About Memoir Land

Memoir Land is the new name for a newsletter edited by Sari Botton.

There are three verticals: a weekly Memoir Monday curation of personal essays co-curated by Granta, Guernica, Narratively, The Rumpus, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Oldster Magazine; First Person Singular for original personal essays; and The Lit Lab for interviews and craft essays.

Submitting *published* essays for the Memoir Monday weekly newsletter:

Recently Memoir Monday opened submissions for essays published around the web, to be considered for inclusion in the weekly curation. Here is how to submit those:

By Thursday of each week, please send to memoirmonday@gmail.com:

  1. The title of the essay and a link to it.

  2. The name of the author, and the author’s Twitter handle.

  3. A paragraph or a few lines from the piece that will most entice readers.

  4. Because of data limits for many email platforms, going forward we will only include artwork from our partner publications. No need to send art.

    *Please be advised, however, that we cannot accept all submissions, nor respond to the overwhelming number of emails received.

Submitting *original* personal essays for the new “First Person Singular” section:

SUBMISSIONS FOR FIRST PERSON SINGULAR ARE CURRENTLY PAUSED. I will announce when they are open again, probably for limited periods.

What I’m looking for/pay rates/how to submit:

  • Completed personal essays of 1500 to 2500 words. I will not be assigning from pitches.

  • I’m interested in a diverse variety of authors subjects and voices and tones, and look generally for pieces that make meaning of deeply personal experiences. (Basically, what good first-person writing does.) Something I love but don’t see enough of: essays in which writers consider difficult experiences through the lens of absurdity.

  • The pay rate is $200. You retain all rights, but I ask that you wait 90 days before reprinting elsewhere, that you credit First Person Singular with original publication, and link to the original if you are reprinting online.

  • To submit, email the following to pitch2sari@gmail.com (*NOT* the Memoir Monday email): Your completed personal essay, with a well-written, brief synopsis of the piece (a paragraph or two) in the email. In the subject line, write “First Person Singular:” followed by the title of your piece.

Support Memoir Monday

While the Memoir Monday and First Person Singular verticals are free, The Lit Lab is mostly for paying subscribers. Memoir Land pays contributors for original personal essays and interviews. To support this work, become a paying subscriber. (If you are unable to afford a subscription, email memoirmonday@gmail.com and I will waive your fee.)

You can also support Memoir Monday—and indie bookstores!—by browsing this Bookshop.org list of every book that’s been featured at the Memoir Monday reading series. It’s a great place to find some new titles to add to your TBR list!


Subscribe to Memoir Land

Three verticals: Memoir Monday: A collaboration among Granta, Guernica, Narratively, The Rumpus, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Oldster Magazine; First Person Singular original essays; The Lit Lab interviews + craft essays.

People

A weekly newsletter and quarterly reading series co-curated by Catapult, Granta, Guernica, Narratively, The Rumpus, and Literary Hub. Newsletter edited by Sari Botton. Reading series hosted by Memoir Monday founder Lilly Dancyger.
Sari Botton is the author of the memoir "And You May Find Yourself." She edited two bestselling anthologies: "Goodbye to All That" and "Never Can Say Goodbye." She publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Monday, and Adventures in Journalism.