Memoir: The Struggle is Real

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After more than 30 years of writing advertising copy for unabashedly snarky clients, I thought I had bulletproof skin. But when my agent sent me the notes that accompanied rejections of our book proposal from 28 publishers, I realized that the durability of my epidermis was more akin to that of a neonate than a superhero.

“I know this is a big issue for women of a certain age, but….”

“I can’t convince myself that a memoir will speak to the readership, which seems to me to have a much stronger need for practical advice.”

“In the end, I feel it’s a bit too much of a memoir to fit well on our list.”

“Our success with memoir has been mixed, so it’s not a direction we’re heading in at the moment.”

“I worry that this proposal overlaps too much with a book I already have in the pipeline.”

The first thing I wanted to do after being skewered by the publishers’ comments was to suck my thumb or embrace a number of other regressive behaviors. When you attempt to write a memoir, you start to dream that you are being tossed into the Mall of America stark naked. You get trapped in a hard, tiny seat on a loopy roller coaster of self-doubt. Worst of all, you continually reject yourself before any one else can do it for you.

Why am I bothering to write this? This is so lame and stupid. Why am I pushing my sister to write her side of the story when she is a doctor who hates to write anything but prescriptions? Won’t writing about taking care of old, sick parents only make me seem old myself? Our brothers will hate us. Our cousins will second-guess our childhood memories. Unless we can find a way to become former U.S. presidents overnight, no one will care about or buy our book.

The day I got our rejections, I stopped just short of singing, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I’ll go eat worms,” and forced myself to open my laptop. Unfortunately, instead of revising Chapter 2, I procrastinated by rewriting the dictionary definition of a memoir to include phrases like “a genre of writing that involves a soul-ectomy and leaves wounds that never heal.” When I read that the word “memoir” derives from the French: mémoire: memoria, meaning memory or reminiscence, our decision to write a memoir about loss of memory seemed hopelessly counterintuitive. And let’s face it: isn’t dementia just too dang depressing?

But before I hit delete and erased the 200 pages I had already written from my computer’s memory, if not from my own, I happened upon a group of authors who had written books about aging with extreme passion and amazing grace—AlzAuthors.com. They acted like what my sister and I were writing was interesting and valuable and funny and sad and everything in between. They had clearly clung onto a seat on the roller coaster of emotions that come with writing a memoir.

Ah, positivity. Ah, the joy of kinship! I opened the laptop once again and decided to change the title of our book from Disposable Dad to Sisterly Shove. Onward and upward!

Malia Kline and her sister Diane Stinson’s new memoir, Sisterly Shove: A Fight to the Death Against Pancreatic Cancer and Dementia, came out May 10. Buying information at https://sisterlyshove.com.

Malia adds this: Thinking of writing a memoir? Read this first: http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/get-published-sell-my-work/the-market-for-memoirs.

Malia also adds this: Already 200 pages into your memoir? Do not under any circumstances click on the link above.

SAFTA Writers’ Coop: Tin roof. Porch. Woodstove. Outhouse. Sold.

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Editor’s Note: As we move into summer, Litmosphere will appear less frequently. You can look forward to reports from the field like the following, where writers in our community report back on fellowships and residencies they experience this summer.  First up, this dispatch from Beth Gilstrap.

I first learned about Sundress Academy for the Arts at Firefly Farms through writer friends on social media. Most of my tribe is scattered across the country and if it weren’t for Instagram & Twitter accounts, I’d hardly know who was publishing where or what writerly adventures they had. I knew of Sundress Publications since they put out the Best of the Net Anthology, but also because they put out stellar work, some of which happens to be written by folks I’m lucky enough to call friends. In this instance, my poet friend Jim Warner spent a week at SAFTA’s new Writers’ Coop last year to finish his third collection, Actual Miles. He posted photos of an idyllic dry cabin nestled in a Tennessee holler on a working farm complete with a donkey mascot named Jayne. All it took for me to apply was one look at the place. Tin roof. Porch. Woodstove. Outhouse. Sold. Though the cabin is dry, it’s only a quarter mile from the SAFTA farmhouse, where all residents have full access to the amenities at farmhouse, including the best farm eggs I’ve ever tasted in my life.

