Download or read book The Memoir Project written by Marion Roach Smith and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2011-06-09 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An extraordinary "practical resource for beginners" looking to write their own memoir—​now new and revised (Kirkus Reviews)! The greatest story you could write is one you've experienced yourself. Knowing where to start is the hardest part, but it just got a little easier with this essential guidebook for anyone wanting to write a memoir. Did you know that the #1 thing that baby boomers want to do in retirement is write a book—about themselves? It's not that every person has lived such a unique or dramatic life, but we inherently understand that writing a memoir—whether it's a book, blog, or just a letter to a child—is the single greatest path to self-examination. Through the use of disarmingly frank, but wildly fun tactics that offer you simple and effective guidelines that work, you can stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind writer's block. Previously self-published under the title, Writing What You Know: Raelia, this book has found an enthusiastic audience that now writes with intent.

Download or read book Tell Me True written by Patricia Hampl and published by Minnesota Historical Society. This book was released on 2008-10-14 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fourteen accomplished writers investigate the tantalizing gray area where memory and history intersect.

Download or read book Wired for Story written by Lisa Cron and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This guide reveals how writers can utilize cognitive storytelling strategies to craft stories that ignite readers’ brains and captivate them through each plot element. Imagine knowing what the brain craves from every tale it encounters, what fuels the success of any great story, and what keeps readers transfixed. Wired for Story reveals these cognitive secrets—and it’s a game-changer for anyone who has ever set pen to paper. The vast majority of writing advice focuses on “writing well” as if it were the same as telling a great story. This is exactly where many aspiring writers fail—they strive for beautiful metaphors, authentic dialogue, and interesting characters, losing sight of the one thing that every engaging story must do: ignite the brain’s hardwired desire to learn what happens next. When writers tap into the evolutionary purpose of story and electrify our curiosity, it triggers a delicious dopamine rush that tells us to pay attention. Without it, even the most perfect prose won’t hold anyone’s interest. Backed by recent breakthroughs in neuroscience as well as examples from novels, screenplays, and short stories, Wired for Story offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it. Each chapter zeroes in on an aspect of the brain, its corresponding revelation about story, and the way to apply it to your storytelling right now.

Download or read book Why Didn t You Tell Me written by Carmen Rita Wong and published by Crown. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An immigrant mother’s long-held secrets upend her daughter’s understanding of her family, her identity, and her place in the world in this powerful and dramatic memoir “Riveting . . . [Wong] tells her story in vivid conversational prose that will make readers feel they’re listening to a master storyteller on a long car trip. . . . Hers is a hero’s journey.”—The New York Times Book Review ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: PopSugar, Kirkus Reviews My mother carried a powerful secret. A secret that shaped my life and the lives of everyone around me in ways she could not have imagined. Carmen Rita Wong has always craved a sense of belonging: First as a toddler in a warm room full of Black and brown Latina women, like her mother, Lupe, cheering her dancing during her childhood in Harlem. And in Chinatown, where her immigrant father, “Papi” Wong, a hustler, would show her and her older brother off in opulent restaurants decorated in red and gold. Then came the almost exclusively white playgrounds of New Hampshire after her mother married her stepfather, Marty, who seemed to be the ideal of the white American dad. As Carmen entered this new world with her new family—Lupe and Marty quickly had four more children—her relationship with her mother became fraught with tension, suspicion, and conflict, explained only years later by the secrets her mother had kept for so long. And when those secrets were revealed, bringing clarity to so much of Carmen’s life, it was too late for answers. When her mother passed away, Carmen wanted to shake her soul by its shoulders and demand: Why didn’t you tell me? A former national television host, advice columnist, and professor, Carmen searches to understand who she really is as she discovers her mother’s hidden history, facing the revelations that seep out. Why Didn’t You Tell Me? is a riveting and poignant story of Carmen’s experience of race and culture in America and how they shape who we think we are.

