As a memoir teacher, I find that people are very worried about the ethical issues involved in memoir writing. For example, the writers ask such questions as, “what if I don’t remember the exact conversation when my mother died,” or “I don’t know what clothes I was wearing the day my father went away forever.” I am always moved by these innocent, caring questions, because the writer is trying very hard to be truthful and accurate, and not leave any room to be accused of dishonesty.

In my memoir Don't Call Me Mother I researched the time the train arrived in Perry, Oklahoma to make sure the scene I was painting and the conflict with my grandmother about how long she'd kept my father waiting at the train station--three hours! was accurate. My memory told me it was a long time, but finding the time of scheduled arrival made me feel great--memory was not all I was drawing upon to create a story that would be taken seriously as


Author's Biography:

Linda Joy Myers, Ph. D., prize winning author of Becoming Whole: Writing Your Healing Story, is a Marriage and Family therapist and teaches memoir-as-healing workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area and nationally. Linda’s work has been praised by reviewers, healers, and radio and television interviewers.