Tag: memoir
Stepmother: Reflections on Writing a Memoir
It happened one night. Totally unplanned. We were standing in the comfortably furnished living room, nuts on the table and chips next to the dip. The four couples stood casually, holding our drinks and chatting politely as you do when you meet people for the first time. The conversation was predictable. “Wasn’t it a beautiful […]
My Bossy, Imaginary Readers
With the publication of my memoir Not Exactly Love, I’m eager to meet my flesh-and-blood readers, the ones who might nod their heads as I speak, who ask me questions, who might hand me a book to sign. It’s a bit unnerving though; in the book, I break decades of silence to tell the story […]
Sex, Lies & Scotch Tape: Exposing Secrets & Healing Wounds WITH Your Characters’ Help
Successful albeit intensely secretive husband wires all of your money out of the country, forges your name, abandons you and your two young children, leaving you with less than $1 in your bank account, and then he vanishes—never to be seen nor heard from again. It’s as though he never existed … A page-turner, right? […]
Pieces Of Me: Rescuing My Kidnapped Daughters
“You should be glad you didn’t get your girls back yet,” a friend told me while we were in line at a coffee shop. “Your book will be that much better.” It was 1995, and I had just returned to Alaska from Greece after my first failed attempt to rescue my kidnapped daughters, taken by […]
The Power of Nancy Drew
Literature adds to reality; it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become. —C S Lewis Growing up in Sherwood Park, a sleepy enclave in Yonkers where nothing exciting ever happened, I was […]
What Does A Ghostwriter Do?
When I tell people I’m a ghost writer I’m usually met with a bewildered smile, followed by the inevitable question: ‘What exactly does a ghostwriter do?’ Well, for starters, I can’t tell you what every ghostwriter does as we all tend to work differently and many of us have specialisms. For example, a colleague of […]
Finding the Courage to Write About My Abusive Marriages
When people think of courage, mountain peaks and raging rivers usually come to mind. But memoir writing can be one of the most courageous acts anyone ever does. I began to write my memoir after years of keeping silent about the abuse in my two marriages – except for writing in my journals. Compulsive journal […]
Confessions of a Book Buzz Builder
When I first signed with my agent to represent my memoir, she reviewed my book proposal. I’d included this tidbit: “as a former book publicist of ten years at several major publishing houses, including Random House, Simon & Schuster and Doubleday, I have the skills to promote my book extensively.” She scribbled in the margin, […]
Situation Vacant: Writing My Memoir
Business memoirs are read in airports by corporates looking for effective strategies. First-timers also look at the style in which others write. And what to leave out. Family history travelers try to organize their material, without alienating friends and family. Writing a corporate biography requires the same skills as writing a personal memoir, plus a […]
Many Voices
I’ve just written and filed 10,000 words, but before I write the next 1,500, I need to shift space in my head. The last 10,000 were written for academic purposes; the next 1,500 are to be written for one of those ‘listy’ articles you often find in women’s magazines. In the course of my career […]
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