Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir by Beth Kephart

When I look at vendor's catalogs or review journals, I marvel at how many memoirs are being published. While the starting point of the memoir flood can be debated, many people agree that there are more now than ever before. National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart, who has written five memoirs herself, has a vested interest in the genre and has written a guide for its writers called Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir.

In Handling the Truth, Kephart draws from her experiences as a reader, a writer, and an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania. She quotes from both her favorite authors and her students in this how-to that somewhat parallels a course she teaches. Readers will find most of the book to be encouraging, cheering potential memoirists to write to discover and define their own lives, but she adds a good dose of caution. She warns that almost any truthful memoir is bound to upset some friends or family, which may not be worth the price of its publishing. Memoir writers must prepare themselves for the consequences of people reading versions of their past which they regret or reject.

In her guide, Kephart is especially critical of writers who have broken faith with their readers, posing fiction as fact. She extends her opposition from pure fabrications to memoirs that merely change names and details of stories to minimize hurt to others. Kephart thinks the writers of these books ought to admit they have strayed into fiction for the sake of readers and those who are trying to be truthful in their memoir writings. Likewise, she charges memoir writers who do strive for truth do diligent research and interview others to make sure their stories are fair. She asks writers seriously to weigh whether unflattering details are truly needed to tell the story before they are included.

The last section of Handling the Truth is filled with short reviews of what Kephart considers to be top-grade memoirs, which she encourages potential authors to read before starting their own memoir quests. Any reader who enjoys memoirs can find some additions to his or her reading list. You don't have to be a potential writer to enjoy this book. I found numerous useful comments about the memoir that my book club will be discussing this month. Kephart's book is a good addition to public library writing collections.

Kephart, Beth. Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir. Gotham Books, 2013. 254p. ISBN 9781592408153.

The Literary Ecosystem and Keir Graff at Thomas Ford

In Booklist Online editor Keir Graff's presentation "How I Kept My Day Job and Became a Published Author - And You Can, Too!" at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library last Friday, I was particularly struck by his description of the "literary ecosystem," a network of readers, writers, publishers, publicists, reviewers, booksellers, and libraries that make the writing and reading of books possible. The term makes obvious sense, but I did not remember ever encountering it. So I decided (being a reference librarian) to see what prior uses of the term I could find. A quick websearch revealed way too much and in no useful order, so I turned to our library databases, which need more use anyway.

Through Academic One Search, I found "The African Writer's Tongue," an article by Akinwumi Isola in the Spring 1992 issue of Research in African Literatures. The article discusses the disconnect when African authors switch from writing in their local languages to English. They lose local readers who may not have learned English. The author of the article uses the term "literary ecosystem" throughout the article that poses that readers and writers must keep languages alive to preserve the literary heritage and the local culture.

Searching the New York Times, I found "On Getting and Spending, Reading and Listening: As a Century Dies, a Puzzling Concern with 'Community' " by Kennedy Fraser, an article from November 24, 1997 about how author readings were very popular in New York but he feared that the golden moment might soon pass. Near the end of the article he described the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd St. Y, which he said was the oldest subscription series of reading in the city. "The poetry center, which began in 1939, sustains a valuable literary ecosystem: readers, writers at all stages of their careers, famous writers adding ballast in the program for those who are less so, living writers honoring dead ones."

The term seems to be used only once in the ERIC database. The term is found in an article "A Whole-School "Read" Creates a Reading Community" in Middle School Journal, September 2008, pages 4-11. A trio of authors discusses the effect of having the students of Hand Middle School in Columbia, South Carolina help keep the books and media from the school's media center in circulation during the year that the center was closed for remodeling. "In this unlikely setting, they created a kind of literary ecosystem in which equilibrium between the community of construction and the community of learning was maintained, creating a balance between bedlam and books, between renovations and reading."

