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Short Memoir in Various Print Forms
Risk, Courage, and Women: Contemporary
Voices in Prose and Poetry
edited by Karen A. Waldron, Janice H. Brazil
and Laura M. Labatt
This unique collection of narratives, essays, and poems includes an original interview with Maya Angelou and pieces by Naomi Shihab Nye, Pat Mora, Rosemary Catacalos, and many others. Each work relates how women have demonstrated courage by taking a risk that has changed their lives.
The Spirit of Writing: Classic and Contemporary
Essays Celebrating the Writing Life
edited by Mark Robert Waldman
Contributors such as Annie Dillard, Stephen King, Sindewe Magona, Natalie Goldberg, Erica Jong, Sylvia Plath, Anne Lamott and more reflecting on their joys and frustrations of the writing life.
I Know What the Red Clay Looks Like:
The Voice and Vision of Black Women Writers
edited by Rebecca Carroll
Fifteen Interviews of some of the most sophisticated writers sharing their deepest feelings about race, gender and their craft.
Voices from St. Simons: Personal Narratives of an Island’s Past
edited by Stephen Doster
A regionally inspired collection of oral narratives of a Georgia Coastal community.
Close to the Bone: Memoirs of Hurt, Rage and Desire
edited by Laurie Stone
A collection of short memoir wherein eight acclaimed writers go about the risky business of telling their own secrets.
Souls of My Sisters: Black Women Break Their Silence, Tell their Stories, and Heal their Spirits
by Dawn Marie Daniels and Candance Sandy
Powerful short essays and memoir and ultimately uplifting stories that relate with raw honesty their experiences.
Survival Stories: Memoir of Crisis
edited by Kathryn Rhett
An anthology of memoir born from the workshop the author taught on memoir and crisis. The confessional anthology is comprised of well-written essays by 20 different authors, such as Reynolds Price and Rick Moody, all dealing with difficult situations: death, divorce, insanity, serious illness, and traumatic childhoods.
Tougaloo Blues
by Kelly Norman Ellis
Powerful autobiographical poetry.
Gifts of Age: Portraits and Essays of 32 Remarkable Women
by Charlotte Painter and Pamela Valois
A collection of photographs and personal narratives of remarkable women aged sixty-five and above, that explores maturity and wisdom as discovered by finding oneself and one’s place in the complexities of a long life.
Listening is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from
the StoryCorps Project
edited by Dave Isay
A collection of StoryCorps’ most remarkable stories from their oral storytelling project that paints a portrait of American Life.
Coming into Our Fullness: On Women Turning Forty
by Cathleen Rountree
This is a collection of interviews with eighteen remarkable women including those such as Judy Chicago, Deena Metzger, Aisika Razak, Maxine Hong Kingston and more.
Modern American Memoirs
by Annie Dillard and Cort Conley
This is a collection of autobiographical writing published between 1917 and 1992 by nine women and 26 men, both black and white, some better known than others, all distinguished writers and wonderful storytellers.
I Dream a World: Portraits of Black Women
Who Changed America
edited by Brian Lanker, with a forward by Maya Angelou
This collection of photographs and essays is one of the most awe-inspiring showcases of African-American women.
My Spirit Flies: Portraits and Prose of Women in Their Power
edited by M. Cathy Angell
This is a collection of photographs and essays that allowed 35 women to name, then honor, the moments in their lives when they felt passionate, strong, focused, creative, and balanced.
What I Know Now: Letters to My Younger Self
edited by Ellyn Spragins
Extraordinary women share the wisdom they wish they had when they were younger. Includes letters written by Maya Angelou, Madeleine Albright, Macy Gray, Phylicia Rashad, and Queen Noor of Jordan and more.
The Faces of Fantasy
by Patti Perret
Perrett traveled thousands of miles, traversing two continents to create this stunning and definitive collection of photographs of over a hundred of today’s top fantasy writers. A great collection of writers and their narratives, including Charles de Lint, George R.R. Martin, Katherine Kerr, and Joyce Carol Oates.
Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over 50
by Michael Cunningham and Connie Briscoe
Introduction by Nikki Giovanni
A Treasure of a book including fantastic photography and even more fantastic narratives from jewels from the African American community including Marita Golden, Johnnetta B. Cole, Ruby Dee, Marie D. Brown, Marian Wright Edelman, Eleanor Holmes Norton just to name a precious few.
Short Memoir in Other Creative Forms
Fine Art:
Civic Endurance
The exhibit of Bradley McCallum & Jacqueline Tarry
A series of life-size color Portrait Photography with video documenting homeless Seattle teenagers. The portraits were taken minutes before each youth’s Endurance performance. The 26 homeless teens stood for an hour looking directly into a camera (hidden from the public) for an hour without speaking while the world passed them by.
See/Read their short memoir as they gave their testimony during an audiotaped interview: ENDURANCE
In Her Place
by Peggy Fleming
In Her Place is a collection of wonderful photographs accompanied by short narratives of prose or poetry of women in their chosen place or space or activity. This photographic essay showcases a sharing of personal sanctuaries.
www.InHerPlace.com
Film:
My Hero Film Festival short films is on-line media journal that celebrates the best of humanity. This project inspires people of all ages with hero stories from around the world promoting literacy and cross cultural communication, peace, human rights and environmental awareness. View Hero Clips
National, Traveling Oral Storytelling Project:
The StoryCorps Project: The Conversation of a Lifetime
StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.
Listen to interviews drawn from the more than 17,000 conversations recorded across the country. The basis of the traveling oral project, the book, Listetning is An Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project, and NPR show.
Resources for Generating Memoir
Your Life As Story: Discovering the New Autobiography and
Writing Memoir as Literature
by Tristine Rainer
A valuable discourse on the subject of extracting story from life’s experiences and how to transcribe them. This is a strong resource by one of the masters of of the journal writing and storytelling tribe.
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
by Natalie Goldberg
Through particular associative, and meditative exercises, master creative writing teacher bases her instruction on the premise that to write memoir, we must first know how to remember. A guide to the attentive states of thought for discovering and opening forgotten doors of memory, this book welcomes aspiring writers of all levels and encourages them to find their unique voice to tell their stories.
Click here to view Natalie Goldberg
All About Me
by Phillip Keel
A Unique Question and Answer Book with questions for generating the story of your life.
Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art
by Judith Barrington
Answering the key question, "What were the rules of memoir anyway?" the author answers it with this insightful book, which combines stimulating literary analysis with a great deal of practical information and excellent advice.
Storycatcher: Making Sense of Our Lives through the Power
and Practice of Story
by Christina Baldwin
An invaluable resource and guide by another one the masters of the journal writing and storytelling tribe.
Your Mythic Journey: Finding Meaning in Your Life Through
Writing and Storytelling
by Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox
As featured on the Bill Moyers PBS Special, this book is a strong resource for examining ourselves and our personal myths to uncover storylines in our own lives.
The Illustrated Discovery Journal:
Creating a Visual Autobiography of Your Authentic Self
by Sara Ban Breathnach
This is a book designed to put you on the path of intuition and feeling as you explore and reverently reflect on your life.
Unwritten Letters: Letter Writing As a Way to Finish
the Unfinished Business of Your Life
by Ilene Segalove
This book of self-discovery offers the Unsent Letter technique for tying up loose ends and describes the art of correspondence as a journaling method. By expressing love, guilt, fear, anger, sadness, gratitude, or any other emotion through letters that may never be sent, Segalove shows how we can finally say the things we wish we could have said without the consequences we feared.
How Do We Know Who We Are? A Biography of Self
by Arnold M. Ludwig
A stimulating and provocative inquiry into the question of the self from a philosophical and psychological perspective.
Life’s Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest
by Christina Baldwin
Journal writing as a tool for inner development providing techniques to nurture the writer within you.
