Paula Balzer - Writing & Selling Your Memoir: How to Craft Your Life Story So That Somebody Else Will Actually Want to Read It

I can still remember the day that I first fell in love with a memoir. It was on a day much like today in facta cold day, relentless with rain. I had been living in New York City for about a year, had my first post-college job, and was living in a tiny studio apartment that I adored despite its many pitfalls. While I was lucky to be gainfully employed (somewhat gainfully anyway) and to have found a semi-decent place to live, I still hadnt been here long enough to fully integrate myself into my new hometown. New York was exciting yes, but tough going at times. It was lonely, and I often felt like I was the only person in an entire city of six million who didnt have a few friends she could call up to have brunch or make plans to see a movie. So, books were my solace, and I tore through them like crazy that first year. Stocking up on a few novels on Sunday afternoons became a ritual, and it was during a visit to Brooklyns BookCourt that I happened upon Mary Cantwells Manhattan, When I Was Young. While I cant honestly say it was the first memoir I had read, I know its the first one that made a lasting impression. I immediately connected with Cantwells story of moving to New York City to work in publishing, even though her affair with the city started a good forty years before mine did. I felt an instant kinship with her narrative that was unlike anything I had felt when reading fiction. Like all book lovers, I have my favorite characters, and have found myself closely relating to Beverly Clearys charming, though undeniably awkward, Ramona Quimby since the age of eight. On a good day, I might feel a bit like Harper Lees formidable Scoutor after a day of too much online shopping, I might relate to Edith Whartons classic spendthrift, Lily Bart a bit more closely than I would like to. And during most of my twenties, Bridget Jones was my personal hero. But there was something about reading a real account of a young womans early years in New York City that spoke directly to me. I understood the thrill that a new city brings, even if being lost on the subway or sharing your apartment with large flying insects are part of the equation. Cantwell writes of her first New York City apartment with an elegance that has made her memoir a classic:

The furnituretwo studio couches, a big table, a couple of hard chairs, and a pier glass leaning against the fireplacebelongs to the landlord. We have our reading lamps from college, though, and Alliess phonograph, and ironing board and iron from S. Kleins on Union Square, some pots and pans, a small bottle of vermouth, and a fifth of Dixie Belle Gin. We have, in short, everything we need, anyway. There are nights when, cross-legged on my studio couch, Vivaldis Four Seasons on the phonograph and stray cats scrabbling in the weeds outside the kitchen window, I can feel joy exploding in my chest.

That paragraph perfectly captures the promise of adventure, a womans life unfoldingsomething big starting from almost nothing, and in a way, this is really what writing a memoir is all about. There are too many memoirs to count that have started from small storiesa child ignored but somehow growing up strong and successful; a woman losing herself in her marriage but choosing to cast her grief aside and take a long, healing trip; a boy in the projects of Red Hook who believed God was the color of water. And another boy, this one in Ireland, whose house was floodedbut never mind, his family just pretended they lived in Venice. Could the authors of The Glass Castle; Eat, Pray, Love; The Color of Water; and Angelas Ashes ever imagined that these singular details of their lives would eventually be turned into stories that would be read by millions of people around the world? And while the aforementioned memoirs are wonderful, there are many memoirs that are equally riveting but arent exactly household names. I sincerely hope that this book will inspire you to experiment and read a few that you might not be familiar with.

Since reading Mary Cantwells story, Ive been delighted to learn that the world is full of wonderful storytellersand as you probably know, there is a memoir to be found on almost every topic. Since most of us cant just go off to Italy or India for a year, or easily quit our jobs to try culinary school, sometimes reading a good memoir on the topic is the next best thing. And while Ive always been curious about the goings-on in restaurant kitchens and culinary school greatly interests me, I know Im much better offand a lot safercooking in my own kitchen, so memoirs are the perfect stand-in. Then there are the memoirs where Im so incredibly grateful I havent had the same experienceThe Glass Castle, Angelas Ashes, Blackbirdthese are the memoirs that make me hug my family closer at night and nearly burst with gratitude over having something as simple as a hug from my young daughter. Memoirs are powerful and full of feeling, and they stick with you unlike books from any other genre.

The very fact that youre reading this book suggests that you, too, are a lover of other peoples stories and, like me, have a relentless fascination with the lives of other people. You cant help but wonder what kinds of apartments people on the bus are going home to, or why it is the man in line next to you at the grocery store is buying flowers. Is he proposing? Did he have a fight with his wife? Or does he just like the way flowers look in his dining room? You find the smallest of details fascinating and nothing escapes you. Memoir lovers are a nosy lot, and wonderful tales are often spun from the smallest of details, which is probably why Ive never stopped reading memoirs since the day I stumbled upon