You hear about the amazing memoir everyone’s reading, that book at the top of the New York Times best-seller list for months, but you don’t really want to read it. Best-selling memoirs can throw you off track with your own writing
Sound like you?
As a memoir coach for hundreds of writers over the last two decades, I’ve heard this complaint too many times. And I know this: reading successful memoirs can be inspiring and those books can be your greatest teachers.
Artists have mentors. Painters visit museums and galleries to learn from other painters. Musicians go to concerts by esteemed musicians. Writers need to read successful authors in the genre they prefer.
Stephen King, a renowned and prolific writer, says, “…to be a writer you must do two things above all others: Read a lot and write a lot.”
I agree wholeheartedly, and I will drill down on this point more deeply.
Read the Best of the Best in Your Chosen Genre
Read current best-sellers and older classics. Be aware of what you like and don’t like. Notice the author’s use of scene and narration, how they handle the passage of time.
Remember: Your story is as important as any best-selling memoirist’s. Every writer with a successful book has put in the time it takes to get there.
Some of my favorite memoirs are Martha Beck’s Expecting Adam, Russell Baker’s Growing Up, James McBride’s The Color of Water, Elizabeth Gilbert Eat, Pray, Love. I admire each of these authors for different reasons. I could (and have) read their books again and again.
Novelists sometimes write memoirs, too. Hemingway’s memoir is A Movable Feast. Amy Tam wrote The Opposite of Fate. Isabel Allende published The Sum of Our Days. Joan Didion’s memoir is The Year of Magical Thinking, Alice Walker’s is The Chicken Chronicles. Look up a few of your favorite novelists and find and read their memoirs.
When you feel your own worth in the presence of greatness, that greatness can fuel your best writing. There’s a seat for you at the table too.
Suzanne Sherman is an author, book and magazine editor, and writing and publishing coach and consultant. She specializes in memoir and nonfiction and offers a weekly memoir writing class on Zoom. Her latest book is Girlhood in America: Personal Stories 1910-2010.
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