Memoir Land
Four verticals edited by Sari Botton: MEMOIR MONDAY, collab w/ Granta, Narratively, The Rumpus, Orion, The Walrus, Electric Lit, LitHub, Oldster; FIRST PERSON SINGULAR original essays; THE LIT LAB interviews + craft; GOODBYE TO ALL THAT, NYC stories.
Recommendations
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The Walrus
E. Jean Carroll
The Real Sarah Miller
Sari Botton
sam baker
First Person Singular
The Sandwich
Yi Xue looks back on the lunch staple that marked her first meal in America, and served as something of a rite of passage.
Remember Us As We Were
For Kasey Payette, queer heartbreak leads to an investigation of burial practices, historical erasure, and what details of our lives will outlast us.
Close the Cabinet
Starina Catchatoorian recalls giving her ex-husband an ultimatum.
The Sitting Month
Jiadai Lin examines her relationship with her mother during the first month postpartum—a tender and sensitive time of healing in Chinese culture.
Not Everyone Survived
Lori Yeghiayan Friedman weighs the lasting trauma of a 1988 car accident that took the lives her her high school classmates.
In Defense of Sydney
Looking back at journal entries he wrote as a love-lorn closeted teen, Mike Albo finds kinship with a needy AI chatbot.
The Lit Lab
How's the Writing Going, Deesha Philyaw?
“For me, getting better as a writer is learning how to get to the essence of things and boil down all of that exposition and backstory.”
Writing and Rushing
Novelist Richard Mirabella would like to remind you (and himself) to resist the pressure to finish your book in a flash.
How's the Writing Going, Cheryl Strayed?
“I love writing. I really do. Even though I often hate it at various points in the process. Learning to accept that has been so important to me.”
How's the Writing Going, R.O. Kwon?
“I know that when I’m really writing, when I’m really, really lost in a sentence, I forget I have a body, I forget what time is. I forget to eat.”
How's the Writing Going, Bernice McFadden?
Fellow Libras Bernice McFadden and Sari Botton talk about the challenges of writing personal narrative, identifying the right nonfiction sub-genre, and writing under pseudonyms.
Three-Time Memoirist Switches to Narrative Nonfiction
Helene Stapinski on taking a break from a genre she loves, but which often landed her in hot water with family.