Friday, November 9, 2007

On Memoirs These Days

There was an old man who wrote a book
And an old lady who took a look.
She got a surprise
And widened her eyes.
The story was her life that he took.

On another group site I frequent (IWW), the discussion recently wove around memoirs as first "novels" as suggested by an (editor or agent, I forget) at an event with Haven Kimmel, author of the creative nonfiction memoir (my tongue snaps off with that classification) "A Girl Named Zippy". Is it easier to get a memoir published and then move on to novels? Are all our lives worth laying down on pages for publication? Have we lost our moral compass when it comes between the desire to be published and the willingness to blur the lines between the truth and fiction? Inquiring minds may not want to know, but I do.

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