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Recommended Readings

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Health

  • ​Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness  – Susannah Cahalan

  • The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

  • When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi

  • Sick: A Memoir – Porochista Khakpour

  • Stitches – David Small

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Historical

  • Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank

  • Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant - Ulysses S. Grant

  • A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

  • The Story of my Life - Helen Keller

  • Night - Elie Wiesel

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Political

  •  A Long Way Gone Memoirs of a Boy Soldier – Ishmael Beah

  • True Compass - Edward M. Kennedy

  • March – John Lewis

  • Long Walk to Freedom” – Nelson Mandela

  • Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance – Barack Obama

  • My Beloved World – Sonia Sotomayor

  • Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption – Bryan Stevenson

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Race

  • Out of Africa – Isak Dinesen

  • Crazy Brave – Joy Harjo

  • Negroland – Margo Jefferson

  • When they Call you a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir – Patrisse Khan-Cullors

  • The Cooked Seed – Anchee Min

  • Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood – Trevor Noah

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Travel

  • Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea  – Steven Callahan

  •  Eat, Pray, Love  – Elizabeth Gilbert

  •  Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster  – Jon Krakauer

  • Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail – Cheryl Strayed

  • The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir – Kao Kalia Yang

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Women

  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  – Maya Angelou

  • Mean – Myriam Gurba

  • The Liars Club – Mary Karr

  • Girl Interrupted  – Susanna Kaysen

  • The Last Girl – Nadia Murad

  • Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books – Azar Nafisi

  • Becoming – Michelle Obama

  • I am Malala – Malala Yousafzai

How to Write a Memoir

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1.

Develop an Idea: Brainstorm your memories and life experiences and pick a theme or event to write about. Cubing is a great prewriting activity to rethink the subject from six different perspectives; describe, compare, associate, analyze, apply, and argue. 

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Character Development: Carefully pick and choose which people and events to include, you do not need to include every detail. But, be sure to include their appearance, character as described through their actions and their thoughts and speech.

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Organizing: Put all your work together in whatever order you so wish. You can even start from the “middle” of your story. Be consistent in your tone and throughout your text to avoid any inconsistencies.

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Develop a Plot: Creative writing is strongest when it builds up to, or points towards, a specific moment. Write a paragraph that describes the moment a conflict is realized or introduced. Conflicts involve the character versus something else be it themselves, nature, other characters and even society.

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Writing: Try your best to write daily. This will help you be consistent and precise. Not everything you write needs to be used but it is useful in developing your ideas!

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6.

 Edit and Share: Edit your work and be precise by avoiding clichés, wordiness or vagueness. When it is complete email us at humanities@nova.edu!

Sources on tips for writing a memoir:

https://selfpublishing.com/memoir-outline/; https://www.janefriedman.com/write-memoir-lists/

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-outline-your-memoir#quiz-0;  https://nybookeditors.com/2016/03/how-to-write-a-memoir-that-people-care-about/

          If you would like to learn more about memoirs, be sure to register for LITR 2130 Contemporary Memoir, offered every fall by the Department of Humanities and Politics. Contact the Associate Chair of Humanities, Dr. Aileen Miyuki Farrar, for more information (afarrar@nova.edu).

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