I will be quoting from this post, Brooke, with memoir writers I'm coaching. The conversations I have with clients around the obligation to make meaning from experience are among the hardest conversations we have. And yet, this is the crux of forging a memoir that matters.
We writers of memoir definitely need to learn how to switch hats, moving from being the person re-experiencing the events and working at getting that reality down on paper, to the author working on craft, and learning how to make our writing universal, while still keeping it specific & true.
Thanks for the validation of the benefits in writing memoir—and there's magic, too. Tomorrow I'll post the final chapter in my memoir on Substack described there as: "Once Upon… A Storyteller’s Memoir" explores my first forty-two years in a narrative shaped by the Jungian concept of the heroine’s quest archetype that weaves mythic motifs throughout true events.
Linda Joy Myers encouraged me to serialized it on Substack, so I began October 2023, now with 750 subscribers and followers one year later. It has been most gratifying; I think most US and international readers were interested in the weaving of myth and fairytales of the feminine journey with my life story.
The magic is the amazing coincidence that this final chapter depicts my urgent flee from domestic violence with my one-year-old son from his dad; in real life my son's father suddenly passed away July 2024. Two weeks ago at his memorial, my son and I gave loving farewells to Michael Farrell. My Substack memoir of child abuse and domestic violence is now completely told, while the most present perpetrator of both over the last 45 years is memorialized. That life chapter is written, read, and the book is closed. A new chapter begins for me and my family. Magic of Memoir, indeed!
It's been a healing journey, one I've shared with readers in real time and in the magic time of synchronicity. I love how the intertwining of true and mythic stories happened in parallel dimensions. Also: REALLY glad this story is OVER!
Thanks to Linda Joy and you for the encouragement. xo
Kate, while you might be relieved and happy that the story is over, the way you have been telling it has been so well-crafted that I’ve looked forward to each installment. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I will personally miss it.
Thank you, Nita! There is an Epilogue to come next. Then I'm launching a brand new book on Substack that grew out of telling my memoir. It's a nonfiction guide on the heroine's journey: THE FAIRY TALE HEROINE: How to live and create her journey. First post, Oct. 7th. I hope you'll enjoy it, too!
This post came at such an apropos time, Brooke! Just this morning, I made a note that I think I've finally crossed the threshold from writing because I needed to continue my therapy for free and into the world of "How is the reader going to take it?" The event in my life that propelled me to write my memoir in the first place might not be the crux of the story after all, which is weird to witness, but it's also exciting. I think that's a good sign that my memoir is getting closer to what it needs to be. There's still sooooo much I need to do (like get better with the craft), but I think this is a milestone. Thank you once again, Brooke! I look forward to your weekly posts and they give me the kind of push I need.
Maybe one day I’ll find the courage to share my story, but I am too afraid to at this moment, and it’s still too fresh, to go there. I admire those who do.
Thank you for this, Brooke. So often I read terrible news about memoir, not just that it's self-indulgent, but also that it's nearly impossible to sell.
Your essay here springs me back into hope after long bouts of disappointment.
I just joined NAMW a couple of weeks ago and am eager to connect with other memoir writers and educators like you.
Thank you for this one, Brooke. I will share it with my memoir group, some of whom are writing of their own trauma. One writer who joined the group early on never did bring any writing to the couple of meetings she attended, and finally left after the first month--she clearly wasn't able to access and write her story yet. I hope she subscribes to your Substack and reads this one or maybe has an opportunity to join your "Six Months" class. Clearly she wants/needs to do the writing.
This is so beautiful. A vulnerable genre to write, but so healing if we can bring ourselves to do so. One thing with memoir is that we must re-experience those moments to put them on the page, the joyful and heartbreaking and traumatizing moments we lived through and never wanted to return to. But once we do, I’ve found that healing is on the other side of that.
As a survivor and now a writer of survival, I’ve gotten comfort and healing from memoirs that have similar experiences. That’s why I write.
Thank you so much for this, Brooke. Really powerful and helpful post.
Thank you Brooke (and Linda Joy) for the guidance during your 2020 memoir course and for your development help to uncover and articulate the deeper meaning of my story. It’s been a journey and I’m grateful for your partnership and look forward to the book’s debut in early 2026. Could not have done it without you. 💞hugs 🫶
Brooke, thank you for an excellent reminder to memoirists. I need to hear it periodically that unless we go beyond “what happened,” we haven’t done our job.