Having seen these and other uses of "literary ecosystem," I sensed that no agreed upon definition existed, a notion which I tested in a search for definitions through Google and Bing. (The term is not in the Oxford English Dictionary.) I did find a use in an older article "Twin Perspectives and Multi-Ecosystems: Tradition for a Commonwealth Writer" by Edwin Thumboo in World Englishes, July 1985. Like Isola in 1992, Thumboo was concerned with African languages. (I can not see the actual use of the term in this case without paying for the fulltext.) The term is also used on the website Willa Cather Archives to indicate a network of literary voices.

Keir said he had no source for his use of the term but that the concept as he described it just made sense to him. I would agree. Writers, readers, publishers, librarians, and booksellers all need each other. Maybe Keir can write up his literary ecosystem theory, use his clever illustrations, and become famous as a literary ecoscientist. Maybe the term will even be added to the OED.

By the way, twenty-one people, many of them aspiring authors, came to the library on a Friday evening to hear Keir describe the many paths to getting published, none of which are easy. I was pleased to see people who do not regularly attend our programs. Several stopped afterwards to thank me for bringing Keir to the library.

Keir posted a page Resources for Writers on his website.

(Photo by Sean Graff.)

Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory by Brad Hooper

With the push on at many libraries for staff to write reviews and annotations of books and media, there is a need for instruction for new reviewers. Brad Hooper at Booklist noticed this several years ago, and, being an experienced reviewer and editor, he offered workshops for libraries wanting to train their staffs to be effective reviewers. To reach a wider audience, he has now written Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory, recently published by the American Library Association. My library received a copy just before the Public Library Association Conference in March, and it was processed and waiting for me when I returned from Portland.

Back to Portland for a moment. Without forethought (full disclosure), I met Brad for the first time (I think it was the first time, but I have met a lot of people over the years) at the PLA table talk Building a Readers' Advisory Team. He invited me to stop by the Booklist booth in the exhibit hall, where he later asked me to consider reviewing popular science books for the journal. The result is that I may soon have reviews in Booklist - if I measure up.

You see why Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory rose to the top of the stack of books on my desk. I have now read it and found it a fairly easy and reassuring read. Brad lightly takes potential and experienced reviewers through his systematic course of instruction. At each step he illustrates his lessons with reviews from Booklist and quotes from reviews from the New York Times Book Review, GQ, the New Yorker, and other periodicals. By the end, you will want to try writing for your library and for any rag that will accept your reviews.

Joyce Saricks contributed a chapter on writing audiobook reviews, which differ from book reviews in that they need to acknowledge and evaluate narration and narrator. Tone and pacing are particularly important for the satisfactory listening experience, according to Joyce. She names names, letting readers know some worthy readers and titles.

Reading Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory is only a beginning. Brad recommends exercises in reading and writing and provides a list of websites with book reviewing advice. He ties his book up with an appendix identifying his favorite review writers, masters from whom we all can learn.

Hooper, Brad. Writing Reviews for Readers' Advisory. American Library Association, 2010. ISBN 9780838910177.

ricklibrarian Personal Cliche Report

I did not bingo in the game of Cliche Bingo.

In her post at the Book Examiner on March 11, Michelle Kerns identified twenty words or phrases that she believes book reviewers use too often, tiring book review readers with their lazy language. In a subsequent post on March 15, she modified the list slightly to make Bingo cards. Seeing the fun, I decided to play the game. I searched five years of this blog using the Blogger search box to see how often I had used these words and phrases. Taking the first Bingo card, I failed to score five in a row up, down, across, or on the diagonal. I did, however, have to place a few beans on the board. (I remember playing Bingo with dried pintos as a kid.)

Here is my report.

First line across:

• compelling - A whole pile of beans right at the start. I have used "compelling" eleven times just since January 1, 2009. One use was to say a book was "not compelling." Of course, I have read a lot of good books that I felt driven to read in that time. What word would you have used?
• tour de force - I have never used this French phrase. I pretty much stick to English.
• nuanced - I have never used this term in five years of blogging, but as I look at it I think it could be occasionally handy.
• pitch-perfect - Never used.
• gritty - I have used the word once in five years.

