I believe in the power of personal narratives and the memoir genre as tools to foster healing and forgiveness. As a licensed professional counselor with a doctorate in adult education, I devoted years toward better understanding the fractured relationship I had with my mother, eventually uncovering the source of her pain and trauma. My motherâs mental health and addiction issues were muddied by the shame she carried for years, as a terrified secret keeper, full of self-loathing. Although I was often the target of her anger, I found a pathway to compassion that mended my heart and provided an example of intergenerational healing for my own daughter.
Melissa Febosâ book Body Work provides encouragement to writers who are considering the memoir genre by highlighting the importance of storytelling as central to human experience.Â
Memoir writing is like magic; unique in its ability to shine a light on stories of survival, perseverance, and resilience. Febosâ book beautifully portrays the power of memoir as a tool to prompt growth, pulling back façades in ways that are both personally empowering and enriching for readers and writers alike.
âWe are telling the stories that no one else can tell, and we are giving this proof of our survival to each other.â (p. 27)
Memoir meets craft master class in this âdaring, honest, psychologically insightfulâ exploration of how we think and write about intimate experiencesââa must read for anybody shoving a pen across paper or staring into a screen or a past" (Mary Karr)
In this bold and exhilarating mix of memoir and master class, Melissa Febos tackles the emotional, psychological, and physical work of writing intimately while offering an utterly fresh examination of the storytellerâs life and the questions which run through it.  How might we go about capturing on the page the relationships that have formed us?âŚ
Dr. Pennebaker describes writing as a mechanism for wellness â highlighting the power of prose in solving puzzles, bringing secrets into the light, as we seek to understand ourselves and others.
Keeping secrets, according to Pennebaker, is physical work with negative implications (often across a lifetime) potentially impacting long-term physical and mental health due to stress.
Iâve returned to Opening Up by Writing it Down many times in my career in order to tap into the wisdom to write about my motherâs complicated life and to better understand the pain she carried into her adult years. Itâs a terrific tool for writers curious about the memoir genre.
Expressing painful emotions is hard--yet it can actually improve our mental and physical health. This lucid, compassionate book has introduced tens of thousands of readers to expressive writing, a simple yet powerful self-help technique grounded in scientific research. Leading experts James W. Pennebaker and Joshua M. Smyth describe how taking just a few minutes to write about deeply felt personal experiences or problems may help you:
*Heal old emotional wounds *Feel a greater sense of well-being *Decrease stress *Improve relationships *Boost your immune system
Vivid stories and examples yield compelling insights into secrets, self-disclosure, and the hidden price of silence.âŚ
Did a heartbreak ever make you want to move to the other side of the planet?
Failed comedian and heartbroken idiot escapes to a jungle hut on an obscure island in Thailand. Warm sunshine, new friends, and fresh mangoes heal most wounds.
âFunny, wise and thought-provoking, outspoken, touching, surprising, andâŚ
Good Morning, Monster is a beacon of a book. Bolstering my interest in writing about mental health, resiliency, and survivorship. Dr. Gildiner showcases five compelling case studies of patients sheâs served.Â
Written with candor and compassion, Good Morning, Monster provides encouragement to writers to engage in their own storytelling to uncover tales of triumph in the face of individual or family mental health challenges. Each case study provides a glimpse of vulnerability, demonstrating the unique human capacity for healing.
Despite the heaviness of the topics, Dr. Gildiner gives the reader rare insight into trauma and recovery buoyed by love and hope.
As seen on Good Morning America's SEPTEMBER 2020 READING LIST and FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2020!
"We need to read stories about folks who have been through hell and kept going... Fascinating." âGlennon Doyle, A Favorite Book of 2020 on Good Morning America
"Gildiner is nothing short of masterfulâas both a therapist and writer. In these pages, she has gorgeously captured both the privilege of being given access to the inner chambers of people's lives, and the meaning that comes from watching them grow into the selves they were meant to be." âLori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of MaybeâŚ
One of the conundrums that writers in the memoir genre encounter is the balancing act related to sharing family stories while addressing concerns and nuances about privacy.
Kerry Cohenâs The Truth of Memoir provides pointed advice about truthful storytellers, while also being considerate of multiple, familial viewpoints. Cohen reminds authors of the importance of thoughtfully assessing the motivation to write, cautioning those who may feel compelled to write in order to seek revenge, particularly when writing about family members.
When you write a memoir or personal essay, you dare to reveal the truths of your experience: about yourself, and about others in your life. How do you expose long-guarded secrets and discuss bad behavior? How do you gracefully portray your family members, friends, spouses, exes, and children without damaging your relationships? How do you balance your respect for others with your desire to tell the truth?
In The Truth of Memoir, best-selling memoirist Kerry Cohen provides insight and guidelines for depicting the characters who appear in your work with honesty and compassion. You'llâŚ
Hope, Laughter, Survival on the Refugee Trail
by
Eileen Kay,
Dramatic true story with a wacky sense of humor.
Retired English teacher in Budapest meets foreign medical students fleeing the war in Ukraine, producing a sweet and unlikely friendship, spicy soup, and wicked joking. A sense of humor, however dark, can keep us from despair.
The Glass Castle was a revelation to me; the first book to boldly chronicle the layers of madness in one family and the pivots from illusions of grandeur to poverty and food insecurity.
I instantly connected with the honesty and bravery of Wallsâ story as she introduces readers to her chaos-ridden childhood, including public displays of bizarre behavior and parental failures. Holding out hope for normalcy, Walls tells the story of a broken, nomadic family âskedaddlingâ from one trauma/drama to another.Â
The Glass Castle is a raw, compelling treasure, demonstrating the potential for resiliency despite a childhood of poverty, shame, and embarrassment.
Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.
This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents.
At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane,âŚ
Surviving Sue is an eye-opening story about the fallout of keeping secrets, told from a daughterâs perspective as she navigated her motherâs mental health and addiction issues, while trying to shield and protect her disabled sister. Surviving Sue is about the power of storytelling to build resiliency, a guidebook for others who struggle with complex family issues. Â
Fourteen is a coming-of-age adventure when, at the age of 14, Leslie and her two sisters have to batten down the hatches on their 45-foot sailboat to navigate the Pacific Ocean and French Polynesia, as well as the stormy temper of their larger-than-life Norwegian father.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctorâand only womanâon a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
