Writing What You Know: Realia

Writing What You Know: Realia is the essential, eccentric guidebook for anyone telling their own story--in print or on a blog. Stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind "writer's block," and learn to write memoir with intent, starting today. Marion Roach Smith's disarmingly frank but wildly fun tactics will teach you how.

Marion Roach Smith, co-founder of TheSisterProject.com, has taught a sold-out class called "Writing What You Know" since 1998. She is the author of The Roots of Desire: The Myth, Meaning and Sexual Power of Red Hair (Bloomsbury, 2005); co-author with Michael Baden, M.D., of Dead Reckoning (Simon and Schuster, 2001); and author of Another Name for Madness (Houghton Mifflin, Pocket Books, 1986). She is a former staff member of The New York Times and has written for The New York Times Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Prevention, New York Daily News, Vogue,Newsday, Good Housekeeping, Discove and The Los Angeles Times. Marion has been a commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and writes and records daily and weekly spots on Martha Stewart Living Radio, Sirius 112/XM 157.