I’m always on the look-out for other writers of travel memoir. So I was psyched to connect with Marianne Elliott, who’s working on a book about peacekeeping in Afghanistan. Marianne’s from New Zealand, and she’s living there now while editing her book and building her yoga practice. We became Web-friends while she was looking for […]
I recently critiqued several chapters for a writer I met on Twitter. She knew it would be beneficial to join a critique group. But how, she asked, was she supposed to find one? Lots of writers have blogged about the value of critique groups. (If you’re still not convinced you should join one, read these […]
In her interview here last week, author Mary Morris offered some great insight that I think is worth fleshing out. She wrote: To me real travel writing is predominately about place. But in my travel writing it seems to be more about people (and often I'd have to admit myself) as some story is unfolding. […]
I have this fantasy of writing not just one travel memoir, but many. Of traveling and writing for a living. Of making this journey into a lifestyle. So I was thrilled to interview a woman who has done just that. Mary Morris has written four travel memoirs. Four! And she’s done it without becoming a […]
My manuscript is complete! Ready for submission! Word count: 83,500 Microsoft Word pages: 280 Chapters: 33 Time to write: 13 months Dance with me! C’mon, you know you want to.
Are you reading Dani Shapiro‘s new memoir, Devotion? I am! I am! Had to buy it after interviewing Dani earlier this month. Partly because I wished I had a book club to discuss it with, I asked Dani if she’d be interested in visiting a vitual book club, through a Twitter chat. She agreed! Details: […]
I keep a yellow Post-it note behind my computer. It reads: *Why you should follow your dream* Appreciate what you have Value of solo travel You can probably tell what these three phrases have in common: they’re themes in my book. Why you should follow your dream gets asterisks because it’s the main theme. I’m […]
Author Dani Shapiro said something in Monday’s interview that struck a chord with me: The art of memoir isn’t in discovering what happened, but rather, in how to tell the story. If she’d told me this before I wrote my memoir, I wouldn’t have believed her. Memoir is largely about recounting what happened during a […]
Back in July, I read an essay about the making of memoir by an author named Dani Shapiro. She really impressed me, both because she offered insight into the genre and because her piece was so beautifully written. Then I heard she was about to publish another memoir. And I thought, I want to read […]
Every once in a while I come across a piece of writing advice that really resonates with me. And when I reviewed Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed last week, I forgot to mention that she had one of these bits in her book. In Gilbert’s prologue, she writes about her difficulties writing Committed, how she ditched her […]