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Archive | Anthology of Memoir Writing

This Memoir Anthology is our online magazine where we publish the best memoir stories that come to us. We have been working with writers since 1989.

In these three decades plus, we have helped bring thousands of memoirs to life—in tele-classes and workshops, in coaching sessions, and via editing and thousands more via all our resources such as the free  My Memoir Education and items in our bookstore.

These writers have produced terrific stories about love and abandonment, about careers and reanimating deadend lives, about racial and ethnic diversity and conflict.

Many of these stories can serve as inspiring memoir models for your writing. In this category, we also include interviews we have done with writers and posts which they have written on their writing process.

We have conceived of the Memoir Anthology as having two functions:

~ we want it to be a repository for the hard-earned achievements that so many of the writers we have worked with and of others who have communicated with us have created.

~ we also know that writers sometimes wonder what is possible in memoir writing. If this is you, our Memoir Anthology is a place for you to read what your fellow writers have accomplished. After reading, write your stories and submit your best to us.

Whenever there is a published book from which the excerpt in the Memoir Anthology was taken, we link to it and hope that you will encourage your fellow writers by purchasing their memoir.

Our Reading “map”

Below, you will find a full list of all our anthology publications. In addition, to help you navigate your way to that part of the Memoir Anthology that would be of most interest to you, we have divided the excerpts into three sections:

~ For stories from writers with whom we have worked, click here.

~ To read what our Editors & our Associate Memoir Professionals have written, click here.

~ Friends who have come to us from many sources have also sent us excerpted stories. Click here for their contributions.

Your publication path

When you are ready, we would like to review your memoir snippet for inclusion in our anthology of great memoir excerpts. Be sure to write a note to us to tell us who you are.

~ Send us your story.

Remember: whatever you do today, write a bit on your memoir.

flash memoir

Hot Flash Memoir: Family Photo Album

This is how I learned about hot flash memoir.

As I was cleaning out my parent’s house I made all kinds of discoveries. Like most kids (I’m referring to myself here), I never once thought of my parents as people. They were Mom and Dad. What they did before me really never entered my mind. Their life consisted of station wagons, split two-level houses in subdivisions named Spanish Trace, North Village, or Highmill Estates. They were first of all parents, then perhaps golfers or members of the country club, or the ad men on Madison Ave.

The notion that they had sex, addictions, or a secret past was the stuff of TV dramas and not particularly anything to do with our family. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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listening to grief

Listening to Grief: The Boys Laugh Again

The following story is written by Edwina Carr-Jangarathis a memoir professional who has done considerable writing. We had the pleasure of publishing her book In Their Own Words. We hope you benefit from reading Listening to Grief: The Boys Laugh Again.

TIMKYLEEyes squeezed tightly shut, I listen for the laughter of my two grandsons as I drift on my rubber raft. I’m certain if I’m silent and try hard enough I’ll hear the laughter of the boys again. Glimpses of summer days when we laughed together flash through my mind. One day, we linked our three rafts so they bumped over the small ocean waves one after the other. Not as content as I was to sit and ride, Kyle dove down under the blue surface that seemed so deep to me, fearful as I am. Where is he? I began to worry. Then, I felt something tugging at my feet and I saw him reappeared near the edge of my rubber raft. It shook fearfully and threatened to tip. Tim came to help him “torture” me. Seeing my reaction, they laughed and pulled all the more at my raft. Splashing them in self-defense, I laughed and shouted “You can’t treat your grandmother this way.” They splashed back, giggling and kicking their feet behind them. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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mining memoir depths

Mining Memoir Depths: Spelunking of the Mind

I enjoy many forms of physical exercise, from climbing mountains, to backpacking along trails, to bicycling, and even swimming. But mostly nowadays I just go hiking, sometimes with my grandchildren and partner, but often alone. Working the muscles of my body is good for me and helps keep my joints working. I feel better after a long walk. Can the same be said of mining memoir depths?

Well, my mental muscles do feel better after a good writing workout. I’ve been writing diaries since I was very young, and I keep boxes of them wherever I’m living at the moment. I draw on them a great deal in my memoir writing. They offer a panoramic view of my life.

I’ve been scribbling “Morning Pages” ever since Julia Cameron’s Sound of Paper came out. Every day along with my morning writing I include entries in my gratitude journal as well as ideas for my recovery blog. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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becoming an American

Becoming an American—Why Not?

