Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir

by Sue William Silverman

Overview

Everyone has a story to tell. Fearless Confessions is a guidebook for people who want to take possession of their lives by putting their experiences down on paper—or in a Web site or e-book. Enhanced with illustrative examples from many different writers as well as writing exercises, this guide helps writers navigate a range of issues from craft to ethics to marketing and will be useful to both beginners and more accomplished writers.

The rise of interest in memoir recognizes the power of the genre to move and affect not just individual readers but society at large. Sue William Silverman covers traditional writing topics such as metaphor, theme, plot, and voice and also includes chapters on trusting memory and cultivating the courage to tell one's truth in the face of forces—from family members to the media—who would prefer that people with inconvenient pasts and views remain silent.

Silverman, an award-winning memoirist, draws upon her own personal and professional experience to provide an essential resource for transforming life into words that matter. Fearless Confessions is an atlas that contains maps to the remarkable places in each person's life that have yet to be explored.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820336060
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	01/25/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

SUE WILLIAM SILVERMAN is a faculty advisor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and the associate editor of the journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. Her first book, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You (Georgia), received the AWP Award in Creative Nonfiction. She is also the author of Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction (made into a Lifetime TV movie) and Hieroglyphics in Neon, a collection of poems.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

One The Longest Paragraph 1

Writing Exercises

Two Savory Words: The First Bite of Your Story 10

Don't Just State Your Story - Reveal Your Story

Move Readers with Active Words

Following a Sensory Trail

Writing Exercises

A Note on Genre

For Your Reading Pleasure: "Candy Cigarettes," Anne Panning 21

Three Writing on Key: A Few Notes about Theme 23

False Starts

Starting True

The Colors We Choose

Writing Exercises

For Your Reading Pleasure: "Rob Me Again," Katherine Jamieson 32

Four Plotting Your Life 35

Finding the Arc of Your Story

Motivating Your Plot

Thunderous Plots

The Structure of Plot

Crossing the Finish Line

Turning Real Life into Art

Writing Exercises

For Your Reading Pleasure: "Scavengers," Katy Read 47

Five Between Innocence and Experience: Finding Your Voice(s) 50

Using Multiple Voices

Your Everyday Voice and Your Literary Voice

Guiding Voices

Writing Exercises

For Your Reading Pleasure: "The Visit," Candance L. Greene 66

Six Mock Moons and Metaphor: Crafting Memoir into Art 68

Finding Your Metaphors

The Metaphoric Memoir

Metaphor: A Window onto the World

Writing Exercise

For Your Reading Pleasure: "Tetanus, You Understand?" Ellen Morris Prewitt 79

Seven Writing in Style 83

Your Story, Your Style

The Muscular Sentence

More Than Just And

Not To Be

Dialogue in Memoir

Past or Present Tense?

These Boots Are Made for Writing

Writing Exercise

For Your Reading Pleasure: "The Man behind the Shower Curtain," Julie Mullany 97

Eight Marketing Your Memoir 98

Getting Started

Publishing Outlets: Pros and Cons of Each

How to DecideWhat's Best for Your Book

Promoting Yourself as a Professional Speaker

Web Opportunities for Your Memoir

The Importance of All Our Voices

Writing Exercises

Nine Confessional and (Finally) Proud of It 112

Western Civilization in an Eggshell

One Secret, One Word, at a Time

Word by Word

The Courage to Show This to Your Mother (Penance Optional)

Truth and Memory in Memoir

What Readers Understand about Memoirs

What the Media Doesn't Understand about Confessional Stories

A Hysterical [sic] History of Criticism

Writing Exercises

Appendix One The Meandering River: An Overview of the Subgenres of Creative Nonfiction 143

Port of Call 1 Biography

Port of Call 2 Autobiography

Port of Call 3 Immersion

Port of Call 4 Memoir

Port of Call 5 Personal Essay

Port of Call 6 Meditative Essay

Port of Call 7 Lyric Essay

Toward the Sea

Waters Ebb and Flow

Appendix Two Three Confessional Essays 158

"From Process to Product: Using Print-on-Demand to Publish," Lynn C. Tolson 158

"Gazing: Writing from the Womb," Karen Salyer McElmurray 163

"The Weight of a Word," Michelle Otero 169

Appendix Three For Your Reading Pleasure: Four Full-Length Essays 174

"Independence Day, Manley Hot Springs, Alaska," Lisa D. Chavez 175

"After the Dash," Michael Hemery 183

"The Beautiful City of Tirzah," Harrison Candelaria Fletcher 189

"The Pat Boone Fan Club" Sue William Silverman 201

Appendix Four Reading List of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction 212

Works Cited 231

Biographical Notes 235

Editorial Reviews

Fearless Confessions is such a dynamic guide to memoir writing it has inspired me to completely refine and retool the memoir I’m working on. Sue William Silverman, a faculty advisor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, is an amazing master of the language. Her prose is as enjoyable as it is instructive. This should be an essential textbook of any creative writing course. She gives examples of memoir pieces and analyzes each one, showing how they work, why they're powerful, and even why some fail to impress.

15 Minutes Magazine

Fearless Confessions demonstrates the range of Silverman's voice, which is conversational and engaging throughout, never lapsing into the dry instruction-manual voice that could have endangered this book . . . Fearless Confessions provides a guide not only to students, emerging writers, and faculty members who teach memoir writing but also to more established writers interested in exploring the genre. Writers will find lessons and examples that they can use, from the first words of their stories-Silverman's 'first bite'-and onward.

Prairie Schooner

I dutifully recommend Lamott's Bird by Bird, Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and King's On Writing to my students each term, but I find that I'm particularly excited to inform them of Silverman's new book. Her writing has a tone that's both accessible to readers and uncompromising in its rigorous investigation of what makes for compelling memoir.

Writer Magazine

I've wanted a book like this for the courses I teach on memoir and am looking forward to putting it to good use. Silverman's Fearless Confessions is a valuable guide not only for students and teachers but also for those outside the academy who are interested in writing memoir but are uncertain of how to begin.

author of Following the Tambourine Man: A Birthmother's Memoir - Janet Mason Ellerby

If you are writing a memoir, read Fearless Confessions. There are some things that can't be taught in a book, but Sue William Silverman teaches you everything that can be! The author of two stunning memoirs herself, she breaks down the complex weaving of a story into discrete elements, such as detail, voice, and plot, with clear, useful guidance on each aspect. Invaluable!

author of The Human Line - Ellen Bass

Fearless Confessions is a must. I love the way Sue William Silverman exposes the process she used in creating her much acclaimed Love Sick—its struggles, exposures, and empowerment—to teach. A masterful nonfiction writer, Silverman uses her story to guide readers through their own process: how to grasp the use of the senses, mimetic detail, scene, and much more. Her discussion of the Voice of Innocence and the Voice of Experience is sure to become a classic. This book is truly indispensable.

coauthor of Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction - Suzanne Paola

Sue William Silverman has yet again written a book that needs to be written, in this case an indispensable guide to the writing of memoir, especially those we might deem 'confessional.' The confessional has long held a vaunted though sometimes controversial place in Western literature, and Silverman not only redeems the value of confession artistically but quite pragmatically gives the novice a means of giving voice to what was previously jumbled and ineffable.

author of Do-Over! - Robin Hemley