Memoir Snob

A conversation with the author of My Salinger Year. How many characters do you really need? Make a list. Every character needs to be fully-fleshed, each with their own motivations. In order to make them real, you need...

A conversation with the author of If You Must Go, I Wish You Triplets : -When you include your thoughts that are unkind, immature, or that you’re embarrassed to admit, it’s funny and relatable. “In the bedroom, I grab...

A conversation with the author of It Must Be Beautiful To Be Finished. -The key to writing about someone you love who you’ve also been hurt by, is to write with empathy. Think about their perspective and their...

A conversation with the author of Happy To Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser. LINKS Books: Happy To Help When Did I Get Like This? Essay: Why I Didn't Want A Girl (originally titled: A Daughter At Last) Podcast: What...

Here’s what I learned from Happy To Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser by Amy Wilson: Include your fantasies. It’s especially funny if you can incorporate four levels in the build up to the punchline: First: set the...

Memoir deep dive #21 Here’s what I learned from Here After by Amy Lin: One way to treat your audience like a genius is to not say the next obvious thing. Where can I leave out what the reader already knows is coming...

Here's what I learned from Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd: -When writing memoir, never insert present knowledge about your past if it means condemning your past self or celebrating...

Here’s what I learned from my conversation with Sandy Schnakenburg, author of The Housekeeper's Secret : When you’re writing about a tragic or shocking event, one way to create suspense is to tease that something bad is...

Here’s what I learned from Long Live The Tribe Of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden: First lines should make the reader curious to read more. They can be surprising, specific, and/or present a conflict. It’s important...

Here’s what I learned from Still Life At Eighty by Abigail Thomas: Revealing the dark parts of yourself in writing makes those things less scary and less powerful. Simple, clear, no-frill writing can be just as powerful...

Here’s what I learned from My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff: How to write dialogue in a novelistic or cinematic way: Include details about the surrounding area. The weather, scenery, anything the characters interact...

Sam is back to discuss more marital arguments, though he insists they rarely argue while Charlie insists they argue plenty.

I submitted a personal essay to the New York Times weekly column, Modern Love. In this episode I talk about how I learned about the column, how I decided to submit an essay under my real name, and a little context for...

Here’s what I learned from three sobriety memoirs: The Night of the Gun by David Carr: Interview the people from your past. It doesn’t have to be formal or recorded. It could be as simple as a text message to see what...

Heres’s what I learned from Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp AND The Elements Of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. Anaphora is when you start each phrase, sentence, or paragraph with the same word or words. But be...