S242.
Memoir as Detective Novel: Writing the Investigative Memoir
Saturday, February 10, 2024
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm
In this session, five memoirists who built their stories around questions, writing into mysteries in their own lives or their families', will discuss the particular craft challenges that come up when writing a memoir that reads like a detective novel—with readers following along on a search for truth, clarity, or closure: from finding clues and remaining open to surprise, to the practical concerns of research, to how to write into questions with no definitive answers.
Participants
Lilly Dancyger is the author of First Love, a collection of personal and critical essays on female friendship, and Negative Space, a reported and illustrated memoir about art, addiction, and inheritance. Dancyger is the editor of Burn It Down, a critically-acclaimed anthology of essays on women's anger.
Sarah Perry is the author of Sweet Nothings, an essay collection about the pleasures of candy (Mariner 2024), and the true crime memoir After the Eclipse (HMH 2017), a Poets & Writers Notable Nonfiction Debut. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of North Texas.
Jeannie Vanasco is the author of Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl (Tin House, 2019) and The Glass Eye (Tin House, 2017). Her essays have appeared in The Believer, New York Times, and elsewhere. She is an associate professor of English at Towson University.
Carmen Rita Wong is the author of Why Didn’t You Tell Me?: A Memoir. She is a former TV host, advice columnist, and professor. Carmen was vice chair of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and board director at The Moth. She also hosts a podcast, is a novelist, and is working on book six.
Leta McCollough Seletzky is a National Endowment for the Arts 2022 Creative Writing Fellow whose work has been featured in The Atlantic; Washington Post; New York Times; O, the Oprah Magazine; and elsewhere. A former litigator, she is the author of the memoir The Kneeling Man.