Second line across:

• beautifully written - Zero.
• thought-provoking - I used this phrase in my very first post in 2005 and in ten posts since. I am surprised I have not use it more, for many books make me think, but that is the purpose of a book. Maybe it is only news when a book does not make me think. Remind me not to say "thought provoking" again.
• x meets x - Zero again. The idea here is "boy meets girl" or "predator meets prey" or such. I do not know how to search this, but I am sure that I have never used this construction.
• readable - Pile the beans. Fifteen uses in five years. Not a very inspiring adjective.
  
• powerful - While I have used this term frequently, I defend most of those uses, which are applied to the description of plots or characters. "Powerful storms" and "powerful politicians" seem acceptable to me. Only five times in five years have I used "powerful" to describe the book or movie that I reviewed.

Third line across:

• lyrical - One use in five years.
• at once - Zero.
• cliche-free - Is this the free space in the card? I did search. I have never used the term.
• timely - Six times in five years.
• sweeping - One use.

Fourth line across:

• in the tradition of - One use in five years.
• haunting - Three uses, all of which were in music reviews.
• stunning - Eight times.
• unputdownable - Zero. I guess some reviewers are trying to avoid "compelling."
• unflinching - Never used but maybe I could.

Fifth line across:

• rollicking - Never used the word.
• riveting - Six times in five years. All six are in the last two years. Am I letting my writing slide? I see that I used "stunning" and "riveting" in one of last year's reviews. Shocking.
• epic - Most of the uses of "epic" were actually in the titles of books. The authors, not me, used the word. I did manage to use the word seven times on my own, twice in describing Tolkien books.
• that said - Once.
• fully realized - Never.

As you can see, the beans never made it across the board. If you want, you can plot the beans up and down and diagonally to see no five in a row. I did not score all four corners either. Of course, I am glad not winning this game. I do see a little space here for improvement - "readable" and "thought provoking" in particular. I am going to keep a Bingo card handy as a reminder and tool for better review writing.

Moving an Index from Microsoft Excel XP to Microsoft Word XP

I indexed my book Real Lives Revealed, which is being published at the end of this month, myself. I first created the indexes in Microsoft Excel XP. Then I converted them to text in Microsoft Word XP, which turned out not to be as intuitive as it should have been. For anyone faced with the same task, here is what I did.


Step for Moving Index from Microsoft Excel XP to Microsoft Word XP


A. What to do in Excel


1. Open Excel.

2. Make sure that your index content has been sorted into the order that you want it to be in the final form. If there are a few lines that do not sort properly because of Excel character sorting rules, do not worry. You can move them into the proper spot later in Word.

3. Click "Select All." This will highlight everything, even hundreds of pages.

4. Copy all the Excel content.



B. What to do in Word

5. Open Word.

6. Paste content from Excel into Word. You will notice that it is in a table. You will want to get it out of the table.

7. Click "Select All." (This is a step that I missed repeatedly when I could not get the process to work.)

8. Click "Table."

9. Point to "Convert."

Here is where it can get weird.

10. If "Table to Text" is in black, click it and skip to step #14. If "Table to Text" is gray, click a blank spot on the page outside the table.

11. Click Table again.

12. Point to "Convert" again. This time "Table to Text" will be black. Click "Table to Text."

14. In the pop up box, under "Separate text with" choose "Paragraph marks." Click "OK."

15. Your index should now be in Word without table outlines. You can now move lines of text that did not sort properly.

Perhaps there is a better way, but that is the way that worked for me.


If you do write a book, indexing it yourself can give you satisfaction that the job is done correctly. I also found numerous typos in the text in the process, some of which looked right to other proofreaders. I urge you also to consider indexing for quality control that only you may be able recognize.

