Our archive of interviews with authors, publishers, agents, filmmakers, and other literary and publishing professionals.
When I was a child, my mother always twisted my long black hair in tight pigtails. But when her back was turned, I tossed off the rubber bands and delighted in feeling my hair going off in all directions, loose and unkempt. That was a metaphor moment for me, and it’s the kind of detail that author Marion Roach Smith promotes in her book The Memoir Project
The last two summers, I’ve had the good fortune to spend a week in June at Chautauqua Institution in New York where I do readings and teach writing workshops. On a particularly balmy Sunday afternoon, I sat on the porch of the Writer’s Center listening to that week’s prose writer-in-residence, David Lazar. His discussion focused…
I encourage students in my writing workshops to “write through” with the purpose of getting the story out of their heads and onto the page…. As the author of The 90-Day Novel, Watt has taken that writerly advice and created a successful step-by-step approach to story.
Whether you grew up in New Jersey as I did, or the rural Great Plains as did author Lacy M. Johnson, one’s childhood surroundings can’t help but seep into your pores and influence the way you view the world – even if you move many miles away.
Chris Charlesworth has been giving readers a glimpse into the rewards and pitfalls of the music business as editor with Omnibus Press in London, the world’s largest specialist publisher of music-related books…
Years ago I was in a little Cape Cod town poking around in its delightfully tiny indie bookshop with aisles so narrow that you had to walk sideways. I came across Dani Shapiro’s memoir Slow Motion…
Gale’s needs are simple yet extraordinary: She wants works of excellence. Nothing less will do.
It’s this sort of “memory” – or lack of – that interested writer Joshua Foer in his award-winning book “Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.”
When I first became a professional writer and began focusing on writing articles and essays, the name Dinty W. Moore was one name, in fact the only name, immediately associated with true blue creativity in the genre.
There is a wide divide between reality and remembering, and the memoirist is often left alone in his or her struggle to straddle that gap.
That’s why organizations such as the National Association of Memoir Writers, or NAMW, are so vital to a memoirist’s world. It’s the most important thing you can do for yourself as a writer: surround yourself with other writers. And for memoirists in particular, it’s often therapeutic to meet and converse with others who are facing the same challenges.