This is such a great piece, thank you. The "why" for others is absolutely central to why I write - the article I'm writing next week will be the first one getting more personal and focussing on something that will be part of the memoir + nonfiction book I'm working on. So I'm intrigued what the reactions will be. However, I only have 42 subscribers as yet, so it might be tumbleweed!
"The stories that most touch me are those that do the hard work of placing the most challenging experiences into a broader context." I am sure many of us feel the same way. And a writer of a certain memoir about her time in a federal prison said that one of the reasons she was moved to write her book was because as she was preparing to go to prison there was very little written about that experience. And when she got out of prison many people had many questions about prison, a world they knew little about. So she saw a need, and indeed a responsibility, to share her story and the stories of the women she served time with.
Brooke, I really appreciated this post and as much as I think placing personal experience in context can be a challenge for those of us perhaps less ready to write for others, I also think it can be a great tool for both processing our experiences, as well as overcoming writing blocks. As a therapist, this is not unlike what I do when my clients bring me their own stories they are struggling to understand. It helps tremendously in personal healing and processing to put our experiences in a social context. I also find it extremely helpful when I get stuck or overly myopic in my memoir writing to zoom out and consider the broader implications. By extension, I think this makes the writing more relatable, but that is usually a byproduct of my own grappling, and not always a result of writing directly to the reader. So yes, I agree placing our experiences in context can be a challenge for some, but I would also go as far as to say that it can be a useful strategy to employ when for whatever reason we find ourselves stuck with the writing.
It's interesting to think about whether putting your story in a broader context can also give you some needed distance. When you first start therapy maybe that's not what you need. So many people come to memoir writing through therapy, or because of therapy. But then it takes a lot to identify yourself and what happened to you in these broader contexts. None of it easy, and all of it a process of uncovering more and more about life and our place in it, right?
I think that's absolutely true, it all depends on how (and when) it's done in the therapeutic process. When it comes to therapy, I generally find that the ability to put our stories in a broader context is greatly enhanced by being further along in the healing process, but I have also seen it the other way around. In my life as a transracial adoptee, for example, I needed to process elements of my personal experience at a broader level (like my identity formation and how this was impacted by growing up in a white family and community) before I could begin to understand some of the more singular implications of my experiences (exoticization I experienced in my adoptive family, suppression of my ethnic identity, and so forth). When it comes to writing publishable memoir, I think having processed appropriately has to come first. Otherwise it does all read like therapy, because in some ways it is being used as such. Let me be clear, though, there is nothing wrong with this. I just think it helps to know that's what's happening so as writers we can set our expectations appropriately about what we are trying to achieve with our writing.
I also just want to say, I recently listened to the Charlie Jane Anders' (10-11-21) interview on Write-Minded and I think the concept of a diagnostic tool might be a useful one here. Like, if a writer is having trouble with connecting their story to a broader context, perhaps that is a sign that there is something more to work through or something that needs to be looked at closer. I am a strong writer, in my own way. I mean, I'm learning still (of course we all are), but I think I'm good enough to call myself a writer or even a memoirist. But usually when I run into issues in my manuscript, it's not because of a writing issue. Usually it's because I haven't grappled with something long enough to translate it well onto the page for a reader, as I think you are in some ways implying with this piece. So I just wanted to add that. Perhaps whether it connects to a broader context could be a question that is used as a diagnostic tool.
Thank you Brooke as always for your guidance. You and Linda Joy are the reason my memoir will be published in 2025 with SWP beginning with your wonderful 6 Month class and my continued work with Linda Joy. In telling my story I hope to be a guide and a light for others who have experienced something similar and it was because of Linda Joy's and your guidance and gentle reminders to write not only the "what happened" but the "why is it important to tell" that helped me to shape a memoir I am truly proud to share with the world, although I am grateful that you also provide a sacred safe space of understanding that there will also probably be "vulnerability hangovers" and shame attacks.
".,,,your memoir isn’t there, yet,...until you find ways to articulate the deeper meaning your story holds for yourself and for others." This is exactly where I am now, after several years of plumbing the depths and purging emotions. Your advice and insight are so valuable, Brooke. Many thanks.
I will be quoting from this post, Brooke, with memoir writers I'm coaching. The conversations I have with clients around the obligation to make meaning from experience are among the hardest conversations we have. And yet, this is the crux of forging a memoir that matters.
hey! I resemble that remark! ;-)
And you're not alone. Wink, wink.
We writers of memoir definitely need to learn how to switch hats, moving from being the person re-experiencing the events and working at getting that reality down on paper, to the author working on craft, and learning how to make our writing universal, while still keeping it specific & true.