With no electricity or running water and no obligations to participate in readings or teach workshops, I knew the cabin was the perfect place for me to finish my second story collection. To apply, I filled out the form on their website. The application also requires a brief project statement, two references, a CV, a writing sample, and an application fee of $15, or $10 for current students. The fee is waived for Coop applications. The Writers’ Coop is just one residency option. They also have farmhouse residencies, which include an element of farm volunteer work in the form of feeding livestock. My week at the Coop cost $150.00.

In the mornings, I woke to the sound of chickens and sheep and the sweet smell of the deep woods. I walked the short distance to the cabin to make myself eggs and coffee and then after charging all my devices, headed back to the cabin for the day. If nature inspires you, you can do like I did and drag a folding chair out to the little porch to write for most of the day. While I wrote, I watched butterflies and birds and even a Mama coyote and her pup. I laughed at a lizard trying to climb a piece of scrap metal, said hello to a salamander, and even spied a fox trotting along the valley below. The solitude and quiet was exactly what I needed. In the evenings, I read by lantern light until I fell asleep. During my week at the cabin, I wrote every day for hours and ultimately, did complete a draft of my new book. At the end of the week, I had the opportunity to mingle with a bunch of poets up for a retreat and workshop. Good conversation, food, and cheap beer after heavy summer storms was a perfect way to celebrate the work and being writers in the world doing our thing. I will be reapplying for the fall residency period.

Beth Gilstrap is the author of I Am Barbarella: Stories (2015) from Twelve Winters Press and No Man’s Wild Laura (2016) from Hyacinth Girl Press. She serves as Fiction Editor at Little Fiction | Big Truths. Her work has been selected as Longform.org’s Fiction Pick of the Week and nominated for storySouth’s Million Writers Award, Best of the Net, & The Pushcart Prize. She was also a finalist for both the 2018 Doris Betts Fiction Prize & the 2018 Best Small Fictions Anthology. She has been awarded several residencies including Sundress Academy for the Arts at Firefly Farms and  Oregon State University’s Spring Creek Project for ideas, nature, and the written word. Her work has appeared in Re: AL, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, The Minnesota Review, Hot Metal Bridge, and Little Patuxent Review, among others. She lives in Charlotte with her husband and enough rescue pets to make life interesting.

 

Summer Reading Picks from Park Road Books

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Ah, summer!  Time to dig your toes in the sand and crack open an excellent book. Need ideas? Our friends at Park Road Books are here with these helpful suggestions, including Middle Grade and YA picks at the end of the list. 

Nothing is Forgotten, by Peter Golden (Atria, $26.00)

This historical novel delves into family relationships and secrets.  Spanning the time between WW II and the Cold War, Nothing is Forgotten follows a family of Russian Jews as they escape persecution and rebuild their lives only to have their past resurface.  From a CIA-sponsored radio program broadcasting early rock ’n’ roll in West Germany to tracking down Pablo Picasso in the south of France, this novel spins a great tale that keeps the reader guessing and wanting more. (John O.)

Vacationland, by John Hodgman (Penguin Books, $16.00)

Memoir is a new direction for John Hodgman, whose previous three books comprised a fantastically fraudulent encyclopedia of imagined knowledge. Hodgman brings the same absurdist wit and manic, self-deprecating sensibilities to his stories in Vacationland, along with keen observations and honest insight. John Hodgman remains one of the funniest writers around, but with Vacationland we get to enjoy a bit of his wisdom as well. (John O.)

Educated, by Tara Westover  (Random House, $28.00)

From debut New York Times bestselling author Tara Westover comes Educated: A Memoir. A true story about Tara Westover’s life growing up in the mountains of Idaho raised by survivalists. The story follows young Tara through her early years and into adulthood. Her father shuns all forms of government oversight and because of this, she never attends school. Although the family has had its struggles they have remained “close.” This changes when Tara decides to take the GED and is accepted into Brigham Young University.  With the freedom of education, Tara struggles with what she now sees is a very different world from the one she grew up with. This beautiful book is an engrossing story and an engaging read. If you enjoyed The Glass Castle you will enjoy Educated. (Megan M.)

