So deeply touched and surprised to see my (pandemic-released!) only book here in your piece, Tanya. Thank you. I’m not online very often anymore and don’t anticipate publishing personal essays or memoir again, and so it’s lovely to feel you know about it.
I appreciate too how your post speaks to all that is best and most challenging in memoir: what it brings to readers, what it costs writers of it.
I’ve written more below - the first time in months I’ve felt moved to say anything on here about writing, so thank you! Feel free to ignore or delete, but adding it now in case it’s of interest to anyone reading through responses to your good piece, who hasn’t themselves been through the memoir publishing process.
Tanya x
Some books are fully written in first draft, or polished with an agent, before submission with lots of time to decide an approach. Mine was quite unusual for an unknown writer, in that it was acquired via pre-empt based on just a title and a few thousand sample words I wrote at the invitation of an agent who wanted to represent me. I went for a first meeting in the morning, and by the time I got home I had an offer which would expire the following day at 10am! I mention this because it meant I had to make my publisher choice quickly and then all my craft & ethical decisions while already under contract and time limits, with no experience of book publishing: it made me very conscious, I mean, of what I was doing. It wasn’t a private project I hoped would one day get a deal.
But whether the first draft to contract bit is quick or slow, post-acquisition it seems to me a process wherein all sorts of odd things can happen - even if one doesn’t plan to act in bad faith. Especially if one isn't clear going in on one’s ethical framework. That’s why books like Melissa Febos’s Body Work & Lily Dunn’s forthcoming one Into Being about the craft of memoir are such essential reading for first-time memoirists.
I was of course asked to write the most hard-hitting version of my story that I could. In the end I chose to write something more complex I think than had been imagined when I received my sudden time-limited offer.
In the three drafts I then went on to write through 2020 and 2021, I wasn’t pressured in any way to write a simpler story about life after sudden near-death. I was allowed to show how, despite all my other qualities, I had an aspect of my character that led me to do selfish and unwise things midway through my life as part of my response to almost-dying. But I can absolutely imagine how that could have gone very differently and led to a different kind of book, with or without editorial encouragement. It’s hard for a writer - once given a chance to publish - to forget the market, its tastes.
Another big test for memoir writers, when again things can get quickly out of hand, is publicity time. It’s so hard to get any press interest for most titles except the obvious big lead ones, that what’s a debut author to do when offered a last-minute or well-paid opportunity to write or talk about sensitive events beyond what’s been carefully crafted and checked for the book itself?
And nothing wrong with taking those opportunities of course! But if you’ve written a story with great care for persons still living who are in it, and then in interviews or features you take a more freeform approach (as is likely to happen in conversation) - what does that do to the book? Its long afterlife?
Maybe more sales but also more risk. In my instance, I chose not to do a feature on me and my mum together that would have reached a big target audience for the book pre-publication. I struggled with that decision then, and for a while afterwards while also knowing it was the right thing to do. I’d so carefully written about my mother using an altered name and don’t name the town; also didn’t reach out to my local paper to do a feature on it. But what if I’d then done a feature for the major paper she and all her family and friends read? Talking about her life after the last chapter of the book (as was asked for). Imagine how fast that would have led to situations beyond our control.
As it was the book has now found readers in my home town and current one in an organic way over the last five years: I’m fully known and accountable for it, but have had time to get used to being contacted and stopped in the street! Couldn’t have coped with it all at once back in 2022.
The above is a very different situation than fiction writers face post-publication, where they are asked about craft and inspiration and influences; memoir writers are too often asked for more... more backstory, more detail, more confession...
The other aspect of being even a modestly successful memoir writer is the amount of invites you get to teach workshops or even week-long residentials like Arvon. These are times of intense contact and trust when you are being given a chance to encourage and champion other writers in turn. People don’t only pay for our books, they often spend much more money travelling to and attending our events. And again, wanting a different kind of contact from writers of personal memoir than they do fiction writers or history/nature ones.
I’ve said a lot here I realise, when I don’t anymore. In short, the trust involved is huge, from start to finish. Which is why I’m still struggling with the allegations of the last week: books going wrong, I can kind of understand how that can get out of hand… but not so much direct engagement done in bad faith. So I hope it will turn out not to be the case, even as more and more details continue to come out.
I so nearly deleted it - really have lost the ability to write in a public-facing way, even at the level of commenting, much less crafting the kind of piece you have here!
Do feel free to share in any way that might be of use. Since last year, I’ve stepped back from teaching or mentoring writers, but I know from all the many good things I’ve read about you and your retreats that you reach lots of the kind of people I always enjoyed supporting.
Thanks for kind words about a second book from me! No more memoirs and likely no other books - or if so, only a long while from now. I’m begun on a novel about land and family but the only way I’ve been able to sit to it by renouncing all interest in it being published: it needs to be done in as much security and distance from the market as The Cure for Sleep was done post-bookseller announcement!
