Memoirists are not transcriptionists of their pasts, recalling conversations verbatim. They are artists, whose job is to interpret the lived history through an artistic lens.
Gabrielle Bell discusses her forthcoming graphic memoir, Everything Is Flammable, what it was like to mine her own life for subject matter, and how anxiety affects her work.
Alana Massey discusses her debut collection, All the Lives I Want, the best piece of writing advice she's ever received, and acknowledging the work that women do.
It is true that I’m talking to a photo, but I’m not crazy. Neither am I a durochka. Fools are oblivious, at least those from my childhood fairy tales. I, on the other hand, am perfectly aware of the problem.
For Lidia Yuknavitch, the personal is unavoidably political in this piece for Electric Literature. At Catapult, David Frey writes with moving realness on what it is like to watch a parent age and transition…
The woman whose face appears on the Czech five-hundred koruna doesn’t appear there without consequence. During the late 19th century, politically active Božena Němcová was an innovator of Czech literature.…
For the Guardian, Dina Nayeri explores the troubling expectation that immigrants should replace their identity with gratitude. At New York magazine, Bahar Gholipour covers the fine points of dredging up personal history when writing memoir.
Welcome to This Week in Books, where we highlight books just released by small and independent presses. Books have always been a symbol for and means of spreading knowledge and wisdom,…