On the one hand, it’s easy to discount the need for research in memoir. I mean, who knows your life better than you do? There was actually a good bit of research that went into crafting Girlish. I spoke at length with my siblings, various family members and had many conversations with both my childhood friends and some of my parents’ friends. I read a lot of memoir and poetry…
I am so excited to welcome Terese Marie Mailhot to the blog today, and introduce her and her searingly beautiful memoir to the Deb community! About Heart Berries: Heart Berries is a powerful, poetic memoir of a woman’s coming of age on the Seabird Island Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. Having survived a profoundly dysfunctional upbringing only to find herself hospitalized and facing a dual diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder…
I first met Lisa at HippoCamp 2016 where I attended her incredibly useful session on writing about one topic across multiple pieces. That was my first writing conference ever, and I was so intimidated by everyone that I only spoke to something like five people, of which Lisa was one. We chit chatted in the waiting area to pitch agents and editors for our then-unpublished memoirs, and although I don’t…
Yesterday was the release day for Lara’s memoir. Over the past half-year, I’ve grown to adore both Lara and her writing as I’ve gotten to know her as a colleague on the Debutante Ball. I’ve read many a memoir before so I knew to expect a lot of personal information, but this is the first time I’ve read one written by someone I know. And man, was I surprised….
You do not owe toxic people a place in your life. Whoever they are, whatever they tell you, whatever strings they think they can tug on, you don’t owe them. This is something I thought about a lot while reading Girlish. Lara’s life looks nothing like mine, but a lot of the feelings resonate. I know what it’s like to be gaslit. I know how confusing, disorienting, and infuriating that…
I have had several kinds of critique partners on Girlish. I didn’t have a writing group that met once a week and read each other’s works in progress, but I did have several key people, all located in different parts of the country, who read my work and helped me whip it into shape. Some of the chapters were written during my MFA at West Virginia Wesleyan College, where…
This was my laptop’s wallpaper through out the months of crafting my memoir: I have posted it on Facebook too many times to count. When I wake in the middle of the night short of breath from anxiety, when the idea of my memoir coming into the world seems too much to bear, I chant it over and over. Your silence will not protect you. I had first read…
First drafts are my favorite drafts. I love the immersion in the story and the constant internal pressure to write and write until it is all out. When I’m writing a first draft I don’t screw off much on social media, don’t return emails promptly, and often drive by my exits on the expressway without noticing. During my first draft, I’m definitely a fly by the seat of my pants…
This week’s topic is the road not taken—how choosing a different path might’ve affected our writing. First of all, there’s a whole theory about Frost’s “Road Not Taken” actually being ironic, meaning that the choosing the other path wouldn’t have made any difference whatsoever. I prefer interpretations that irritate the majority because I am cantankerous by nature, so of course this is the interpretation I feel is most correct. The…
I first met Dr. Laurie Jean Cannady at HippoCamp—Hippocampus Magazine’s 2016 writer’s conference. I have to admit that I was so awestruck to meet her in person that I didn’t talk to her for more than 96 seconds. Writers are my rockstars, and I’m easily intimidated. It’s not that she was that terror-inducing as a person, it’s just that I loved her book, CRAVE: SOJOURN OF A HUNGRY SOUL so…