Love that we have a love of Laura Pashby’s work and recommendations in common. Someone I still hope to meet one day…
I’m not at all sure I would ever want to publish. But I do feel the need to write my story, share it with others, and learn from others doing the same thing. It’s such an exhilarating process.
I’m not at all sure I would ever want to publish. But I do feel the need to write my story, share it with others, and learn from others doing the same thing. It’s such an exhilarating process.
As someone who is just tentatively starting out on her memoir journey (first writing group, first flash memoir competition) I really appreciate all this wise advice, Tanya, and I still remember your memoir as one of the bravest I have read.
Yay another cheerleader for The Cure for Sleep! I wholeheartedly agree with you Miranda, it is an extraordinary memoir and one I gift to lots of my friends 🥰
I love a memoir for all the reasons that you state. Maybe if Raynor could have been as courageous and honest then we wouldn’t be where we are and The Salt Path would have been an even better book?!
Thank you for reminding me of Driving over Lemons I enjoyed that book a long time ago 🥰
A lovely tribute to memoirs at a time when the culture seems to be questioning their value and validity. The public outrage about one book shouldn’t sully the whole genre. Memoirs are such powerful vehicles for making sense of our lives. Where would we be without them?
"I feel that in the chaotic mess of social media posts, and filtered reality, memoirs feel like a rebellion against the pressure to present perfect lives. These books remind us that messy is normal, that struggle is universal, that our worst moments often contain the seeds of our greatest growth."
So deeply touched and surprised to see my (pandemic-released!) only book here in your piece, Tanya. Thank you. I’m not online very often anymore and don’t anticipate publishing personal essays or memoir again, and so it’s lovely to feel you know about it.
I appreciate too how your post speaks to all that is best and most challenging in memoir: what it brings to readers, what it costs writers of it.
I’ve written more below - the first time in months I’ve felt moved to say anything on here about writing, so thank you! Feel free to ignore or delete, but adding it now in case it’s of interest to anyone reading through responses to your good piece, who hasn’t themselves been through the memoir publishing process.
Tanya x
Some books are fully written in first draft, or polished with an agent, before submission with lots of time to decide an approach. Mine was quite unusual for an unknown writer, in that it was acquired via pre-empt based on just a title and a few thousand sample words I wrote at the invitation of an agent who wanted to represent me. I went for a first meeting in the morning, and by the time I got home I had an offer which would expire the following day at 10am! I mention this because it meant I had to make my publisher choice quickly and then all my craft & ethical decisions while already under contract and time limits, with no experience of book publishing: it made me very conscious, I mean, of what I was doing. It wasn’t a private project I hoped would one day get a deal.
But whether the first draft to contract bit is quick or slow, post-acquisition it seems to me a process wherein all sorts of odd things can happen - even if one doesn’t plan to act in bad faith. Especially if one isn't clear going in on one’s ethical framework. That’s why books like Melissa Febos’s Body Work & Lily Dunn’s forthcoming one Into Being about the craft of memoir are such essential reading for first-time memoirists.
I was of course asked to write the most hard-hitting version of my story that I could. In the end I chose to write something more complex I think than had been imagined when I received my sudden time-limited offer.
In the three drafts I then went on to write through 2020 and 2021, I wasn’t pressured in any way to write a simpler story about life after sudden near-death. I was allowed to show how, despite all my other qualities, I had an aspect of my character that led me to do selfish and unwise things midway through my life as part of my response to almost-dying. But I can absolutely imagine how that could have gone very differently and led to a different kind of book, with or without editorial encouragement. It’s hard for a writer - once given a chance to publish - to forget the market, its tastes.
Another big test for memoir writers, when again things can get quickly out of hand, is publicity time. It’s so hard to get any press interest for most titles except the obvious big lead ones, that what’s a debut author to do when offered a last-minute or well-paid opportunity to write or talk about sensitive events beyond what’s been carefully crafted and checked for the book itself?
And nothing wrong with taking those opportunities of course! But if you’ve written a story with great care for persons still living who are in it, and then in interviews or features you take a more freeform approach (as is likely to happen in conversation) - what does that do to the book? Its long afterlife?
Maybe more sales but also more risk. In my instance, I chose not to do a feature on me and my mum together that would have reached a big target audience for the book pre-publication. I struggled with that decision then, and for a while afterwards while also knowing it was the right thing to do. I’d so carefully written about my mother using an altered name and don’t name the town; also didn’t reach out to my local paper to do a feature on it. But what if I’d then done a feature for the major paper she and all her family and friends read? Talking about her life after the last chapter of the book (as was asked for). Imagine how fast that would have led to situations beyond our control.
As it was the book has now found readers in my home town and current one in an organic way over the last five years: I’m fully known and accountable for it, but have had time to get used to being contacted and stopped in the street! Couldn’t have coped with it all at once back in 2022.
The above is a very different situation than fiction writers face post-publication, where they are asked about craft and inspiration and influences; memoir writers are too often asked for more... more backstory, more detail, more confession...