DL— Stories about immigration and citizenship form the backbone of our great American story as much today as in past times.  My ancestors were among the millions who came here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here is an excerpt about becoming an American from We Were Not Spoiled, the memoir of my mother Lucille Verreault Ledoux as told to me. For many more excerpts of my mother’s life, click here.

Memoir Writing

Joseph Verreault

My father had not come to the US to stay, but that’s what happened. After working here for a number of years first to support himself and then his growing family and eventually buying an apartment building that was his family’s home, it must have seemed obvious to him that this is where he would spend the rest of his life. So, why not give in to becoming an American citizen? Thinking this way, he was able to make the decision be an easy one. He was a practical man with a lot of responsibilities.

Becoming An American

[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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DoucetteCover

Cindy Doucette’s Memoir Has A Powerful Impact.

Cindy Doucette (Berwick Maine) has seen her poignant story depicted in It Can Happen To Any Family used by the juvenile correctional system of York County, Maine, to effect turn arounds in young people.   Below is a testimonial written by a young person who was in the correctional system and who is testifying to the […]

The Memoir Network

Working in Saudi Arabia

DL: The following is a guest post by a write who co-incidently bears the family name of Guest—Colin  Guest. It presents his first days working in Saudi Arabia. The excerpt is form Follow in the Tigerman’s Footsteps / The Memoirs of a Serial Expat.

On my arrival at Jeddah Airport, now called the King Abdulaziz International Airport, Harold was there to meet me. As it was lunchtime by the time we arrived on site, Harold took me straight to the canteen. As we walked in, I noticed two seated English guys having lunch. On seeing me walk in, one looked up.

“Do you have my passport?” he asked. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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DoucetteCover

Drug Addiction: An Excerpt From It Can Happen In Any Family

Note: Cindy Doucette’s daughter, Candice, was sure she could defy the odds and survive as she continued her drug addiction. This excerpt from Chapter 3 of Cindy’s memoir is a mother’s lament:

The shock I had first experienced at hearing of Candice’s death had given way to overwhelming sadness. I had lost my daughter, my daughter in whom I had placed so many hopes when she was a baby and a little girl. Then with time, that sadness gave way to anger. How could Candice have chosen to ignore all the good advice we had given her? Why didn’t she pay attention to the countless articles about the risks of drug addiction I had passed on to her to read? And how could she not learn from the death of her friend, Joey? I was angry, too, that she had thrown away the long life she might have had, thrown away her chance to become the singer she had said she wanted to become or the chance to use her drawing skills to become a graphic artist or a fashion designer. Her entire future had been thrown away—all for a few minutes of feeling high.

All of this was a waste because of senseless, stupid drug addiction.

How could he have missed her drug addiction?

[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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Labor Union Memoir

From A Blind Date to A Matchless Marriage

Editor: The following is an excerpt from Walter Linder’s labor union memoir, A Life of Labor and Love / A Red Memoir.

When I reached my early twenties, I was convinced I was too shy to ever get married. Although I had gone out on dates with various women, nothing had clicked. At 24, I began seeing a young woman named Charlotte. We went out for about a year but I sensed something was not quite right. I wasn’t meeting my wife!

“Wally, I could never marry someone who doesn’t dance,” she said — leading my sister June to advise that such superficiality was not for me.

“Forget her.” (Good advice. As it turned out, the three women with whom I was to spend the next six decades of my life — Esther, Toni and Vera — were all terrific dancers.)

During that year, Gladys, a comrade from my CP railroad section asked me if I had a girlfriend.

“Yes,” I replied, but “it doesn’t seem to be going anyplace.”

“Well,” said Gladys, “if you break it off with her, I’ve got the girl for you.”

“A blind date?” I said.

“Why not?” she answered. [Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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Retiring to Memoir Writing

Retiring to Memoir Writing: Justine Powell Kuntz

Editor’s note: We came across this guest article published by Justine Kuntz back in 2013, and were so taken with her story of retiring to memoir writing that we decided to publish it again. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did and that it inspires reflections on your own life and memoir.

Eight years ago as a retirement project for church, I introduced memoir writing at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton, FL. Earlier, after twenty-two years of teaching English, I chose to flee the regimen of teaching and accepted a position in the business world. The new position required learning more about computers than what I had used in the classroom but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise when I fully retired nine years later. While in business, I had missed teaching, so developing a curriculum for memoir writing made me feel at home once again and helped ease me into retirement and doing what I loved most—teaching.

[Free Membership required to read more. See below. ]

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