Not writing a memoir
The speaker at our writers' group was Ellen Urbani , author of When I was Elena , published by the Permanent Press . She gave a wonderful talk, about what makes a memoir different from a journal, choice of characters and creation of voice, how an agent or publisher might define truth as fiction, how hard it is to sell books that cross genres even though crossing genres might be what makes your book unique, how current events effect sales and the questions asked in interviews, the need to have answers even when your interviewer hasn't read the the book, and the relative advantages and disadvantages of small publishers over big ones. She was fantastic! Of course, I'll never write a memoir, but I can't use my favorite reason anymore. Ellen said she didn't like keeping a journal, and there was I thinking memoir writers couldn't exist without one. Ah well, so much for that excuse. We led into Ellen's talk by all answering those three questions about our writ...