How to write a memoir that will sell

Posted on March 10, 2013 by moonbridgebooks

Everyone has interesting stories. Whether you have a series of short life stories or a whole memoir waiting to come out on paper, the big question is who will want to read it? Of course your stories will be important to your family, and maybe even your friends, but do you think strangers will shell out money to read your stories? Are you willing to poke your head above the comforting waters of anonymity and publicize your book to the masses?

The St. Louis Writers Guild published an article I wrote about this in their Winter 2013 edition of their quarterly journal, “The Scribe.” If you live in the St. Louis area, the SLWG is worth joining to learn how to write better and to just have fun networking with other writers – writing does not have to be lonely. “The Scribe” is a benefit for Guild members only, but the article I wrote is below (and now also under the Resources tab of this blog).

Writing a Memoir That Will Sell

published memoirs

Freeways to Flip-Flops

We Hope You Like This Song

Suitcase Full of Dreams

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Alzheimers “Poems That Come to Mind” booksigning and chat

Posted on February 27, 2013 by moonbridgebooks

Poems for AlzheimersThis Saturday afternoon, March 2nd from 2:00-4:00 p.m., I’ll be at the charming Webster Groves Bookshop (the little bookshop on the corner) to chat with visitors about Alzheimer’s caregiving and to pass out hugs – both Hershey’s and real live ones. Caregivers definitely need hugs, so if you know one please show them a little love! Poems That Come to Mind, as well as Cherry Blossoms in Twilight, will be available for purchase. I’ll have special business-card size notes with me that family and friends can pass to store clerks or restaurant servers, etc., so they can quietly be made aware there is an Alzheimer’s-dementia patient in their presence and to please be patient and understanding.

I’ll also have cards about the Memory People Facebook group, an awesomely supportive private group of both those with dementia and their caregivers – they listen to joys and sorrows and screams with love and understanding, and everyone is so willing to give tips and advice on what worked (or didn’t) for them. And listening to Alzheimer patients explain what life is like for them is truly illuminating. Rick Phelps, who has Alzheimer’s, is the founder of Memory People and author of While I Still Can about his journey with early-onset Alzheimer’s. No, Alzheimer’s is not just the old-timer’s disease. People in their 40s can start showing symptoms, too!

Pass this booksigning/chat information on to anyone you know in the St. Louis area who has an Alzheimer’s/dementia patient in their family. I’ll be glad to give them a hug and talk with them about their own experiences. And maybe send them out with a poem in their heart.

Webster Groves BookshopWebster Groves Bookshop

100 W Lockwood
Webster Groves, MO 63119
(corner of Lockwood and Gore)

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This Mobius Strip of Ifs: Essays as Lifewriting

Posted on February 24, 2013 by moonbridgebooks

I patted myself on the back after finishing This Mobius Strip of Ifs by Mathias Freese. I felt challenged and smarter from the brain exercise. Freese turned his philosophical essays into a book—not a memoir, but readers will know who he is, how and what he thinks, and read some very personal stories about him and his family. Essays can be a fulfilling type of lifewriting since they can delve deeply into the heart and mind of a person. They can be written advice and explanation to children and grandchildren.

This Mobius Strip of IfsFreese was a high school teacher, then a psychotherapist. He’s had a childhood without much love. He is very honest about himself, befitting as he espouses the goal of becoming self-aware—stop sleeping through your life! The first section of the book covers his philosophies about the education system, therapy, the Holocaust, the words on the Jefferson Memorial, whatever he’s had experience in or finds meaning in. He weaves his  stories into his essays. The second section (Metaphorical Noodles) contains his thoughts about a few favorite movies and actors (mostly older). In the final section, Freese gets more personal and writes eloquently and poignantly about his family. He’s crusty, but he values love.

What’s a Mobius strip, you ask? It is a ribbon twisted and attached end-to-end to form a continuous strip, there is no front or back or end! It is an exciting curiosity to mathematicians and physicists (and a useful concept in factory assembly lines). Freese’s wife writes in the foreword that to her husband it is a metaphor for possibilities outside our perception. “We can only remember the past and how we thought our future might have been.”

“I see this book as a statement of who I am,” writes Freese. He says it is a “powerful and nourishing feeling for me to have paused long enough to have observed the passage of time and my place in it.” I found many philosophical “truths” in his book that I wanted to highlight in yellow.

I recommend this book for those interested in writing their own philosophical essays as a legacy for their families, and for those who enjoy intellectual discourse. You don’t have to agree with Freese, but he will provoke you to think about your responses. Likewise, your family doesn’t have to agree with you, hopefully they will be interested in what you have to say about life, what you’ve learned from your experiences, and so discover who you are.

Posted in book talk, lifewriting | Tagged , | 3 Comments