An extraordinary "practical resource for beginners" looking to write their own memoir—​now new and revised (Kirkus Reviews)! The greatest story you could write is one you've experienced yourself. Knowing where to start is the hardest part, but it just got a little easier with this essential guidebook for anyone wanting to write a memoir. Did you know that the #1 thing that baby boomers want to do in retirement is write a book—about themselves? It's not that every person has lived such a unique or dramatic life, but we inherently understand that writing a memoir—whether it's a book, blog, or just a letter to a child—is the single greatest path to self-examination. Through the use of disarmingly frank, but wildly fun tactics that offer you simple and effective guidelines that work, you can stop treading water in writing exercises or hiding behind writer's block. Previously self-published under the title, Writing What You Know: Raelia, this book has found an enthusiastic audience that now writes with intent.

When her third child was born with disabilities and cognitive delays author Shelley Brouwer had more questions than answers, and was thrust into an uncertain world. With equal parts fear and determination she set out to help her family and her daughter thrive. Navigating the murky waters of an undiagnosed disability and a rare medical disorder, Shelley learned as she went, and discovered along the way, her young daughter was her greatest teacher. Then the unthinkable occurred, at the age of 22, this sweet daughter died. Written with deep insight and humor Brouwer invites you to walk with her through this universal tale of a mother's love. Grieve with her (for a minute or two) the child she imagined, and embrace with her the child that was. Share the emotional struggles her family sometimes faced, and the small triumphs (seemed huge) her daughter achieved. Then walk with her again, through grief turned hope after her after devastating loss. Out of longing for a book Brouwer couldn't find, Because She Was was written to offer a dose of reality, a bit of guidance, and a healthy dose of encouragement.

Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times list. She followed with two other smash bestsellers: Cherry and Lit, which were critical hits as well. For thirty years Karr has also taught the form, winning teaching prizes at Syracuse. (The writing program there produced such acclaimed authors as Cheryl Strayed, Keith Gessen, and Koren Zailckas.) In The Art of Memoir, she synthesizes her expertise as professor and therapy patient, writer and spiritual seeker, recovered alcoholic and “black belt sinner,” providing a unique window into the mechanics and art of the form that is as irreverent, insightful, and entertaining as her own work in the genre. Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers’ experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr’s own process. (Plus all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends get told— and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth.) As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminates the cathartic power of reflecting on the past; anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate. Joining such classics as Stephen King’s On Writing and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, The Art of Memoir is an elegant and accessible exploration of one of today’s most popular literary forms—a tour de force from an accomplished master pulling back the curtain on her craft.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Driving, wild and hilarious” (The Washington Post), here is the incredible “memoir” of the legendary actor, gambler, raconteur, and Saturday Night Live veteran. When Norm Macdonald, one of the greatest stand-up comics of all time, was approached to write a celebrity memoir, he flatly refused, calling the genre “one step below instruction manuals.” Norm then promptly took a two-year hiatus from stand-up comedy to live on a farm in northern Canada. When he emerged he had under his arm a manuscript, a genre-smashing book about comedy, tragedy, love, loss, war, and redemption. When asked if this was the celebrity memoir, Norm replied, “Call it anything you damn like.”

"Built on her ... Modern Love column, 'When a Couch is More Than a Couch' (9/23/2016), a ... memoir of living meaningfully with 'death in the room' by the 38-year-old great-great-great granddaughter of Ralph Waldo Emerson--mother to two young boys, wife of 16 years--after her terminal cancer diagnosis"--

As it Happened is a landmark memoir, the first of its kind by a giant of the communications media. It is the intimate and straightforward story of an original, the life and growth of an extraordinary man and the company he built, CBS. In the book, William S. Paley reminisced about his personal life and his life with CBS—from the celebrities of the entertainment world to the business and political leaders of America to the journalistic controversies still in the news. Paley bought CBS when it was a small struggling company called United Independent Broadcasting and when he was a young man still in his twenties. Within months he had begun a transformation which shaped CBS into one of the world's greatest communications empires. And still he found time to enjoy the "Roaring Twenties" in Paris, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and New York. A brilliant and creative businessman dealing for high stakes, Paley foresaw the cultural and informational impact of radio, and later, television. With an uncanny eye for spotting entertainment talent, he "discovered" for radio Bing Crosby, Kate Smith, Will Rogers, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Whiteman; and those he did not discover, he lured to CBS: Jack Benny, Amos and Andy, George Burns, Red Skelton, and a host of others. But this book covers more than radio and television—it is about the tastes and trends of American culture, written by the man who helped to create and refine many of them. William S. Paley was CBS. His life touched virtually every major event of the twentieth century. This is a fascinating and revealing work about a man who perhaps more than any other, brought the great events of our times to us.

Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol. Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life. Praise for Drinking “Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times “Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek