Category Archives: Memoir

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Introducing “Hearth,” a back-page, first-person essay for Oregon writers

Bring your deep relationship to home, a love for everything about nesting, and a funny, thoughtful voice to this new Oregon Home magazine essay section.

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In a way, nearly every story is a search for home. A protagonist is forced out of a humdrum, lost existence onto a journey where she must grow and change, seek out great mentors, encounter obstacles, and arrive at that point of contentment, or at the very least, transcendence that comes after the greatest battle […]

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The MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for Book Authors

What it is, why you should build one, and how it can spread your big, beautiful project.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to set the stage for the release of a book I am writing, an 80s memoir about houses. The bulk of my proposal for this book is finished, but I find myself  digging into the section about author platform and thinking (and over-thinking) the many ways I […]

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That time I took 15 years to write an essay

The reason for memoir is the space between who you were and what you are now.

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So here’s a story that basically encapsulates what it means to write memoir. My family has this zany ritual of visiting open houses but never actually moving. It emerged a lot from our love of spaces and more than a little from our long-held belief that life would be better if yada yada [insert your […]

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The unexpected benefits of forgetting to save your work

I wrote. It disappeared. I wrote again.

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The other day someone sent me one of those stories where a writer ran back into a flooding building to retrieve his laptop because it had something like a 200,000-word novel stored on it. The first thing I did was shake my little finger and say to myself: “Come on, man, Google Docs!” But even […]

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In praise of the 100% Real Fake Book Cover

A little inspirational wall art never hurt anyone.

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Things are getting real over at the Emily Grosvenor studio, ahem, in the corner room where I pound out my words every morning. So real, in fact, that I’ve made a real fake book cover for my current writing project. Why? I believe firmly in the power of visual dreaming. It’s been a bit of […]

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Putting together a book proposal? Map it out!

Amidst the agony and the thrill of starting new projects, make a plan.

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I’m waist-deep in a new memoir book proposal. The juices are flowing, the words seem to be flying off my fingers (my mom, a typing teacher, would be so proud!) and I’ve got that thrilling new project feeling. But I know myself. I am very good at starting projects. There’s little at stake in starting, […]

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Writing a memoir book proposal? Use this checklist.

Stay on task, pace yourself and finish!

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I’m deep in the thrill of starting a new project right now, an 80s memoir about houses. Last week, I was feeling really good about how much I had accomplished (a sample chapter and prologue, an overview of the book for a book proposal) until I decided to really map out what it is going […]