Editing the Memoir 301 One-on-One Instruction

Memoir writing and reading is on the rise. According to Publisher’s Weekly, the memoir genre garners a major chunk of nonfiction sales. Memoir focuses on the writer’s (the protagonist’s) experience, accomplishment, or time of life, telling his or her story with a narrative arc. Memoir is gritty and gutsy, funny and fascinating, self-critical and self-reflective, a unique genre that invites readers to peer into the memoirist’s struggle to draw meaning from accomplishments and create transformation for his or her life.

To achieve this requires skill, honesty, great storytelling, stellar writing, and, above all, knowledgeable editing. In four fully packed lessons, this course takes the approach of a developmental edit to teach editors the dynamics of the memoir and then how to build it from an idea to a fresh work agents and readers are looking for.