Yes, well said and a hard balance!
Thanks for the validation of the benefits in writing memoir—and there's magic, too. Tomorrow I'll post the final chapter in my memoir on Substack described there as: "Once Upon… A Storyteller’s Memoir" explores my first forty-two years in a narrative shaped by the Jungian concept of the heroine’s quest archetype that weaves mythic motifs throughout true events.
Linda Joy Myers encouraged me to serialized it on Substack, so I began October 2023, now with 750 subscribers and followers one year later. It has been most gratifying; I think most US and international readers were interested in the weaving of myth and fairytales of the feminine journey with my life story.
The magic is the amazing coincidence that this final chapter depicts my urgent flee from domestic violence with my one-year-old son from his dad; in real life my son's father suddenly passed away July 2024. Two weeks ago at his memorial, my son and I gave loving farewells to Michael Farrell. My Substack memoir of child abuse and domestic violence is now completely told, while the most present perpetrator of both over the last 45 years is memorialized. That life chapter is written, read, and the book is closed. A new chapter begins for me and my family. Magic of Memoir, indeed!
How cool that you've been serializing, Kate. Congratulations on the final chapter! Thanks for sharing here too! Yes, there's deep magic.
It's been a healing journey, one I've shared with readers in real time and in the magic time of synchronicity. I love how the intertwining of true and mythic stories happened in parallel dimensions. Also: REALLY glad this story is OVER!
Thanks to Linda Joy and you for the encouragement. xo
Kate, while you might be relieved and happy that the story is over, the way you have been telling it has been so well-crafted that I’ve looked forward to each installment. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I will personally miss it.
Thank you, Nita! There is an Epilogue to come next. Then I'm launching a brand new book on Substack that grew out of telling my memoir. It's a nonfiction guide on the heroine's journey: THE FAIRY TALE HEROINE: How to live and create her journey. First post, Oct. 7th. I hope you'll enjoy it, too!
This post came at such an apropos time, Brooke! Just this morning, I made a note that I think I've finally crossed the threshold from writing because I needed to continue my therapy for free and into the world of "How is the reader going to take it?" The event in my life that propelled me to write my memoir in the first place might not be the crux of the story after all, which is weird to witness, but it's also exciting. I think that's a good sign that my memoir is getting closer to what it needs to be. There's still sooooo much I need to do (like get better with the craft), but I think this is a milestone. Thank you once again, Brooke! I look forward to your weekly posts and they give me the kind of push I need.
Thanks for sharing this, Rafia. So good to ask ourselves interrogating questions along the way. And celebrating this milestone with you!
Thank you, Brooke!
Maybe one day I’ll find the courage to share my story, but I am too afraid to at this moment, and it’s still too fresh, to go there. I admire those who do.
Thank you for this, Brooke. So often I read terrible news about memoir, not just that it's self-indulgent, but also that it's nearly impossible to sell.
Your essay here springs me back into hope after long bouts of disappointment.
I just joined NAMW a couple of weeks ago and am eager to connect with other memoir writers and educators like you.
Great, so glad you did, Jeannie. Great content at NAMW!
Thank you for this one, Brooke. I will share it with my memoir group, some of whom are writing of their own trauma. One writer who joined the group early on never did bring any writing to the couple of meetings she attended, and finally left after the first month--she clearly wasn't able to access and write her story yet. I hope she subscribes to your Substack and reads this one or maybe has an opportunity to join your "Six Months" class. Clearly she wants/needs to do the writing.
It definitely takes the time it takes, Judy. Can't wait to be with you in SMdA!
This is so beautiful. A vulnerable genre to write, but so healing if we can bring ourselves to do so. One thing with memoir is that we must re-experience those moments to put them on the page, the joyful and heartbreaking and traumatizing moments we lived through and never wanted to return to. But once we do, I’ve found that healing is on the other side of that.
As a survivor and now a writer of survival, I’ve gotten comfort and healing from memoirs that have similar experiences. That’s why I write.
Thank you so much for this, Brooke. Really powerful and helpful post.
Thank you Brooke (and Linda Joy) for the guidance during your 2020 memoir course and for your development help to uncover and articulate the deeper meaning of my story. It’s been a journey and I’m grateful for your partnership and look forward to the book’s debut in early 2026. Could not have done it without you. 💞hugs 🫶
So excited for your debut also. A long time coming and it's time!
Brooke, thank you for an excellent reminder to memoirists. I need to hear it periodically that unless we go beyond “what happened,” we haven’t done our job.
