Category Archives: Book review

Good writers read. Good memoirists read memoir. Thoughts on books…

“It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again,” by Julia Cameron with Emma Lively

Posted on June 21, 2018 by

In January 2017, I convened an unusual book club. We were comprised of members of the Association of Personal Historians, coming together around the book It’s Never Too Late to Begin Again: Discovering Creativity and Meaning at Midlife and Beyond, … Continue reading →

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“What It Is” by Lynda Barry

Posted on March 28, 2018 by

Book Review by Rebecca Ahl I first started reading Lynda Barry in 1990, when her comic strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek ran in Seattle’s free weekly paper, The Stranger. The oddly ugly drawings and scathing observations about childhood grabbed me every week. … Continue reading →

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A writing prompt from “Your Life as Story” by Tristine Rainer

Posted on February 14, 2018 by

My Amazon order history tells me I bought Your Life as Story: Discovering the “New Autobiography” and Writing Memoir as Literature by Tristine Rainer in 2004. That makes it about the oldest book in my “write your memoir” library, and … Continue reading →

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Ariel Levy: “The Rules Do Not Apply”

Posted on December 12, 2017 by

Once in a blue moon the stars align to allow me to read a book practically uninterrupted from first page to last. Usually it requires a long airplane flight to grant me that bubble of space/time I can disappear into, … Continue reading →

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Book Review: “Tell Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life”

Posted on November 29, 2017 by

Tell Me True: Memoir, History, and Writing a Life, edited by Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May, is a collection of fourteen essays by people who dance in the no-man’s-land between History and Memoir. The fictional character Forrest Gump said, … Continue reading →

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Nearly Normal: Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself by Cea Sunrise Person

Posted on August 30, 2017 by

I read Nearly Normal: Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself by Cea Sunrise Person and I survived. Opportunities for do-overs are exceedingly rare in publishing, as in life. Yet Cea Sunrise Person has been given that opportunity, and with Nearly … Continue reading →

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Travel “Inserimento” and a Book Review: Story Genius by Lisa Cron

Posted on July 19, 2017 by

Lately I’ve been calling for your travel “inserimento” stories–settling-in tales about arriving in a new location for the first time. Meanwhile I’ve been reading Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel by … Continue reading →

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