Welcome to those of you who have been loyal followers of my blog on mental illness, addiction and criminal justice reform. I will continue blogging on these topics from my new blog on this website. I hope you will continue to follow the blog and raise awareness about mental illness, addiction and criminal justice so that we can remove the … Read More
Memoirists are Our Contemporary Mythmakers
I believe that memoirists are our contemporary mythmakers. When I was teaching a course entitled Myth and Memoir at Pacifica Graduate Institute it became clear to me that some of the same archetypal themes found in myth, such as a search for origins, for one’s identity, the mother-child relationship, initiation, journey, descent and return were also found in contemporary memoirs. … Read More
What is Memoir Writing?
Memoir often gets confused with autobiography and biography. Memoir is not a linear autobiography recounting a fully lived life, but rather a selected aspect of the writer’s life, written from his or her point of view. Rather than simply recounting an incident or memory from her life, the memoirist both tells the story and tries to make meaning out of … Read More