Update on Real Lives Revealed

Having worked six days last week, I had today off. So, I spent almost the entire day proofing Real Lives Revealed: A Guide to Reading Interests in Biography, which is due to publish June 30, 2009. It's looking really good. I found only a couple of dozen corrections to make.

• Some Zs with accent marks disappeared.
• One editing command printed on the text.
• A couple of singular/plural problems.
• See references to books that I had dropped from the text.

The biggest help in spotting problems was completing and sorting the spreadsheets for the indexes. I identified several misspellings when I saw how variations appeared in the spreadsheets. I am particularly glad now that I indexed the book myself. If I do another book, I am going to have my spreadsheets active from the beginning.

Real Lives Revealed is now listed both on Amazon and on Baker and Taylor. Amazon says that it is 348 pages. The book actually is 491 pages without the chronological, author/title, and subject indexes. I can hardly wait to see how many pages it will have in the end. I do like the statement about the book on Amazon, which urges you to ask the publisher to put out a Kindle version. For a roving readers' adviser, it might be nice on a Kindle.

The book is not listed on Barnes in Noble yet. If you search my name, the first result is the anniversary DVD of the Ten Commandments. Search my title and you find A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez.

I am very excited by the prospect of actually holding the book soon. I am also very indebted to the team of people who have helped. There is a full page of thank yous in the book. You'll find them in the front, before the 491 pages.

How to Do Biography: A Primer by Nigel Hamilton

Nigel Hamilton has put out another book about the writing of biography. Last year he published Biography: A Brief History. This year he has issued a practical guide for the writing and selling of biography to publishers called How to Do Biography: A Primer. Some topics that first time writers might not expect in this book include how to get permissions to quote from documents and how to prepare to defend a book from challenges by offended parties.

Believing that biographers do need to have a sense of the history of the genre, Hamilton covers a little of the same ground that he covered in his previous book. "Real life depiction has always been controversial," says the author. A good biography focuses not on facts and incidents but on character reputations. If the subject or family and friends are living, an honest biography is certain to offend. Shakespeare knew this and stuck to historical plays when depicting monarchs, trying not to land in jail or to lose his head.

Hamilton offers good advice about writer focus:

Asking yourself who, ultimately, will be interested in, or willing to read, the life you're recounting should be your constant concern. When biographies fail to spark interest, become tedious or unsatisfying, it is usually because the biographer had lost his commitment to engage the reader and is taking the audience for granted, by getting too self-absorbed in the life he is depicting. Never forget or neglect the reader!

We should all remember that. Hamilton's book, which includes a chapter on the responsibilities of the memoir writer, should be popular in many public and college libraries.

Hamilton, Nigel. How to Do Biography: A Primer. Harvard University Press, 2008. ISBN 9780674027961.

This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley

Are you one of many readers who have dreamed of being a novelist? If you are, Walter Mosley has written This Year You Write Your Novel for you. Why has he done this? Did he do so to help you, or did he do so to take your money?

Evidence of helpfulness #1 - In this small book, which takes only a couple of hours to read, Mosley strips down the process of novel writing to its essentials, making his points clearly. The author says that to write a book you have to be disciplined and write every day, and he lays out a plan that can help you do that in a year. He says to get a first draft written before you worry about all of the books problems. Then he gives advice for rewriting. This may be just the encouragement that you need to rise to the call. He has given you a method.

Evidence of helpfulness #2 - This Year You Write Your Novel is small and attractive. It might work as a nice gift of encouragement to a friend. I would like to give the book to several people I know. Giving it might be that extra statement of faith that would spark a friend to do what he/she has promised/threatened.

Evidence of taking the money - The book is rather small for the price. It is sketchy. It does not refer to any other tools to help the writer. (He does mention using a thesaurus.) Like many self-help books, it is common sense spelled out.

I like to think that Mosley's intentions are honorable. Perhaps a bigger book with more details would be less read and not as influential. Still, I think more people would be better served by a cheap paperback version. This definitely does not need to be hardbound.