The Seven Husbands, by Taylor Jenkins Reid  (Washington Square Press, $16.00)

An excellent look at not only the various “masks” that women of the 1950s were required to wear in order to survive daily life, but also about the sheer strength of true love. This triumph of a novel chronicles the life of fictional Old Hollywood actress Evelyn Hugo as told through interview snippets by the backseat narrator, Monique, a journalist hired to write the aging Evelyn’s biography. Throughout the novel, Evelyn candidly details life with each of her seven husbands with the intent of answering the question on everyone’s mind: which one was the great love of her life? With amazing women of color and LGBTQ+ representation, this novel is beyond deserving of the overwhelming praise it has received. (Nikki B.)

Convenience Store Woman, by Sayaka Murata (Grove Press, $20.00, on-sale 6/12/18)

A slim and stunning English-language début of a young woman who works in a Japanese convenience store for 18 years. Funny, touching and scathing observation on what passes for normal in society. Selling over 650,000 copies in Japan is an achievement and I hope her American audience appreciates her as much as I do. (Sally B.)

Penelope Lemon: Game On!, by Inman Majors (Louisiana State University Press, $26.00, on-sale 8/15/18)

Don’t plan on getting anything done once you pick up the funniest book of 2018. Major’s tale of a recently divorced 40 year-old woman struggling to make a life for herself and her ten year-old son is a hilarious page-turner. (Sally B.)

Calypso: Essays, by David Sedaris (Little Brown and Company, $28.00)

This is David’s best book. Humor and tragedy that will bring tears to your eyes. Need I say anything else? (Sally B.)

Middle Grade

The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl, by Stacy McAnulty (Penguin Random House, $16.99)

The story of twelve-year-old Lucy whose grandmother makes her attend middle school for one year, make one friend, join one activity, and read one book.  Seems pretty easy except since Lucy was struck by lightning four years earlier, she’s now a math savant who does calculus for fun, reads math textbooks, and has been homeschooled ever since. Fitting in isn’t easy for Lucy; her ordered, rigid world meets middle school angst while its aches are tempered with laughter.  Lucy and her peers learn to embrace their uniqueness and this book reminds all readers to do the same. (Sherri S.)

Young Adult/Teen

The Astonishing Color of After, by Emily X. R. Pan (Little Brown for Young Readers, $18.99)

This gorgeous, powerful début tells the story of an incredible journey from the U.S. to Taiwan. After Leah’s mother dies by suicide, she appears to Leah as a ghost in the form of a giant red bird. To uncover her family’s secrets, Leah travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents. With gorgeous prose, elements of magical realism and Buddhist influences, this novel reads like a dream. (Shauna S.)

Anger is a Gift, by Mark Oshiro (Tor Teen, $17.99)

With this debut, Mark Oshiro has written a fully intersectional book sure to garner many awards. Oshiro’s characters represent a range of gender, sexuality, disability, and mental health situations and he covers topics such as systemic racism, disability access, police brutality, anxiety, first love, and more. With fast-paced and compulsively readable writing, Anger Is a Gift is a much-needed addition to the literary canon. Fans of The Hate U Give, Dear Martin, and All American Boys will enjoy this novel. (Shauna S.)

Sky in the Deep, by Adrienne Young (St. Martins Press, $17.99)

This novel sends readers into a Viking-like world with warrior clans who fight every five years. During the last clash Eelyn, an Aska warrior, watched her brother die on the battlefield against the Riki.  She has been training for revenge ever since and gets her chance during the next battle cycle only to see her brother alive and fighting with her enemy. Stunned by his betrayal of family and clan, wounded Eelyn must survive with her brother’s friend Fiske and his family in order to survive. When a legendary clan begins to raid and kill throughout the mountain villages, Eelyn and Fiske must decide who is the worst enemy-the Herja or themselves?  Gritty, Games-of-Thrones-like action will appeal to both genders with just a slight hint of romance. (Sherri S.)

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, edited by Ellen Oh and Elsie Chapman (Harper Collins, $17.99, on-sale 6/26/18)

This collection of YA short stories explores themes in East and South Asian mythology and features Charlotte-based New York Times bestselling author Renee Ahdieh and New York Times bestselling and North Carolina-based author Roshani Chokshi. (Sherri S. and Shauna S.)