On Frank McCourt

Twenty years ago, memoirists had to pretend they were fiction writers. And today fiction writers have to pretend they are memoirists! Readers loved the late Frank McCourt's memoir, Angela's Ashes (1996), and writers must give him his props for helping, with that book, to spark the U.S.'s Creative Nonfiction Revolution. That book generated thousands of memoirs, courses in memoirs, workshops on memoirs, interest in memoirs, and programs in creative nonfiction, all since the middle 1990s. "I want to write something like Angela's Ashes." You can! And probably publish it, because Frank McCourt did.

Other bestselling memoirs too get credit for the memoir phenomenon, most frequently Mary Karr's The Liars Club, Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life, and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior. Earlier memoirs requiring our props and re-reads are I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), Memories of a Catholic Girlhood (1957), Black Boy (1945), and My Brilliant Career (1901).

Nonfiction writers: Aren't you glad you live now?

How to Kill Your Readers

Start with any of these to kill any reader's interest in your memoir:

• "My father..."
• "My mother..."
• "As a child, I..."
• "During my childhood..."
• "During my senior year in high school..."
• "I finally made the painful decision to..."
  
• "When Mother couldn't take care of herself any longer..."
• "A recurring dream I have is..."
• "My sister [brother] has always been..."
• "I have always wondered about my..."

It doesn't matter how beautifully written and moving it is or how hard you worked on it: If your memoir doesn't open with something more inclusive than yourself and your family -- readers won't read it.

Spring Course in Advanced Creative Nonfiction

If you're working on nonfiction and need a workshop, I'm teaching an evening workshop called Nonfiction Seminar at University College, Washington University, this spring. It's a 3-credit workshop course for memoir, essay, biography, travelogues, and nature writing; or narrative, as-told-to and other forms of creative nonfiction. The course emphasizes professionalism and publishability.

The course meets Tuesdays, 6:00-8:30 p.m., begins January 13 and ends May 5. I am happy
to answer any questions. Please pass the word. Thank you.

To register, go to ucollege.wustl.edu and click "Courses and Registration" The
course number is U11 313, under English Composition, and tuition is $1495.

I'm also teaching a course Thursday evenings, same place, U11 323, called The Art of the
Personal Essay.