It was important to me to write a memoir as a way to look back and make sense of the past. When it was time to publish Word for Word, it was a moment of truth. Did I dare go public with what I remembered? Good, bad, and indifferent?
"The wish to tell one's story may be stronger than the anxiety of exposure, but not by much," Daphne Merkin has written. "Memoirists...risk being judged not only on the quality of their prose but on the content of their character."
Over a period of time, like other memoirists I gradually found a way to turn my caution into a kind of writerly courage.
With warm regards,
Laurie
News About Word for Word:
- Publisher's Weekly's BookLife named Word for Word an Editor's Pick for its "outstanding quality."
- Publishing consultant Jane Friedman posted on her popular blog an excerpt from the last chapter of Word for Word
- An interview by Thomas Hill of Vassar College for the Library Cafe
- An interview by Marshall Miles of WHDD Radio
- An interview by Gretchen Hackmeister of the Hotchkiss Library of Sharon
