by Jerry Waxler At the Philadelphia Stories’ “Push to Publish” conference in the Fall of 2009, I peered into a room filled with cabaret tables, each with an editor on one side and an empty chair on the other. Christine Weiser, who along with Carla...

As I write my memoir, these 32 years later, I discover the gaping hole his death created, as if I was postponing my grief until I was mature enough to better understand what happened. I now watch our relationship unfold in slow motion, and this time I...

As my memoir took shape, a more troubled and prickly young man emerged than I ever realized. However, when I saw this flawed character on the page, it didn't look as bad as I had always feared. Instead, I realized many heroes have edgy, even repugnant...

In the following list of memoirs, I show a number of examples of how memoir authors experienced this complex transition from childhood into adulthood. By seeing how this period contained so much dramatic tension for these authors, you may gain some...

Emerging into adulthood is sometimes dubbed "launching," a term that reminds me of a woman in a fur coat smashing a bottle across the bow of a ship being sent to sea on its maiden voyage. My launching did not include getting hit with a bottle of...