Tag: memoir

Sneak Peek: Wonderment

Today we have a sneak peek from author Nigel Hey’s memoir: Wonderment.

Wonderment keeps the action going from the author’s childhood nightmares to the suspense of a brush with death in the neurology unit of a London hospital. Sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, this is the first-person life history of a writer who was born with a love of adventure, travel, people, and the mystery of who we are and why – laced with the humor, romance, family lore and drama that anchors a life well lived. He masters the burden of ill health and gradually, to his surprise, discovers his own spirituality.

Wonderment is available from Amazon US, Amazon UK and Barnes & Noble.

And now, an excerpt from Wonderment… Continue reading “Sneak Peek: Wonderment”

Only Your Mum Will Read It

Why do people write non-fiction? I don’t mean the dry sort that people who ‘don’t have time for fiction’ read. They will never understand that storying is part of being human, whereas we know that the best fiction feels truer than reality, deep in a place where the birth of humanity necessitated art and the telling of tales.

I’m talking memoirs here, travelogues, narrative non-fiction. Why bother? Publishers and agents hate them, they’re hard to sell online, they don’t get reviewed. Didn’t we grow out of What I Did on My Holidays in grade school? Nobody is that interesting, except to their Mum, even if they’re already famous. In fact, especially if they’re already famous. Continue reading “Only Your Mum Will Read It”

Danse Macabre

Have you ever had to pick out a casket for a loved one?

I have. This doubtful honor is a right of passage for many family members. The memory of this event is often surreal. Its grim reality weighs heavily on us, demanding stoic posture and the composure of a Vulcan. We fight to submerge the horror and the pain that goes along with it. If you are the one making the decisions, the needs of the living and the recently deceased outweigh the personal luxury of mourning.

For others, a staggering loss compels them to write, to record every vivid detail. They create a memoir of the event for their own release and to “entertain” others. This response confuses me and makes me wonder: is it because the words come easily to them, or is each one, as they are to me, a stiletto of exquisite pain they can somehow endure? What is the best medicine if your heart is an open wound? Is the exercise of recording such personal experiences viable as more than a personal exorcism? Will readers other than your friends and family care? Consider a scene in my own hell. Continue reading “Danse Macabre”

Memoir of a Memoirist

by Marlayna Glynn Brown
Being a memoirist isn’t easy. Creating art from real life requires story-telling talent, thick-skin, and the ability to hide a character’s identity without straying from truth. Writers like me, who couldn’t produce an entertaining piece of fiction to save their own lives, have no choice but to write what we know.

I’ve been an avid diarist for thirty years. It’s easy and natural for me to record events, thoughts, feelings and interpretations. When I was given writing assignments in high school, college and then grad school, I learned I could only base my work on what had really happened to me, and events I had actually experienced. Jumping from reality to imagination was never easy for me. Any time I tried to veer from reality and create a person or event that didn’t exist or happen, I found myself face to face with my own folly. The recording of actual events and people isn’t always necessarily interesting. A memoirist must be able to weave the threads of reality into a tale that others find entertaining. A memoirist can interlace facts with creative description, and events with ring-side interpretation. Characters and events can be presented, and sometimes shaded as the memoirist sees fit. A writer needn’t necessarily tell the reader anything in particular, and can merely present, or just partially describe without definition. Continue reading “Memoir of a Memoirist”