The Journey of Memoir Starts with You
When you decide to write a memoir, you begin a journey into the heart of who you are. You draw upon your memories, desires, and imagination to capture important moments that you believe might someday become a book. Maybe you're drawn to investigate your story, or even to settle some old scores (internally and externally). But as a memoirist, you'll soon learn that sharing your wisdom and what you've learned in your life is at the heart of the effort—and getting the writing done is often the greatest challenge.
For fifteen years, starting in 2012, Brooke Warner and Linda Joy Myers collaborated to teach the Write Your Memoir in Six Months course, a biannual memoir intensive. There have been shorter courses and series as well, including their "What Makes a Bestselling Memoir" series, Mastering Memoir, Mastering Structure, and others. As of 2026, Linda Joy and Brooke have decided to focus individually on their own communities—Linda Joy on National Association of Memoir Writers and Brooke on Memoir Nation.
This fall of 2026, Brooke will teach Write Your Memoir in Six Months (dates and registration can be found here), enrolling ten memoir students. Linda Joy is offering various courses this year, largely focused on her new book, The Heart and Craft of Writing a Healing Memoir, which will be part of the Sibyl Writing Craft series through Sibylline Press, due to release in January 2027.
As coaches and writers, Brooke and Linda Joy both know that good, consistent writing emerges and blossoms in an environment of structure, accountability, and encouragement. These have always been the cornerstones of Write Your Memoir in Six Months. In this fall's Write Your Memoir in Six Months, you and a cohort of nine other memoirists will embark upon a journey together that will culminate in a draft of the book you’ve been wanting, needing, and longing to write. Along your memoir-writing journey, you will encounter three stages—the excitement of getting started; the muddy middle where you may encounter a few snarls and saboteurs; and then there’s the long-range view to the end, when you’re weaving all the pieces together and the finish line is in sight.
Here are the five things any memoirist needs for this journey:
Consistency—your body in front of the computer regularly.
Accountability—someone who’s expecting you to deliver on your commitment to yourself.
Goals—when you have goals, you’ll know when you reach them.
Guts—the sheer determination to write and write, consult, edit, rethink, and write some more.
Patience—it takes time, and so much patience, to write a book. But you can only do it one sentence at a time.