Download or read book Both And written by Huma Abedin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this beautifully written and propulsive memoir, Huma Abedin—Hillary Clinton’s famously private top aide and longtime adviser—emerges from the wings of American political history to take command of her own story. The daughter of Indian and Pakistani intellectuals and advocates who split their time between Saudi Arabia, the UK, and the United States, Abedin grew up in many worlds. Both/And grapples with family, legacy, identity, faith, marriage, and motherhood with wisdom and sophistication. Abedin launched full steam into a college internship in the office of the first lady in 1996, never imagining that her work at the White House would blossom into a career in public service, nor that the career would become an all-consuming way of life. Still in her twenties and thirties, she thrived in rooms with diplomats and sovereigns, entrepreneurs and artists, philanthropists and activists, and witnessed many crucial moments in 21st-century American history—Camp David for urgent efforts at Middle East peace in the waning months of the Clinton administration, Ground Zero in the days after the 9/11 attacks, the inauguration of the first African American president of the United States, the convention floor when America nominated its first female presidential candidate. Abedin’s relationship with Clinton has seen both women through extraordinary personal and professional highs, as well as unimaginable lows. Here, for the first time, is a deeply personal account of Hillary Clinton as mentor, confidante, and role model. Abedin cuts through caricature, rumor, and misinformation to reveal a crystal-clear portrait of Clinton as a brilliant and caring leader a steadfast friend, generous, funny, hardworking, and dedicated. Both/And is a candid and heartbreaking chronicle of Abedin’s marriage to Anthony Weiner, what drew her to him, how much she wanted to believe in him, the devastation wrought by his betrayals—and their shared love for their son. It is also a timeless story of a young woman with aspirations and ideals coming into her own in high-pressure jobs, and a testament to the potential for women in leadership to blaze a path forward while supporting those who follow in their footsteps. Both/And describes Abedin’s journey through the opportunities and obstacles, the trials and triumphs, of a full and complex life. Abedin’s compassion and courage, her resilience and grace, her work ethic and mission are an inspiration to people of all ages. “This journey has led me through exhilarating milestones and devastating setbacks,” said Abedin. “I have walked both with great pride and in overwhelming shame. It is a life I am—more than anything—enormously grateful for and a story I look forward to sharing.”

Download or read book They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky written by Benjamin Ajak and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiring story of three young Sudanese boys who were driven from their homes by civil war and began an epic odyssey of survival, facing life-threatening perils, ultimately finding their way to a new life in America. Between 1987 and 1989, Alepho, Benjamin, and Benson, like tens of thousands of young boys, took flight from the massacres of Sudan's civil war. They became known as the Lost Boys. With little more than the clothes on their backs, sometimes not even that, they streamed out over Sudan in search of refuge. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live. They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is the three boys' account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and the purity of their child's-eye-vision, Alephonsian, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns: how they endured the hunger and strength-sapping illnesses-dysentery, malaria, and yellow fever; how they dodged the life-threatening predators-lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers alike-that dogged their footsteps; and how they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them. Their story is a lyrical, captivating, timeless portrait of a childhood hurled into wartime and how they had the good fortune and belief in themselves to survive.

Download or read book The Skin Above My Knee written by Marcia Butler and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2017-02-21 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unflinching story of a professional oboist who finds order and beauty in music as her personal life threatens to destroy her. Music was everything for Marcia Butler. Growing up in an emotionally desolate home with an abusive father and a distant mother, she devoted herself to the discipline and rigor of the oboe, and quickly became a young prodigy on the rise in New York City's competitive music scene. But haunted by troubling childhood memories while balancing the challenges of a busy life as a working musician, Marcia succumbed to dangerous men, drugs and self-destruction. In her darkest moments, she asked the hardest question of all: Could music truly save her life? A memoir of startling honesty and subtle, profound beauty, The Skin Above My Knee is the story of a woman finding strength in her creative gifts and artistic destiny. Filled with vivid portraits of 1970's New York City, and fascinating insights into the intensity and precision necessary for a career in professional music, this is more than a narrative of a brilliant musician struggling to make it big in the big city. It is the story of a survivor. One of 2017's 35 over 35 One of the Washington Post's Top 10 Classical Music Moments of the Year

Download or read book Essays After Eighty written by Donald Hall and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2014-12-02 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The former U.S. Poet Laureate contemplates life, death, and the view from his window in these “alternately lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny” essays (The New York Times). From an early age, Donald Hall dedicated his life to the written word. In his long and celebrated career, he was an accomplished poet, essayist, memoirist, dramatist, and children’s author. Now, in the “unknown, unanticipated galaxy” of very old age, his essays continue to startle, move, and delight. In Essays After Eighty, Hall ruminates on his past: “thirty was terrifying, forty I never noticed because I was drunk, fifty was best with a total change of life, sixty extended the bliss of fifty . . .” He also addresses his present: “When I turned eighty and rubbed testosterone on my chest, my beard roared like a lion and gained four inches.” Most memorably, Hall writes about his enduring love affair with his ancestral Eagle Pond Farm and with the writing life that sustains him every day: “Yesterday my first nap was at 9:30 a.m., but when I awoke I wrote again.” “Deliciously readable…Donald Hall, if abandoned by the muse of poetry, has wrought his prose to a keen autumnal edge.” —The Wall Street Journal

Download or read book Handling the Truth written by Beth Kephart and published by Avery. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir-writing guide offers writing lessons and examples for those interested in putting their memories down on paper, explains the difference between remembering and imagining, and describes the language of truth.

