writing craft — Memories on the Page blog for memoirists and life story writers

Affirmations for Memoir and Life Story Writers

Some truths for life story and memoir writers to hold in their hearts:

Your story has value. If it didn’t, you’d be able to let it go easily. It wouldn’t call to you from inside your dreams. It wouldn’t follow you on your walks. Its fragments wouldn’t bully their way onto scraps of paper around your house, or into the notes app on your phone, or into the quiet conversations in your head.
No one else can tell your story like you can. Literally no one else.

Writing TipsSara RoahenApril 30, 2024writer encouragement, writer affirmations, writer's block, writing craft, memoir craft, life story writing, self-publishing, pep talk, writer pep talk, writing coach, writing voiceComment

Q&A with Katya Cengal, author of "Straightjackets and Lunch Money"

Straitjackets and Lunch Money by Katya Cengal is a memoir written in two voices: the voice of Katya as a ten-year-old girl hospitalized at the Roth Psychosomatic Unit at Children’s Hospital at Stanford as treatment for self-starvation; and the voice of Katya thirty years later, as a journalist researching her own story from that time to better understand what she went through, and to bring the reader’s attention to other children at risk of going unseen and unheard.

Author InterviewSara RoahenDecember 6, 2023author interview, memoir interview, memoir, eating disorder, psychosomatic illness, psychiatric hospitalization, at risk youth, childhood trauma, mental illness, depression, journalism, survivor story, writing craftComment