Takeaway is the most important part of memoir writing that most memoirists don’t know how to do, or don’t do well or often enough. In my memoir classes, I share with students that I came to be so obsessed with takeaway first as an acquiring editor for Seal Press, because I knew as soon as I got to an editorial meeting, the marketing team would ask, “What’s the takeaway?” If it wasn’t apparent, the book wasn’t acquirable. Later, as I began to teach this genre and shepherd more authors through the … [Read more...]
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Write Your Memoir in Six Months in the News
Write Your Memoir in Six Months in the New York Times, along with five tips from Brooke about memoir writing:
1. FIND A WRITING PARTNER.
2. JOT DOWN ALL YOUR EXCUSES.
3. PAY YOURSELF FOR SHOWING UP.
4. KEEP A DAILY JOURNAL.
5. TURN OFF YOUR INTERNET.
Read the full article, "Appeal of Writing Memoirs Grows, as Do Publishing Options."
Read Brooke's 2021 interview, "Writing Your Story: The Healing Power of Memoir-Writing," in the San Jose Mercury News.
Linda Joy and our Write Your Memoir in Six Months course were previously covered by the Mercury News in 2015.
"I tell people that the more they learn to create a real scene, the more they learn to taste, feel and see what happened, the more they will tell a better story for other people. ... and the more they are going to heal themselves from the experience they're writing about."
—Linda Joy Myers.
Read the full article, "Writing Your Story: The Healing Power of Memoir-Writing"