I read seven new-to-me memoirs this Spring, all published in the last two years. My thoughts and star ratings, below: What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma | Stephanie Foo (2022) *****5 stars***** Maybe because the author worked in radio, on such shows as THIS AMERICAN LIFE; maybe because her memoir is radically honest--both when it comes to her childhood trauma and how hard she struggled to heal it as an adult; maybe because the writing contains as much research as personal story; maybe because anxiety, and anger, and grief, and resentment are relatable no matter how you ..read more

“Don’t do dumb things to your body.” These, the parting words of my high school PE teacher at the close of every class. We’d have just finished a legs day (squats, dead lift, leg press) or cardio day (laps, treadmill, elliptical) and as we toweled off and visited the drinking fountain, he’d say those seven words, like always. “Don’t do dumb things to your body.” Twenty years later, I still repeat this phrase to myself on the regular—when I’m considering another dessert, another cocktail, skipping my run, or anything else that doesn’t serve my highest good. So, a few weeks ago, at the advice of ..read more

“Oh my gosh,” the home healthcare provider I was chatting with at the First Wednesday Senior Networking Group last week said when she heard that I ghostwrite people’s stories for a living. “I used to do creative writing activities with my seniors. My favorite prompt was to ask them to look at their hands, then write a poem about everything those hands have done.”  Immediately, I was charmed. The prompt was simple, direct, and open-ended—everything a writing prompt should be to inspire maximum creativity! Here are five more nonfiction prompts I love to use with older adults: One. Write the ..read more

Recently, I was contracted to write a text-based game script. Despite growing up with an N64 and having a PS5 today, I wouldn’t call myself a “gamer”—so there was a steep learning curve involved. I didn’t know, for example, that game scripts are written one line at a time in spreadsheets. (In retrospect, this makes sense from a coding perspective.) The back-end “lingo,” too, was completely foreign to me. PREM, SUB-PREM, FREE: What did all of it even mean? Once I got the hang of it, I ended up having a great time. It was a completely different animal in terms of the ghostwriting projects I typ ..read more

Santa isn’t the only one who keeps lists. Lots of us do, too: grocery lists, lists of movies we want to see and books we want to read, to-do lists. Some of us might even make lists of New Year’s resolutions. The question is: Are you keeping them? The trick, I’ve found, to writing New Year’s resolutions you’ll actually keep is to limit their number and scatter their “due dates,” or the dates by which you hope to accomplish them, throughout the next year. Four is a great number of resolutions because it means you can aim to meet one per quarter. It’s also totally doable to come up with four diff ..read more

Online dating is a sh*tshow at the best of times, and even worse in Austin, Texas, the ghosting capital of the country. According to Match.com, Austinites (men, specifically) are 549% more likely to stop responding to calls and texts, making them the “worst-behaved singles in America.” If you read that statistic and think, Eh, I’m still willing to put my heart out there, good for you! The least we can do is make sure you have a killer profile, one more likely to attract the right type—not the ghosting type!—of person for you. Include a short but sweet bio. Sharing information like where you gr ..read more

In September, Brandon and I were lucky enough to go to Bora Bora. Yes, that Bora Bora… the nigh-mythical Polynesian island erupting from a turquoise ocean. We chose the destination because it had long been on Brandon’s bucket list, ever since as a child he’d watched Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982), set on the actually mythical island of “Bora Gora.” A five-star resort on the island of Bora Bora. Bora Bora: paradise on earth? And let me tell you… Bora Bora did not disappoint. As one of the most remote islands in the world, it’s a pain in the neck to get there! But once you’re there, think pal ..read more

I had the opportunity to preview four upcoming memoirs for NetGalley. Some of them hit and some of them missed, but all of the authors should be congratulated for finding both the courage and the words to share their stories with the world. Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere by Maria Bamford (September 2023) ***** 5 stars ***** So! Many! Exclamation! Marks! That’s how comedian Maria Bamford relates her many hilarious and disturbing stories—with the same kind of mania she likely experiences on a daily basis. Hilarious: That time she shilled ..read more

This week, I attended a Creative Mornings Virtual Field Trip led by Nadia Monosova called “Draw It Out With Nadia: Neurographic Drawing To Strengthen Your Inner Resources.” I had never heard of neurographic drawing, but as an introspective person who’s always interested in bettering herself, I was intrigued enough by the premise to sign up. “Our goal,” Nadia wrote, “is to work through an issue we might be dealing with, so that we find the answer within us by Drawing It Out!” Over sixty minutes on a Wednesday morning, Nadia led us through a hands-on exercise designed to help participants “get u ..read more

Every year, I lead writing workshops centered on the memoir. I do this because I have a lot of memoir-writing experience. To date, I’ve ghostwritten more than forty memoirs (none of them my own—yet), and it’s the best practices and general principles of ghostwriting memoirs that I teach in my Introduction to Memoir Writing workshops.  In them, we talk about what a memoir is and isn’t, how to identify your memoir’s desire line, and which events from your life’s timeline influence that desire line. We note how, even though every memoir is wildly different, memoir as a genre is fairly formul ..read more