looking for critique on memoir, would like to critique other memoir/personal essay writing
Posted by extrinsic (Member # 8019) on :
Memoir and personal essay, creative nonfiction overall, fragments are few and far between at Hatrack, though no bar here for the form. The form entails crafts and aesthetics either borrowed from or adapted back by fiction. The arts of the personal essay differ little from fiction, except for several grammatical person features, that is, invariably first person narrators who are also essays' real writers. Memoir is, of course, autobiography, too.
A place of departure for memoir, etc., though fiction's dramatic appeals and movements apply to creative nonfiction, the first-person narrator-writer form of the literary essay is all but an absolute and a greater challenge to write compared to third person.
Summary CV per moi: AFA, BFA, MA, English, creative writing concentration, fiction, nonfiction, script, and poetry, plus publication arts and sciences, and social sciences and arts; publication internships and employments.
If interested, a memoir-creative nonfiction essay recommended reading list could be posted. Note, though, Phillip Lopate (Wikipedia) is one of the genre's present-day superstar writers, essayists, memoirists, editors, and anthologers and Michel de Montaigne, 1533 - 1592, the godparent of the literary essay form (Wikipedia).
Meantime, post fragments for comment, questions in writing discussions, and see what the community has to offer.
Edited to add: A recent creative nonfiction essay fragment posted September 2017 to Hatrack's Book Fragments, A Pot Digger's Story by M.J. Larsen. Larsen, though, went on to other pastures for the project's development.
[ November 15, 2017, 11:46 AM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]
Posted by dawnpowell (Member # 10794) on :
Many thanks for such a well thought out and descriptive reply; will follow the other links.