List Your Self: Listmaking as the Way to Self-Discovery
by IIene Seglove and Bob Velick
This books is filled with journaling prompts to get you on your way to using the List journal writing technique as a method for self discovery and self expression.
The Story of a Lifetime: A Keepsake of Personal Memoirs
by Stephen and Pamela Pavuk
A book of prompts that help to get to the center of who you are and makes you think of life choices.
To Our Children's Children: Preserving Family Histories for
Generations to Come
by Bob Greene
A collection of over one thousand evocative questions, the book offered a very personal, human approach to genealogy, awakening readers to the possibility of creating a family history through the simple act of remembering.
The Book of Myself: A Do-It-Yourself Autobiography
in 201 Questions
by David Marshall
This is a book written by a grandfather-grandson pair with questions--one per page, divided into early, middle, and late years, and then again into sections concerning family, friends, education, work and responsibilities, and the world to help organize and generate memories into family memoir.
The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing: How to
Transform Memories Into Meaningful Stories
by Sharon M. Lippincott
This guide helps beginning writers bring their stories out into the light. She outlines the art and craft of telling the True story, and offers writers practical tips for finding and shaping their voices on the page.
How to Write Your Memoirs: Fun Prompts to Make Writing and Reading Your Life Stories a Pleasure!
by Ina Hillebrandt
A spiral bound resource book filled with fun to use prompts and easy going tips for organizing your thoughts.
How to Write Your Own Life Story: The Classic Guide for the
Nonprofessional Writer
by Lois Daniel
This encouraging guide helps readers record the events of their lives. Excerpts from other writers’ work are included to exemplify and inspire. Provided are tips on intriguing topics to write about, foolproof tricks to jog your memory, and ways to capture stories on paper without getting bogged down.
Writing Your Life: An Easy-to-Follow Guide to Writing an Autobiography
by Mary Borg
This user-friendly book provides questions to assist in writing autobiography. Writing tips and excerpts from autobiography are used to give practical guidance.
The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative
by Vivian Gornick
In plain and direct style, she discusses diverse writers in a primer-style approach. Using lengthy excerpts from her favorites, Gornick presents a psychology of writing.
Writing Life Stories
by Bill Roorbach
With an understanding that writing memoir is not as simple as recording memories, this book is a clear, step-by-step writing class with excellent exercises, covering all the elements of good writing, including characters, description, details, metaphor, and some basic considerations about doing research.
The Power of Words: Social and Personal Transformation through the Spoken, Written and Sung Word
Eds. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg & Janet Tallman
A very comprehensive groundbreaking book on the transformative power of expressive and creative writing. A collection of critical essays on how Transformative Language Arts (TLA) draws from literature, creative writing, education, psychology, mythology, and social welfare. www.TLANetwork.org
Organizations
Center for Autobiographic Studies
The site of esteemed Diarist Tristine Rainer, author of
Your Life As Story: Discovering the New Autobiography and
Writing Memoir as Literature
www.StoryHelp.com
National Association of Memoir Writers
Where writers receive support in solving challenging questions about writing a memoir, the writing life, and a path to successful publication.
www.NAMW.org
Write it Out!
Anne Flazman, publisher of the Fearless Memoir Writing booklets designed to assist and inspire people to write about their lives.
www.WriteitOut.net
The Memoir Institute
The Memoir Institute offers creative writing guidance, from highly regarded authors, to assist new writers in shaping thier own life stories into literary works.
The Memoir Institute
Modern Memoirs, Inc.
Modern Memoirs provides expert writing, editing, and publishing for memoir writers as well as non-writers who need professional writing assistance and other services.
Modern Memoirs Inc.
Grapevine Life Stories
This company provides assistance with writing, editing, design and publication of memoir and personal history using an interviewing process to assist in creating the framework to construct a coherent and artful narrative and producing an attractive, readable book design. Contact Susan Schoch, Box 200, Idledale, CO 80453; grapevinecabin@aol.com
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