This was like a telegraph to my heart with impeccable timing! Thank you!
This is such a great piece, thank you. The "why" for others is absolutely central to why I write - the article I'm writing next week will be the first one getting more personal and focussing on something that will be part of the memoir + nonfiction book I'm working on. So I'm intrigued what the reactions will be. However, I only have 42 subscribers as yet, so it might be tumbleweed!
42 and growing, Susannah!
"The stories that most touch me are those that do the hard work of placing the most challenging experiences into a broader context." I am sure many of us feel the same way. And a writer of a certain memoir about her time in a federal prison said that one of the reasons she was moved to write her book was because as she was preparing to go to prison there was very little written about that experience. And when she got out of prison many people had many questions about prison, a world they knew little about. So she saw a need, and indeed a responsibility, to share her story and the stories of the women she served time with.
Thanks for sharing this motivation and inspiration, Larry. Good, solid reasons to get the work out in the world, and apparently it resonated.
Brooke, I really appreciated this post and as much as I think placing personal experience in context can be a challenge for those of us perhaps less ready to write for others, I also think it can be a great tool for both processing our experiences, as well as overcoming writing blocks. As a therapist, this is not unlike what I do when my clients bring me their own stories they are struggling to understand. It helps tremendously in personal healing and processing to put our experiences in a social context. I also find it extremely helpful when I get stuck or overly myopic in my memoir writing to zoom out and consider the broader implications. By extension, I think this makes the writing more relatable, but that is usually a byproduct of my own grappling, and not always a result of writing directly to the reader. So yes, I agree placing our experiences in context can be a challenge for some, but I would also go as far as to say that it can be a useful strategy to employ when for whatever reason we find ourselves stuck with the writing.
It's interesting to think about whether putting your story in a broader context can also give you some needed distance. When you first start therapy maybe that's not what you need. So many people come to memoir writing through therapy, or because of therapy. But then it takes a lot to identify yourself and what happened to you in these broader contexts. None of it easy, and all of it a process of uncovering more and more about life and our place in it, right?
I think that's absolutely true, it all depends on how (and when) it's done in the therapeutic process. When it comes to therapy, I generally find that the ability to put our stories in a broader context is greatly enhanced by being further along in the healing process, but I have also seen it the other way around. In my life as a transracial adoptee, for example, I needed to process elements of my personal experience at a broader level (like my identity formation and how this was impacted by growing up in a white family and community) before I could begin to understand some of the more singular implications of my experiences (exoticization I experienced in my adoptive family, suppression of my ethnic identity, and so forth). When it comes to writing publishable memoir, I think having processed appropriately has to come first. Otherwise it does all read like therapy, because in some ways it is being used as such. Let me be clear, though, there is nothing wrong with this. I just think it helps to know that's what's happening so as writers we can set our expectations appropriately about what we are trying to achieve with our writing.
I also just want to say, I recently listened to the Charlie Jane Anders' (10-11-21) interview on Write-Minded and I think the concept of a diagnostic tool might be a useful one here. Like, if a writer is having trouble with connecting their story to a broader context, perhaps that is a sign that there is something more to work through or something that needs to be looked at closer. I am a strong writer, in my own way. I mean, I'm learning still (of course we all are), but I think I'm good enough to call myself a writer or even a memoirist. But usually when I run into issues in my manuscript, it's not because of a writing issue. Usually it's because I haven't grappled with something long enough to translate it well onto the page for a reader, as I think you are in some ways implying with this piece. So I just wanted to add that. Perhaps whether it connects to a broader context could be a question that is used as a diagnostic tool.
Thank you Brooke as always for your guidance. You and Linda Joy are the reason my memoir will be published in 2025 with SWP beginning with your wonderful 6 Month class and my continued work with Linda Joy. In telling my story I hope to be a guide and a light for others who have experienced something similar and it was because of Linda Joy's and your guidance and gentle reminders to write not only the "what happened" but the "why is it important to tell" that helped me to shape a memoir I am truly proud to share with the world, although I am grateful that you also provide a sacred safe space of understanding that there will also probably be "vulnerability hangovers" and shame attacks.
I'm so proud of how far you've come, Wendy. You've been open and receptive and determined. Congratulations, Sister!
".,,,your memoir isn’t there, yet,...until you find ways to articulate the deeper meaning your story holds for yourself and for others." This is exactly where I am now, after several years of plumbing the depths and purging emotions. Your advice and insight are so valuable, Brooke. Many thanks.
Glad to hear this for you, Karen! Powerful to know you're at that threshold.