Michael Steinberg

Blog Entry No. 6

Research is essential, whether telling a coming-of-age story, investigating a family secret, or recreating the legacy of several generations. Whether we write about a world we know intimately or are just discovering, research leads to more layered and authentic narratives.
--Mimi Schwartz

The notion that memoirists rely exclusively on memory and imagination to shape their narratives is a persistent misconception. Let’s agree on this much. Memoirs are set in real time and in real places; and they include real people and real events. None of us would be inclined to trust a writer who fabricated those facts. And so, the memoirist, and for that matter, the journalist’s credibility rests on those things that can be verified—even fact checked.

But, what about the memoir’s personal story?

At a recent writer’s conference, I gave a craft talk on the role of research in writing personal narratives. In the Q and A, someone asked, “does the research serve the personal story; or is it the other way round?” My answer was that, in my memoir Still Pitching, I’d originally set out to write the personal story first. Then, when I had a working draft, I’d insert the research wherever I thought it would fit the narrative. Of course, things didn’t go according to plan.  Read More 

Blog entry No. 5

For this post, I've invited Joy Castro, one of our finest, most versatile writers of literary nonfiction, fiction, and criticism, to be the first guest in what I hope will become an intermittent series of invited writers, all of whom will lend us their wisdom and insights on/about a variety of matters related to the art and craft of creative nonfiction.

Here's a short overview of Joy's piece, The Memoir as Psychological Thriller.

Because memoirists often find themselves overwhelmed with material to write about, Joy's advice below is, I believe, particularly useful to readers of this blog.

In her piece, Joy maintains that memoirists could benefit more by organizing and focusing their drafts around urgent, unanswered questions, particularly those that are troubling and mysterious, the ones that are still unanswered. By challenging their narrators to explore these kinds of questions, memoirists are significantly raising the stakes both for themselves and their readers.

For more detailed commentary and examples, I invite you all to read the complete essay. Joy's piece will be up until the last week of July.  Read More