Writing a memoir means that you've probably reached a certain age, an age where mortality seems close to you, either because your parents have died or are dying, or because your children are growing up and abandoning you in one sense or another. And I think that's the age at which people begin to think about the past. It will lead you to consider all kinds of questions about truth and the workings of memory… I think the first thing to do is to select out. Otherwise you'll have no time to live as you recollect the past — there is a great deal of it! So select out for the moments that have a particular resonance for you. Play with those and see where they take you. They may take you into interesting places and not necessarily the places where you thought you might visit… For me, the memoir is not autobiography. It's very, very distant from that. There's no attempt to give a chronological rendition of one's life. I was looking at the traces of the legacies. I used the novelist's skills of going into the minds of the people you know least — namely my parents before I was born! These are totally mysterious others. You also need to be able to set scenes and to be able create movement in the text and create characters the way a novelist would.
'How To Write Memoirs' [BBC World Service]
Use the link below to read a recent article by Polish-British-Canadian novelist, writer and social advocate LISA APPIGNANESI:
https://www.freud.org.uk/2025/01/05/24042/
You might also enjoy:
The Write Advice 209: JOYCE BUTLER
The Write Advice 159: DORIS LESSING
The Write Advice 119: ALLEGRA GOODMAN
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