The other aspect of being even a modestly successful memoir writer is the amount of invites you get to teach workshops or even week-long residentials like Arvon. These are times of intense contact and trust when you are being given a chance to encourage and champion other writers in turn. People don’t only pay for our books, they often spend much more money travelling to and attending our events. And again, wanting a different kind of contact from writers of personal memoir than they do fiction writers or history/nature ones.
I’ve said a lot here I realise, when I don’t anymore. In short, the trust involved is huge, from start to finish. Which is why I’m still struggling with the allegations of the last week: books going wrong, I can kind of understand how that can get out of hand… but not so much direct engagement done in bad faith. So I hope it will turn out not to be the case, even as more and more details continue to come out.
Wow Tanya, what a response! I’m honoured you’ve made a comment and what a comment it is!
Thank you.
Your advice needs to shared to the many aspiring memoirists. I dearly hope many in my community get to read this.
I’ve read your comment over three times already. I shall also be saving it.
Yes to this ⬇️⬇️⬇️
“It’s hard for a writer - once given a chance to publish - to forget the market, its tastes”
Would you consider writing another memoir? Please say yes 🙏
I have Laura Pashby to thank for introducing me to your gripping memoir The Cure for Sleep 👌
I so nearly deleted it - really have lost the ability to write in a public-facing way, even at the level of commenting, much less crafting the kind of piece you have here!
Do feel free to share in any way that might be of use. Since last year, I’ve stepped back from teaching or mentoring writers, but I know from all the many good things I’ve read about you and your retreats that you reach lots of the kind of people I always enjoyed supporting.
Thanks for kind words about a second book from me! No more memoirs and likely no other books - or if so, only a long while from now. I’m begun on a novel about land and family but the only way I’ve been able to sit to it by renouncing all interest in it being published: it needs to be done in as much security and distance from the market as The Cure for Sleep was done post-bookseller announcement!
Love that we have a love of Laura Pashby’s work and recommendations in common. Someone I still hope to meet one day…
I totally understand where you’re at Tanya. Writing publicly can be such a thrill yet it can come at a cost mentally and emotionally.
I know so many women who’ll benefit from reading your comments, especially about your own personal experience with writing a memoir.
Serendipity has connected us here on Substack so I’m confident we’ll meet in person one day in the not too distant future🤞
I’m not at all sure I would ever want to publish. But I do feel the need to write my story, share it with others, and learn from others doing the same thing. It’s such an exhilarating process.
I’m not at all sure I would ever want to publish. But I do feel the need to write my story, share it with others, and learn from others doing the same thing. It’s such an exhilarating process.
As someone who is just tentatively starting out on her memoir journey (first writing group, first flash memoir competition) I really appreciate all this wise advice, Tanya, and I still remember your memoir as one of the bravest I have read.
Touched. Thank you. X
Yay another cheerleader for The Cure for Sleep! I wholeheartedly agree with you Miranda, it is an extraordinary memoir and one I gift to lots of my friends 🥰
I love a memoir for all the reasons that you state. Maybe if Raynor could have been as courageous and honest then we wouldn’t be where we are and The Salt Path would have been an even better book?!
Thank you for reminding me of Driving over Lemons I enjoyed that book a long time ago 🥰
A lovely tribute to memoirs at a time when the culture seems to be questioning their value and validity. The public outrage about one book shouldn’t sully the whole genre. Memoirs are such powerful vehicles for making sense of our lives. Where would we be without them?
Thank you so much Anne. It’s always a pleasure reading your comments. Most appreciated. Hope you’ve had a safe and comfortable trip over to Paris 🇫🇷
Just arriving now! 🥖
Such a big yes to all this, and a much-needed reminder in the wake of this week’s revelations!
My thoughts exactly Annabel. Thank you for your comment 🙏
I am an Island is one of my favorites, so lovely to see it here, and how I have about 12 other windows open of books I want to buy :).
My favorite, of all time, is Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water
Ooh I loved reading your comment Jeanette 🙏🙏 Thanks for the book recommendation. One I’ve not heard about 🙏📚
My writing mentor tells me to read more memoirs to be able to write one so I will engage with your list with vigour.
That’s great advice! I have many more memoirs I could recommend. I might do a list if that would be useful?
Love a reading list! It’ll keep me busy for sure
Tanya, I so loved 'Tell Me Everything' by Minka Kelly. It's an incredible memoir. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend.
Ooh thank you for your recommendation. It wasn’t on my radar but it is now 🙏
Thank you Tanya, a lovely tribute to memoir writers and writing!
Gorgeous recs + reflections as ever Tanya x
Aww I’m thrilled you like x
"I feel that in the chaotic mess of social media posts, and filtered reality, memoirs feel like a rebellion against the pressure to present perfect lives. These books remind us that messy is normal, that struggle is universal, that our worst moments often contain the seeds of our greatest growth."
Yes, this exactly!
Thanks for sharing the love Kristin 🙏
Gosh what an interesting thought Nicola. 🤔