Tell It Slant, Second Edition

Memory begins to qualify the imagination, to give it another formation, one that is peculiar to the self. … If I were to remember other things, I should be someone else. —N. SCOTT MOMADAY

Memory begins to qualify the imagination, to give it another formation, one that is peculiar to the self. … If I were to remember other things, I should be someone else. —N. SCOTT MOMADAY

Memory itself could be called its own bit of creative nonfiction. We continually—often unconsciously—renovate our memories, shaping them into stories that bring coherence to chaos.

“the five Rs” of creative nonfiction: Real Life, Reflection, Research, Reading, and ’Riting.

continually seeking meaning in the random and often unfathomable events in our lives.

We go to literature—and perhaps especially creative nonfiction literature—to learn not about the author, but about ourselves; we want to be moved in some way.

“Good memoirs are a careful act of construction. We like to think that an interesting life will simply fall into place on the page. It won’t. … Memoir writers must manufacture a text, imposing narrative order on a jumble of half-remembered events.”

By paying attention to the sensory gateways of the body, you also begin to write in a way that naturally embodies experience, making it tactile for the reader.

If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it. —TONI MORRISON