January 2025” Listed in Zibby Owens’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2025” Lisa Cheek loved editing TV commercials—almost as much as she loved her dog, Ron Howard. Then, she “aged out” of advertising, at 45. After being let go, Lisa got a call—at 2:45 AM—from a director who, like everyone in Hollywood, had a film he wanted to make: the original Cinderella story.

Now, his dream could come true—if Lisa granted his wish. In Sit, Cinderella, Sit, Lisa Cheek shares her adventures in editing a film made on location in China—along the Tibetan border—where Mandarin was the only language spoken by everyone but her. Stuck in a house with fourteen men she couldn’t understand, literally, she yearned for conversation and coffee. But there were moments of wonder and laughter. Lisa forged a bond with her translator and a woman named Sunny.

She rescued one dog, and then another. “Everyone speaks Cinderella,” the director had assured her. Maybe he was right. Told with humor and heart through a fairy tale lens, with flashbacks into the author’s not-always-happy childhood, Sit, Cinderella, Sit is a story about what can happen when you take a leap of faith, look and hear beyond people’s differences, and dare to believe in yourself.

BUY HERE

The Big Day: Saying “I Do” Only to Discover I Didn’t – Another Mostly True Memoir

For fans of Sloane Crosley, another mostly true memoir from the acclaimed author of Sit, Cinderella, Sit about whether she’s finally ready for marriage before she turns fifty.

For years, Lisa Cheek believed commitment wasn’t in her genes. Her dating patterns were clear—date a lot and widely, but never settle down. When anyone wanted to marry her, she backed away. So even she is surprised when, at forty-nine, she finally says “yes” to a proposal and commits fully to her boyfriend, Big Johnson. But when she finds out on their wedding day, after the vows, that they aren’t actually married, she hesitates. Should she take this as a sign to run while she still can?

In The Big Day,Lisa Cheek invites us to witness her wedding day, with all its hilarity, chaos, and unexpected turns. Throughout, she reviews both her past relationships and the marriages of her family and friends, analyzing the choices of others and reliving the biggest ups and downs of her own love life. Ultimately, she must decide once and for all whether she’s just not marriage material—or if she’s finally found a love worth staying for.

PRE-ORDER HERE

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