Inventing the Memoir: Truth Can Be Stronger Than Fiction
Amye Archer
June 9
4 PM PDT 5 PM MDT 6 PM CDT 7 PM EDT
When I first started writing my memoir, I was nervous that it wasn’t interesting enough. After all, I was only 33. What life experience could I possibly cobble together to create a memoir? Mine was a story about being unhappily married and divorced and fat, and nothing else really. There’s no big plot twist, no tragic deaths. So when a publisher showed interest and asked me to change my story to fiction, I didn’t hesitate. I rewrote the book four times as fiction. I killed my best friend, let my ex back into my bed, and essentially undid all of the progress I had made in real life during that year. What I realized was this: people stopped relating to the material as strongly as they did when it was memoir. As memoir, when I would read excerpts, I would have women and men approach me afterwards and tell me that they too have felt the heft of 
weight on their chest, the worm of self-loathing in their brains. What’s interesting about my memoir, is that it’s true. As memoir, I was embracing the reader. As fiction, I was holding the reader at arms length.
*You are never too young to write a memoir; everyone has a story buried somewhere inside.
*The strength of memoir lies in our ability to tap into the universal truth that connects us.
*Tips for writing that universal truth, finding truth in identity.
*Why memoir is different than fiction.
Bio
Amye Archer holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University, and currently teaches at The University of Scranton. Amye’s full-length poetry collection, Bangs, was released in 2014. She has also published two chapbooks: A Shotgun Life and No One Ever Looks Up. Amye’s work has appeared in Nailed Magazine, PMS: Poem Memoir Story, PANK, and various journals. She currently lives in Northeast, PA, with her husband, Tim, and their twin daughters Samantha and Penelope.
Website: www.amyearcher.com
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Congrats for the courage to write your memoir.Indeed, “What’s interesting about my memoir is that it’s true!”This special quality of the memoir makes it so unique.
I’ll be drlighted yo read the book. Thanks!!!!