Download or read book Write Your Memoir written by Allan G. Hunter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-06-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from more than 25 years of literary know-how and modeled after a 15-week college course, this manual provides guidance for seekers wishing to delve further into self-exploration through writing. Extending beyond the idea that memoir writing intends to put past events into a more understandable current perspective, the guide maintains that keeping a document of one’s life is actually the basis of a psychic process called “soul work,” which manifests as a desire to experience the state of being alive to the fullest. This unusual approach to memoir writing aims to generate more honest and genuine results that come from inner needs rather than outer expectations. Intended to clarify a writer’s developmental path, this resource emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and the need for dealing with difficult material that actually alters the writer in the process, resulting in significant growth of the soul.

Download or read book We Need to Talk written by Jennifer Risher and published by Xeno Books. This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We Need to Talk: A Memoir About Wealth gives voice to an experience millions share, but no one discusses: what it's like to be rich. The book is an honest, personal story that explores the hidden impact of wealth on identity, relationships, and sense of place in the world. Too often, we link net-worth to self-worth and keep quiet about how our finances make us feel. Money is a taboo subject. The author hopes We Need to Talk becomes a catalyst for conversation that demystifies wealth, gets us talking on a personal level, and confirms we are ninety-nine percent the same. In 1991, at twenty-six years old, Jennifer took a job at Microsoft and got lucky. She met her future husband, David, and the stock options she was granted were worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. His were worth far more. Years later, when David joined a small, unknown start-up called Amazon.com, she got lucky again. They both did. They were in their early thirties and had tens of millions of dollars. It was amazing. The freedom and benefits were obvious. But after growing up saving her pennies and being wary of the rich, Jennifer was embarrassed to have joined their ranks. She wasn't worried about being liked for her money, she was worried about being hated for it. People looked at her differently. She didn't know how to ensure her children stayed motivated and not entitled, was shocked when a friend asked for $25,000, discovered philanthropy isn't as straightforward as just writing a check, and grappled with the meaning of enough. For years, she didn't share her dilemmas with others for fear of being judged. No one talks about money-but we should"--

Download or read book Crazy Brave written by Joy Harjo and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-09 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir from the Native American poet describes her youth with an abusive stepfather, becoming a single teen mom, and how she struggled to finally find inner peace and her creative voice.

Download or read book A Letter from Paris written by Louisa Deasey and published by Scribe Us. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A father's long-lost letters spark a compelling tale of inheritance and creativity, loss and reunion When Louisa Deasey receives a message from a Frenchwoman called Coralie, who has found a cache of letters in an attic, written about Louisa's father, neither woman can imagine the events it will set in motion. The letters, dated 1949, detail a passionate affair between Louisa's father, Denison, and Coralie's grandmother, Michelle, in post-war London. They spark Louisa to find out more about her father, who died when she was six. From the seemingly simple question "Who was Denison Deasey?" follows a trail of discovery that leads Louisa to the streets of London, to the cafes and restaurants of Paris and a poet's villa in the south of France. From her father's secret service in World War II to his relationships with some of the most famous bohemian artists in post-war Europe, Louisa unearths a portrait of a fascinating man, both at the epicenter and the mercy of the social and political currents of his time. A Letter from Paris is about the stories we tell ourselves, and the secrets the past can uncover, showing the power of the written word to cross the bridges of time.

Download or read book My Own Two Feet written by Beverly Cleary and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Told in her own words, My Own Two Feet is Newbery Medal–winning author Beverly Cleary’s second heartfelt and relatable memoir. The New Yorker called Beverly Cleary's first volume of memoirs, A Girl From Yamhill, "a warm, honest book, as interesting as any novel." Now the creator of the classic children's stories millions grew up with continues her own fascinating story. Here is Beverly Cleary, from college years to the publication of her first book. It is a fascinating look at her life and a writing career that spans three generations, continuing to capture the hearts and imaginations of children of all ages throughout the world. Beverly Cleary's books have sold more than 85 million copies and have been translated into twenty-nine different languages, which speaks to the worldwide reach and love of her stories. She was honored with a Newbery Honor for Ramona and Her Father and a second one for Ramona Quimby, Age 8. She received the John Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw, which was inspired by letters she’d received from children. Her autobiographies, A Girl from Yamhill and My Own Two Feet, are a wonderful way to get to know more about this most beloved children's book author.

Download or read book Notes on a Banana written by David Leite and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST FOR THE NEW ENGLAND BOOK AWARD FOR NON FICTION A PASTE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF TIMEOUT NEW YORK’S BEST SUMMER BEACH READS OF 2017 ONE OF REAL SIMPLE’S 25 FATHER’S DAY BOOKS THAT COVER ALL OF DAD’S INTERESTS The stunning and long-awaited memoir from the beloved founder of the James Beard Award-winning website Leite’s Culinaria—a candid, courageous, and at times laugh-out-loud funny story of family, food, mental illness, and sexual identity. Born into a family of Azorean immigrants, David Leite grew up in the 1960s in a devoutly Catholic, blue-collar, food-crazed Portuguese home in Fall River, Massachusetts. A clever and determined dreamer with a vivid imagination and a flair for the dramatic, “Banana” as his mother endearingly called him, yearned to live in a middle-class house with a swinging kitchen door just like the ones on television, and fell in love with everything French, thanks to his Portuguese and French-Canadian godmother. But David also struggled with the emotional devastation of manic depression. Until he was diagnosed in his mid-thirties, David found relief from his wild mood swings in learning about food, watching Julia Child, and cooking for others. Notes on a Banana is his heartfelt, unflinchingly honest, yet tender memoir of growing up, accepting himself, and turning his love of food into an award-winning career. Reminiscing about the people and events that shaped him, David looks back at the highs and lows of his life: from his rejection of being gay and his attempt to “turn straight” through Aesthetic Realism, a cult in downtown Manhattan, to becoming a writer, cookbook author, and web publisher, to his twenty-four-year relationship with Alan, known to millions of David’s readers as “The One,” which began with (what else?) food. Throughout the journey, David returns to his stoves and tables, and those of his family, as a way of grounding himself. A blend of Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind, the food memoirs by Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, and Gabrielle Hamilton, and the character-rich storytelling of Augusten Burroughs, David Sedaris, and Jenny Lawson, Notes on a Banana is a feast that dazzles, delights, and, ultimately, heals.

Download or read book A Girl from Yamhill written by Beverly Cleary and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Told in her own words, A Girl from Yamhill is Newbery Medal–winning author Beverly Cleary’s heartfelt and relatable memoir—now with a beautifully redesigned cover! Generations of children have read Beverly Cleary’s books. From Ramona Quimby to Henry Huggins, Ralph S. Mouse to Ellen Tebbits, she has created an evergreen body of work based on the humorous tales and heartfelt anxieties of middle graders. But in A Girl from Yamhill, Beverly Cleary tells a more personal story—her story—of what adolescence was like. In warm but honest detail, Beverly describes life in Oregon during the Great Depression, including her difficulties in learning to read, and offers a slew of anecdotes that were, perhaps, the inspiration for some of her beloved stories. For everyone who has enjoyed the pranks and schemes, embarrassing moments, and all of the other poignant and colorful images of childhood brought to life in Beverly Cleary’s books, here is the fascinating true story of the remarkable woman who created them.

Download or read book Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things written by Amy Dickinson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things--her follow-up memoir to the NYT bestselling The Mighty Queens of Freeville--America's most popular advice columnist, "Ask Amy," shares her journey of family, second chances, and finding love. By peeling back the curtain of her syndicated advice column, Amy Dickinson reveals much of the inspiration and motivation that has fueled her calling. Through a series of linked essays, this moving narrative picks up where her earlier memoir left off. Exploring central themes of romance, death, parenting, self-care, and spiritual awakening, this touching and heartfelt homage speaks to all who have faced challenges in the wake of life's twists and turns. From finding love in middle-age to her storied experience with stepparenting to overcoming disordered eating to her final moments spent with her late mother, Dickinson's trademark humorous tone delivers punch and wit that will empower, entertain, and heal.