Whether you're creating a memoir of a personal essay, writing about you own life can be a daunting task: How much do you remember? What's important to include in your story? What about truth and artistic license? How do you even get started mining a life's worth of memory?
From drawing a map of a remembered neighbourhood, to writing from old photographs, to composing open letters that reveal the power of your own voice, award-winning author and teacher Bill Roorbach offers innovative techniques that will trigger ideas for all writers of creative non-fiction. With humor and candor, this completely revised and updated second edition of 'Writing Life Stores' - which includes dozens of new lessons and excercises - will teach you to see your life more clearly and show you why real stories are often the most compelling ones.
Contents:
Preface
Introduction
1. Getting Started
2. Memory
3. Scenemaking
4. Big Ideas
5. Characters and Character
6. Stage Presence
7. Finding the Facts
8. Metaphor and Meaning
9. Saying it Right
10. Building a Building
11. Getting Published
Appendix A. 'Into Woods'
Appendix B. 'The Olive Jar'
Appendix C. 'On Apprenticeship'
Appendix D. Suggested Readings in Creative Nonfiction
Index
Reviews:
'Bill Roorbach's 'Writing Life Stories is brimming with valuable suggestions, evocative assignments, insights into the writing process, and shrewd common sense ... this writing guide delivers the goods' - Phillip Lopate, author of 'The Art of the Personal Essay'
'I never would have written word one without Bill Roorbach. It's as simple as that' - Abigail Thomas, author of 'An Actual Life'
