Memoir as Detective Novel (July 16)
Plot isn't the only way to create narrative momentum in memoir. Sometimes the most interesting thing about a personal narrative isn't what happened, and then what happened next, and then what happened next—but what we have to say about what happened, and how our perspective on a formative experience can shift and change over time. How the very process of writing about our lives—and the research and inquiry often required to do so—can change our relationship to the thing we're writing about. Sometimes that change is the story.