The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire in Review...
A look at a handful of interviews from earlier in the series.
Readers,
Today’s Memoir Land Author questionnaire fell through, and earlier this week we had the 150th in the series, and so I thought I’d take this opportunity to point you to some much earlier entries. Here are nine of the 150 interviews that have been published so far. I love the breadth of responses. I find them all so revelatory and useful. I hope you enjoy them! - Sari Botton
*Get more out of this post by reading it online instead of in your email.*
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #32: Sadiya Ansari
"I wanted to create a strong narrative that felt seamless, rather than what I might do in journalism — quoting people, and writing in a more detached way."
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #12: Carvell Wallace
"What if you could document someone’s recovery from trauma by first listing the traumas then writing about every day after that which marked a turning point in their recovery?"
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #33: Jess H. Gutierrez
"Since I was very little there has been nothing I love more than making people laugh with something I write or say."
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #18: Suzanne Scanlon
"I’m always surprised when I’ve managed to communicate something of my experience because for so long, I felt it was impossible to communicate."
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #38: Charles Jensen
"At the end of the day, if you feel called to write, you absolutely should. So many people could be moved, helped, or entertained by your book. Don’t deny them that opportunity."
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #3: Leslie Jamison
"I always conceived of this as a book about simultaneity—the way life is often pointed a few ways at once; in this case, toward love and toward grief."
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #4: Margaret Juhae Lee
"I knew I had the story of a lifetime in my grandfather’s story. It just took me awhile to understand how to write it."
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #23: Farah Naz Rishi
"The memoir became a culmination of all my thoughts and grief and desperate attempts to find hope in all the wild weeds and thorns of my own depression."
The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #6: Annabelle Tometich
"To understand my mother, I first had to understand myself and the tangled roots from which I grew."
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Just wanted to let you know that I love your series and all the work that you do to make it happen. I am reminded of a time in my life when I was living in San Francisco in my 20’s and I couldn’t wait for the next edition of the interviews in the Paris Review. Reading about writers and their craft were (and are) inspiring. I so appreciate what you do here and with Oldster. I encourage readers to support your work because it’s one of the best things in life to look forward to, particularly during what feels like some of our most challenging times. You rock!
Hi Sari,
What is amazing and reassuring to me is the wealth of examples you put in front of us. This runs contrary to the received wisdom in the elite publishing world that memoirs are hard to publish. (My own literary agent told me this when she declined to have anything to do with the memoir I am writing.) Maybe that's true for the Big Five or for someone who's expecting a humongous advance, but from your series we can see that interesting memoirs are being published all the time and look to be reaching their respective audiences.
So thank you, and please please please keep it up.