A Dozen Great Personal Narratives...
Plus: a new workshop and a call for submissions in the announcements at the bottom.
Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by
, now featuring four verticals:Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Electric Literature. Below is this week’s curation.
First Person Singular, featuring original personal essays. Recently I published “The Acurate Term,” by
. A new essay is coming soon.The Lit Lab, featuring interviews and essays on craft and publishing. There are also occasional writing prompts and exercises for paid subscribers. Recently I posted “The Prompt-O-Matic #10,” the tenth installment in that series.
Goodbye to All That, where I’m continuing to explore my fascination with the most wonderful and terrible city in the world, something I began doing with two NYC-centric anthologies, Goodbye to All That, and Never Can Say Goodbye. Recently I published “What the Prior Tenant Gave Me,” an essay of my own that’s an ode to artist Joe Coleman.
*Please note: I am no longer posting about these roundups on X/Twitter.*
Essays from partner publications…
A Practice of Contradiction
by Priya Subberwal
“I picked up yoga as a teenager, one of the only desi kids in a white school in Colorado. It was a way to take some deep breaths, tap into my lineage, and extend into my growing limbs. As a young queer person, it was also one of the few spaces where I felt I could truly occupy my entire body.”
Chaos and Noise: One Man's Harrowing Stint in Solitary Confinement
by Christopher Blackwell
“I sit on the thin mattress in disbelief. I struggle to find any logic in what’s happened. I work with other prisoners to make sure they don’t make choices that will lead them to this very place, helping build their confidence through education and self-improvement programs. Yet, here I sit. I examine the dull, concrete walls and floor, the metal toilet. All the same body fluids that I noticed in the holding cell are present here, too, streaks of spit running down the walls.”
I Don’t Have To Choose Between Writing About Myself And Writing About The World
by Erica Berry
“To think of the belly-button is to think of navel-gazing, which is to think of the charges brought against those of us who write about ourselves, a kind of writing allegedly so myopically focused on the self that it does not see the world beyond it. Ted Kooser defines a poet as someone who stands before a window, controlling the strength of the sun outside, but the metaphor extends to creative nonfiction as well: Your silhouette can fade when you make the world outside brighter, just as your reflection can sharpen when that world darkens. Every time I sit down to write, I find myself in front of this window, fiddling with the lights. Who, or what, do I want the reader to see most clearly?”
A Flat Place
by Noreen Masud
“Six hours, on the ferry from Aberdeen to Orkney. The sea was like mud: brown mud when the sun flashes on it and turns it silver-grey, rucked up into rims by boot heels. The water gathered into a pinch and pushed backwards; the ship sighed and spat out foam.’”
(Don't) Act Your Age
by Caroline Paul
“From a distance, and in my helmet and sunglasses I look like any teenager hurtling forward with fearsome abandon. But as I approach, and surge into closer focus, it becomes clear: I am your grandmother. Teenagers smirk and Millennials grow wide-eyed, their thoughts as obvious as if enshrined in a talk bubble over their full heads of hair and jowl-less chins: Wait, what? That's an OLD WOMAN.”
The Writer Next Door: My Life As Joyce Carol Oates’ Neighbor
by Mia Manzulli
“Nearly every night, through our mudroom window, I could see that she was writing. In a room facing the road, with only a single light on, she worked religiously. There was something comforting about knowing she was there, that she was making yet another contribution to the world of literature while I was doing the laundry or bringing the recycling out to the garage. The routine was not all that remarkable for her, but from the outside looking in, it felt momentous. There, across the driveway, was Joyce Carol Oates, and she was writing.”
Essays from around the web…
We’ve All Been Forced to Be a “Fearless Girl”
by
“The bronze sculpture Fearless Girl depicts an elementary-school-age child, which makes the image of a grown man defiling the statue even more disturbing. The idea behind Fearless Girl—commissioned by McCann Advertising New York—was originally pitched to Ellevest, a financial company led by one of the most powerful women on Wall Street, Sallie Krawcheck. McCann proposed the image of a fearless cow facing off the Charging Bull, which didn’t sit well with Krawcheck, who sensed she would not be the only woman put off by b’eing represented as a cow.’ So the ad agency came back to Ellevest with an image of a girl. ‘A prepubescent girl representing women?,’ Krawcheck said dismissively, rejecting the project.”