Mosley, Walter. This Year Your Write Your Novel. Little, Brown & Company, 2007. ISBN 9780316065412

Writing Lives: Principia Biographica by Leon Edel

I continue my study of biography as a literary form with Writing Lives: Principia Biographica by Leon Edel (1907-1997). Edel is most know for his five volume biography of Henry James and his editing of collections of that author's letters, plays, and stories. Edel also wrote frequently on the topic of biography, and this book is an expansion and revision of two of his previous books. The focus of Writing Lives is the act of writing biography about writers, so the title has a sort of double meaning.

What most readers will enjoy in Edel's book are his stories about the biographers. He has sections on Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, Izaak Walton, Andre Maurois, Lytton Strachey, Virginia Woolf, and Harold Nicolson, most of whom are also discussed in The Nature of Biography by Robert Gittings; these writers seem to be considered the key figures in the development of the literary form. Edel tells about their contributions and their shortcomings, cautioning that it is not always fair to judge them from a more modern standpoint.

There are many interesting anecdotes.

Boswell was very disappointed that Johnson signed a contract to write Lives of the Poets that stipulated that the author would include figures dictated by the publisher. Boswell believed in writing only about subjects that he admired. Johnson was more mercenary yet still maintained independence in what he wrote about the designated subjects.

Lytton Strachey urged biographers to be brief in their prose, writing "into a few shining pages the manifold existences of men." He told writers to illustrate and not to explain lives. Edel points out that while Strachey helped make biography more interesting to read, he was also very guilty of fabricating unknown thoughts and feelings for his subjects.

For the professional Edel discusses the form of the biography, stating that there are three main types:

1. the traditional documentary biography, also called a chronicle,
2. the portrait or pictorial, and
3. the omniscient narrator biography, also called the novelistic biography.

Edel favors the second type, which sketches out the character of the subject through key incidents and does not try to be exhaustive like the first type. He indicates that the third type often skates on ethical ice.

Edel warns biographers that it is usually dull for readers to find accounts of the biographical research in the biographies. (I would disagree, but I am a librarian who enjoys the paper chase.) He suggests that if they must tell stories about their work, they should save them for their own memoirs. There is a memoir aspect to Writing Lives. Edel ends the book with a 32 page story about his writing the famous series on Henry James.

Worldcat shows 666 copies of the book still available in libraries. Writers, librarians, and readers serious about literature will enjoy it.

Edel, Leon. Writing Lives: Principia Biographica. New York: Norton, 1984. ISBN 0393018822

The Nature of Biography by Robert Gittings

In 1977, Robert Gittings (1911-1992) presented a series of three lectures on the history and prospects for biography as a literary form. As a poet and the author of biographies about John Keats and Thomas Hardy, he was serving as a visiting professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. The essays were reprinted as The Nature of Biography.

Though thirty years have passed, much of what Gittings says in The Nature of Biography remains true. He cautions that while increased technology (at the time photocopiers and microfilm) has made records more accessible, writing contemporary biography is still difficult because there is so much the writer will never know. He also says that in an sophisticated world, biographical subjects are always working to protect their private thoughts and motivations. Documentary evidence should always be questioned, he warns, as its quality, reliability, and relevance are suspect in a stage-managed environment.

The form of the biography has changed much from the nineteenth century when a biographer was thought out of bounds for profiling the subject in the context of history, politics, the economy, psychology, and societal influences. Now the biographer is expected to understand and reflect a wide range of disciplines in summing up one life.

Gittings takes some biographers to task for needlessly reporting on biographical controversies in their texts. He says that readers want to read about people and not about about biographers who disagree among themselves on every piece of evidence.

The Nature of Biography is a small book that is a good introduction to the literary form. Many libraries still have it.

Gittings, Robert. The Nature of Biography. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978. ISBN 0295956046