The Autobiographer's Handbook: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir

by Dave Eggers (Introduction), Jennifer Traig (Editor)

Overview

At last—the contemporary masters of memoir have come together to reveal their strategies and impart their advice. This book contains an unprecedented wealth of knowledge in one place.

In The Autobiographer's Handbook, you're invited to a roundtable discussion with today's most successful memoirists. Let Nick Hornby show you how the banal can be brilliant. Elizabeth Gilbert will teach you to turn pain into prose. Want to beat procrastination? Steve Almond has the answer. Learn about memory triggers (Ishmael Beah: music) and warm-up exercises (Jonathan Ames: internet backgammon). These writers may not always agree (on research: Tobias Wolff, yes, Frank McCourt, no) but whether you're a blossoming writer or a veteran wordsmith, this book will help anyone who has ever dreamed of putting their story on paper, on writing themselves into existence.

Featuring: STEVE ALMOND • JONATHAN AMES • ISHMAEL BEAH • ELIZABETH GILBERT • NICK HORNBY • A. J. JACOBS • MAXINE HONG KINGSTON • PHILLIP LOPATE • FRANK MCCOURT • DAVID RAKOFF • ESMERALDA SANTIAGO • JULIA SCHEERES • ART SPIEGELMAN • ANTHONY SWOFFORD • SARAH VOWELL • SEAN WILSEY • TOBIAS WOLFF • AND MANY MORE

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805087130
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	09/02/2008
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 10.88(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

826 Valencia is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco dedicated to supporting students aged six to eighteen with their writing skills. The first center opened in 2002 and since then, more than 10,000 volunteers have donated their time, with 826 centers springing up in New York, L.A., Ann Arbor, Chicago, and Seattle; 826 Boston will open in the fall of 2007. All proceeds from The Autobiographer's Handbook will benefit the 826 centers.

Jennifer Traig, a longtime 826 tutor and workshop teacher, is the author of the memoirs-Well Enough Alone and Devil in the Details (2004). She holds a Ph.D. in literature, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, JANE, The Observer (London), and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Table of Contents

Introduction     1
The Brain Trust     11
Meeting Your Muse     21
Precursors to the Past     37
You vs. Page One     53
Lines, Curves, and Tangents     69
Methods for Movement     91
Trimming the Fact     103
Memories May Differ     113
You Contain Multitudes     137
Getting the Joke     145
Writing through Pain     151
The Facts vs. the Truth     157
Lost in the Labyrinth     169
The End of You (For Now)     175
Getting It Out There     181
Bonus Chapter: From the Mind, to the Internet, to the Book, to You     201
Conclusion     213

Editorial Reviews

Starred Review.

Put out by 826 Valencia, the San Francisco-based nonprofit Eggers started to provide creative writing instruction for middle and high school students, this book presents straightforward, practical ideas and advice from a double-handful of contemporary writers. Edited by memoirist Traig (Devil in the Details), a longtime 826 Valencia tutor, it's comprised largely of excerpts from wide-ranging, insightful round-table discussions among nonfiction practitioners like Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love), Nick Hornby (Housekeeping vs. the Dirt), Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes) and Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation). To find the right topic, for example, Gus Lee (China Boy) suggests you "write about the biggest, scariest darn elephant in the living room of your soul." To decide which elements to edit, Laura Fraser (An Italian Affair) says, "nobody cares if you go to yoga on Tuesdays... unless it will contribute to the story or to the character that is you." Besides lessons on celebrating the ordinary and the importance of humor, contributors also offer ways to push through the inevitable writer's block and handle miffed family and friends. Their guidance, complemented by writing exercises and work plans, should prove useful, informative and motivating for writers at just about any level.
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