The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing a Memoir: Expert Guidance on Crafting Your Most Meaningful Story

Writing a memoir is more than making a list of life's big moments. A good memoir tells a true story in the same way as a novel tells a fictional one. Therefore, memoirists must employ the same tactics as novelists to tell a unique personal story.

The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Writing a Memoir enables readers to learn to:

* Select a focus--the period of time or series of events on which to concentrate and explore the theme that arises from this pivotal time in their lives.

* Invoke and recreate essential pieces of conversations and scenes that took place long ago in order to accurately recreate them in a narrative with a beginning, middle and end.

* Hone their craft--plot, dialogue, setting, pacing, and point of view are the essential ingredients for writing a compelling memoir.

* Add a pinch of drama

* Write, re-write, edit and consider the possibility of publication

Through prompts, exercises and inspirational examples from published memoirists, this guide will help readers learn and refine their personal writing in order to create a memoir they'll wish to share with others.

Welcome to this page about my newest book for memoir writers. I'm a passionate writer and reader of memoirs and other nonfiction narrative after a long and winding career path that began with my work as an documentary filmmaker and then as a science writer. Most of my published work has a psychology and "how-to" bent.  I've got five  books behind me as a co-author, most recently The Complete Idiot's Guide to Child & Adolescent Psychology, out in July, 2011 from Alpha Books, also the publisher of this guide. My own memoir, A Lethal Inheritance, A Mother Uncovers the Science Behind Three Generations of Mental Illness releases Jan/2012 from Prometheus Books. I'm also a memoir writing coach and a ghostwriter for other peoples' memoirs.

I loved writing The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Memoir. This how-to includes my take on the "rules" for truth telling, and such tricky questions as how to render dialog that took place ten or fifty years ago and how to find the right plot structure for your true life story. It also includes excerpts from some of your favorite memoirs.

Let me know what you think of it and join your fellow memoirists for conversation and inspiration on my website, MemoirMidwife.