"[T]he memoirist must reflect."

In a memoir, there is a "differentiating between the writer now, at his desk, who’s telling the story and sometimes musing on it, versus the character in the story—the narrator’s earlier self—who doesn’t know what’s going to happen or even, sometimes, what is happening. . . . Memoirs vary widely in their balance among scene, summary, and reflection, but especially in the amount and the nature of the writer’s reflecting upon meaning."

"The difference between crafting a memoir as a literary work and writing it just the way you remember it depends on the permission the writer gives him/herself to imagine and rearrange the chronology of events. We do this not to cheat or write a more interesting story, but to help us better understand what it is we’re trying to say."

"[A]llowing oneself the permission to use the imagination is the hardest thing to teach would be nonfiction writers."

"If a memoir is crafted with careful attention to language, detail, and form, it’s striving to become a literary work rather than a direct confession or retelling of one’s own personal story. Whether a piece of creative nonfiction succeeds or fails has a great deal to do with the writer’s skill and ability to shape his or her experience into a satisfying artistic whole." [Michael Steinberg -- Finding the Inner Story in Memoirs and Personal Essays]

Political Memoirs, Fact or Fiction?
Minnesota Public Radio, Thomas Larson and David Greenberg are the guests [audio file] [Thomas Larson--This Writing Life Now Is What I’ve Lived For] [Thomas Larson, author of The Memoir and the Memorist (2007) chapter 1 of The Memoir and the Memorist]

New Directions in Teaching Memoir
Dawn Latta Kirby & Dan Kirby (Heinemann, 2007)

"[T]he memoir interprets, analyzes, and seeks the deeper meaning beneath the surface experience of particular events. The memoir continually asks the following questions: Why was this event of particular significance? What did it mean? Why is it important?"

"The memoir seeks to make sense of an individual life."