Reading Local: Portland

This recap is cross posted from Portland writer Cara Holman’s frequently updated and always entertaining blog Prose Posies.

I went to hear Melissa Hart speak, this past Sunday as part of the Northwest Author Series. She shared with us that she legally changed her name before publishing her memoir “Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood” to protect the privacy of those involved. She then went on to ruefully admit that she should have done more research before choosing her pseudonym, as there are two other well-known Melissa Harts: the politician and  Sabrina the Teenage Witch. (Btw, I learned from Google that Melissa Jane Hart, a.k.a. Sabrina was born in my hometown of Smithtown. Who knew?)

But back to the Melissa at hand. She ran an extremely helpful workshop on writing and marketing memoir. Some key elements of memoir, according to Melissa:

• Conflict and resolution
• Setting (place, season, time of day, what’s on the wall,…)
• Characterization (especially important to make sure characters have flaws!)
• Dialogue (her personal favorite)
• A narrative arc (rising action, climax, falling action)
• Use of hyperbole (especially in humorous memoir)
• Use of metaphor/simile (and other literary techniques)
• Plenty of sensory details (to make scenes come alive; don’t neglect smell and taste)
• A reflection piece

She went on to say that what publishers and editors are looking for are fresh stories they haven’t heard a million times already. Just because something happened to us doesn’t necessarily make it memoir-worthy. A memoir needs a particular angle or theme that makes it unique. If  you can write humorously on a social issue that people are afraid to touch or tie in your memoir with current events, then you have a good chance of being published.

Author: Gabe Barber

Founder and publisher of Reading Local. I am an avid reader, primarily of non-fiction, and am ever curious to discover how local literature fits into the increasingly volatile literary landscape.

Gabe Barber has written 1024 articles for us.