“The memoir is not the story of what you know, it’s the story of how you learned it,” writes Laura Kalpakian in Memory Into Memoir. “As a genre, the memoir is narrow enough to focus on a single summer in the life of the writer, and broad enough to encompass experience before that writer was born.” In this step-by-step guide, the award-winning novelist and memoirist walks experienced and new writers alike through the challenges of writing a memoir, offering practical advice, unique prompts, and thorough discussions that highlight how the genre differs from others. With chapter titles such as “The Past Meets the Page,” “Developing Character,” and “Revising the Memoir,” Kalpakian encourages writers to trust their instincts and embrace “not just the way things happened, but the way the writer thinks they happened.”
