Category Archives: memoir
Essay’s ancient spell, memoir’s transformation
[The essay] should lay us under a spell with its first word, and we should only wake, refreshed, with its last word. In the interval we may pass through the most various experiences of amusement, surprise, interest, indignation; we may … Continue reading
Filed under essay-classical, essay-expository, memoir, NOTED, postmodernism
Showalter: memoir is a ‘radical act’
My interview with Shirley Hershey Showalter concludes with her discussion of her writing process and of her vision for the potential for memoir, a “radical act,” to build peace in the world. Q: You prepared for writing a memoir by … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, memoir, poetry, spirituality, working method
Finding her memoir’s ‘topic sentence’
I want to prepare for the hour of my death by living one good day at a time. And I want to help others to do the same. —Shirley Hershey Showalter’s mission statement Shirley Showalter is an essayist, blogger, speaker, … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, electronic publishing, memoir, spirituality, working method
Shirley Showalter, ubuntu & memoir
Become an observer of your own creative process. It will help you uncover where you “sing” and where your voice falls flat. When you lose track of time and are not thinking about yourself at all but rather about your … Continue reading
Filed under electronic publishing, memoir, MFA, NOTED, spirituality, teaching, working method
Amos Oz’s ‘Tale of Love and Darkness’
By Olga Khotiashova A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt On January 6, 2012, it was 60 years since Amos Oz’s mother took her life. The memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, written in … Continue reading
Virginia Woolf’s ‘moments of being’
The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river. Then one sees through the surface to the depths. In those moments I find one of my greatest … Continue reading
Filed under memoir, NOTED, spirituality
Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Sketch of the Past’
From it all I gathered one obstinate and enduring conception. That nothing is to be so much dreaded as egotism. Nothing so cruelly hurts the person himself; nothing so wounds those who are forced into contact with it.—Virginia Woolf, writing … Continue reading
Filed under emotion, memoir, NOTED, spirituality
Q&A: a memoirist’s decade of discovery
Nina Hamberg, whose award-winning book Grip: A Memoir of Fierce Attractions I recently excerpted, answered questions about her motives and process. In the manner of Tobias Wolff’s great memoirs, Grip’s meaning is embedded in its story. A narrative of Hamberg’s … Continue reading
Filed under author interview, memoir, working method, workshopping
Nina Hamberg’s memoir ‘Grip’
After being assaulted in her own bedroom by a masked intruder when she was a teen, Hamberg found her relationships with men complicated, to say the least. In this thoughtful memoir, she shares the victories and defeats that shaped those … Continue reading
