Some of the country’s most admired authors—including Andre Dubus III, Mark Doty, Marianne Leone, Michael Patrick MacDonald, Richard Blanco, Abigail Thomas, Kate Bornstein, Jerald Walker, and Kyoko Mori—describe their treks through dark memories and breakthrough moments and attest to the healing power of putting words to experience.
What does it take to write an honest memoir? And what happens to us when we embark on that journey? Melanie Brooks sought guidance from the memoirists who most moved her to answer these questions. Called an essential book for creative writers by
Poets & Writers
,
Writing Hard Stories
is a unique compilation of authentic stories about the death of a partner, parent, or child; about violence and shunning; and about the process of writing. It will serve as a tool for teachers of writing and give readers an intimate look into the lives of the authors they love.
Authors profiled in
:
Andre Dubus III, Sue William Silverman, Michael Patrick MacDonald, Joan Wickersham, Kyoko Mori, Richard Hoffman, Suzanne Strempek Shea, Abigail Thomas, Monica Wood, Mark Doty, Edwidge Dantict, Marianne Leone, Jerald Walker, Kate Bornstein, Jessica Handler, Richard Blanco, Alysia Abbott, and Kim Stafford
Insights from
“Why we endeavor collectively to write a book or paint a canvas or write a symphony...is to understand who we are as human beings, and it’s that shared knowledge that somehow helps us to survive.”—Richard Blanco
“Here’s what you need to understand: your brothers [or family or friends] are going to have their own stories to tell. You don’t have to tell the
family
story. You have to tell
your
story of being in that family.”—Andre Dubus III
“We all need a way to express or make something out of experiences that otherwise have no meaning. If what you want is clarity and meaning, you have to break the secrets over your knee and make something of those ingredients.”—Abigail Thomas
“What we remember and how we remember it really tells us how we became who we became.”—Michael Patrick MacDonald
“The reason I write memoir is to be able to see the experience itself...I hardly know what I think until I write...Writing is a way to organize your life, give it a frame, give it a structure, so that you can really see what it was that happened.”—Sue William Silverman
“After a while in the process, you have some distance and you start thinking of it as
a
story, not as
story...It was a personal grief, but no longer personal...[It’s] something that has not just happened to me and my family, but something that’s happened in the world.”—Edwidge Danticat
“Tibetan Buddhists believe that eloquence is the telling of a truth in such a way that it eases suffering...The more suffering that is eased by your telling of the truth, the more eloquent you are. That’s all you can really hope for—being eloquent in that fashion. All you have to do is respond to your story honestly, and that’s the ideal.”—Kate Bornstein
“You can never entirely redeem the experience. You can’t make it not hurt anymore. But you can make it beautiful enough so that there’s something to balance it in the other scale. And if you understand that word
beautiful
as not necessarily
pretty
, then you’re getting close to recognizing the integrative power of restoring the balance, which is restoring the truth.”—Richard Hoffman