The worst part of having a dog is knowing you'll outlast them.
by Erika Wasser
“We woke up together in bed the next morning, only one of us warm. Every few hours, I had gotten into the habit of feeling for breath. Somewhere between 3 a.m. and 7:07 a.m. Harry was gonConcluding a week's worth of actual nightmare — was now a logistical one. What do you do with a dead dog in your bed?”
Buying Time
by Kristen Gentry
“I was already with my favorite person doing what we loved to do. I couldn’t foresee a time when this wouldn’t be my life, when Mama wouldn’t be there and I would wish for her. I couldn’t imagine the days to come when she would be around, but only faintly, her presence as flimsy as the coins’ glint.”
Is it Hard to Do it Alone?
by Courtney Tenz
“How did you know it was time to go?' Anna poked, making it clear that her concerns did not lie with me. Anna was contemplating leaving her husband. She was mad about bearing all the responsibility for parenting; they had just gotten into a barn-burner that morning…I shrugged and gave her the only answer I had, one which a friend had given me just a few years earlier: 'It isn’t about the time you had together but how you want to spend your time in the future.' Marriage as a sunk-cost fallacy.”
The Poetry of Owning Books
by Dian Parker
“In the small study where I’m writing this, I have five bookshelves and need at least two more. My problem is that I need to have a physical book – one that I own. Not a library book. Not a virtual book. Reading online causes me to skim and skip ruthlessly. There’s just so much information every day piling up in my inbox, outbox, out of town box, trash box, brain box. I want the book in my hands. Hard or soft cover, it doesn’t matter, as long as it is mine and I own it.
On The Rocks: What the Ice Taught Me at 59
by
“I know this water will steal my hands and make them BURN like they’re in scalding water while I swim and while I recover. Stop. Stop. Stop brain! I exhale, shake off the anticipatory anxiety, and focus on the smiles, the whoops, and the high fives. One smiling swimmer tells me: ‘I’m nerv-cited! Nervous and excited! They feel the same.’… I tell myself: I choose to do this because it’s hard and because it's fun. I can do more than I think I can….In water, I continue to find more layers of myself as I age. The more time I spend in it, the more I find I transcend aging—or just don’t give a shit.”
🚨Announcements:
📢 Electric Literature will open for submissions in ALL CATEGORIES today, April 1!
Get your submissions ready! Electric Literature wants your best short stories, essays, flash, poetry, and graphic narratives. Recommended Reading, The Commuter, and Personal Narrative will all open for submissions on April 1. You may submit once per category, but it is fine to submit across multiple categories. The portal will close at midnight Pacific Time on April 14, or when we receive 750 submissions (per category). All submissions will be accepted through our Submittable page. For candid advice from our editors on how to make your work stand out, watch How to Get Published in Recommended Reading, How to Get Published in The Commuter, and Calling All Essayists: Electric Lit’s Creative Nonfiction Program.
📢 Another new workshop from Narratively…
This Wednesday, April 3. Let’s Write About Sex, Baby: The 60-Minute Seminar on Good Sex (Writing): Led by sex columnist and journalist Ana P. Santos, this one-hour seminar will help you write about sex authentically and creatively, whether you’re working on a memoir, an article or a book.
📢 Attention Publications and writers interested in having published essays considered for inclusion in our weekly curation:
By Thursday of each week, please send to memoirmonday@gmail.com:
The title of the essay and a link to it.
The name of the author, and the author’s Twitter handle.Nope…not doing Twitter anymore! Read and share the newsletter to find out/spread the word about whose pieces are featured.A paragraph or a few lines from the piece that will most entice readers.
Please be advised that we cannot accept all submissions, nor respond to the overwhelming number of emails received. Also, please note that we don’t accept author submissions from our partner publications.
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!
I really, really enjoy your newsletter. Favorite part of my Mondays. Jennifer Calder
Thanks so much, Sari!