In the weeks since Alice Munro’s death, I’ve been thinking about this paradox: While she won the Nobel Prize and the highest respect of reviewers, she never won the hearts of the mass market audience. Why? Hmmm . . . should we start by thinking about the reasons we are … Read More
Month: May 2024
“Writing the memoir is in some ways like keeping one’s balance atop a narrow fence.”
A Review of “Find Your Story, Write Your Memoir” in 100 Words by Catherine Stover
Memoirists have to strike a difficult balance while attempting to meet two goals. Their first goal is to tell us about something that happened in their past by taking us back to the way life … Read More
“Every story has a moral, Doherty used to say, but most have more than two.”
Here is what I love about the pieces in this book: they are designed to surprise the reader. The stories build to not just one revelation, but often several. And they are sneaky. The last sentence of the last story made me gasp out loud. Because it was written with … Read More