« How To Stir Up Some Controversy | Main | "Never forget that writing is a business" : How To Stay Current on the Writing Business »

Feb22
"All memoirs are, to an extent, fake" : How To Defend Your Memoir

"Maybe memoirs were Bad," wrote Dave Eggers in his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. "Maybe writing about actual events, in the first person, if not from Ireland and before you turned seventy, was Bad."

Our featured guest this week is Josh Kilmer-Purcell, author of I AM NOT MYSELF THESE DAYS), a man who actually built a community of writers to defend the memior.

Along with Hillary Carlip (who wrote QUEEN OF THE ODDBALLS), Maria Dahvana Headley (who wrote THE YEAR OF YES) and Danielle Trussoni (who wrote FALLING THROUGH THE EARTH), he has rallied hundreds of writers around the world to build the Memoirists Collective community

Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing.

Jason Boog: 
So many people like to say things like, "Oh, so and so is too young to write a memoir" or "all memoirs are all fake." Why write a memoir now? How do you defend this art form against memoir-haters who have magically appeared over the last few years?

Josh Kilmer-Purcell:
Did somebody call me young? Who? When? I must send flowers. Continue reading...

 

All memoirs are, to an extent, fake. They're memory. And if anyone objects, I'd like them to write and tell me exactly what they ate for lunch fifteen years ago today. And what they were wearing. And who they were with.


Critics are fickle. They don't like memoir at the moment because it's popular. And critics are contrarians. If they weren't, there'd be no reason for them to exist.

Oprah and ilk hate memoirs because A Million Little Pieces wasn't quite as simplistic as she thought. When faced with an actual literary quandary, she reacted like a fundamentalist. Everything must be declared black or white, right or wrong, true or false.

Life doesn't work that way, and memoirs are lives. Perhaps that's why some people can't handle them.


3 Comments/Trackbacks




» "All memoirs are, to an extent, fake" : How To Defend Your Memoir from ThePublishingSpot
"Maybe memoirs were Bad," wrote Dave Eggers in his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. "Maybe writing about actual events, in the first person, if not from Ireland and before you turned seventy, was Bad." Our featured... [Read More]

» Know More Media Review: The YouTube, Jet Blue Round Up from Know More Media
  Big news this week, YouTube’s (GOOG) continued growing pains and Jet Blue Airways’ (JBLU) response in the aftermath of customer stranding. While there is a silver lining at the end of the proverbial tunnel for the discount airline,... [Read More]

» The Publishing Spot Library: Memoirist and Novelist Josh Kilmer-Purcell from ThePublishingSpot
"JB EWING: You’ll never get away with this you know. There are too many people here at the Castor Oil Barons’ Ball. FANNIE RAE EWING: Oh, I think I will. JB EWING: No you won’t.FANNIE RAE EWING: Will. JB: Won’t.... [Read More]

submit a trackback

TrackBack URL for this entry:

post a comment

Name, Email Address, and URL are not required fields.





Comment Preview

« How To Stir Up Some Controversy | Main | "Never forget that writing is a business" : How To Stay Current on the Writing Business »

Advertise

sponsored ads



topics

subscribe


Prefer Email?
Subscribe below-

Enter your Email:


Powered by FeedBlitz What's this?

Current News

Support This Blog

blogroll


My site was nominated for Best Education Blog!

 


Know More Media - Writing / Speaking

know more media network

View Network Map

Network Feed List (OPML)

Know More Media Network
Feed


we support unitus

PRWeb

Influencer



ThePublishingSpot is a member of the Know More Media network of business related blogs.

Here are some current headlines from some of our business publications:

ProductivityGoal

CallCenterScript

AdHurl

TheBizofKnowledge


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740

HealthCareVox

BrainBasedBusiness


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740


Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 619

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 620

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 621

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 622

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 737

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 738

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 739

Warning: date() expects parameter 2 to be long, string given in /usr/www/users/chrisycm/kmm-network/includes/rss2html/rss2html.php on line 740