memoirs

Now Read This!: March Memoir Madness

Posted on 03/12/2013 by | AARP Blog Author | Comments

EntertainmentMemoirs are tricky. The best of them, like Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle, are brutally honest stories that have you laughing at a feckless father’s shenanigans in one moment and crying over a callous mother’s dismissal of her daughter in the next. The worst are what I call “stunt memoirs” — gimmicky accounts of quixotic adventures the author never would have undertaken without a publisher’s advance in hand. You can tell you’ve come across a stunt memoir by examining its …

Write your life.

Posted on 07/12/2010 by | Archived Contributor | Comments

Your LifeCheck out these tips from AARP on how to write about your life story, whether it be a memoir, personal essay, or something entirely different. This simple advice can send you on your way to a beautiful piece to share with your loved ones, or a best-selling book to share with the world! Here’s one: Start with gripping. Best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert didn’t begin Eat, Pray, Love with the prosaic sentence “I was born in Waterbury, Connecticut.” Her first chapter …