Writing Homework Help

ENG 111 NVCC Can I Write a Memoir a Literary Work Discussion

 

I need support with this English question so I can learn better.

From an article on Book Riot by Emily Polson:

WHAT ARE SHORT MEMOIRS? 

What exactly are short memoirs? I define them as essay-length works that weave together life experiences around a central theme. You see examples of short memoirs all the time on sites like Buzzfeed and The New York Times. Others are stand-alone pieces published in essay collections.

Memoir essays were my gateway into reading full-length memoirs. It was not until I took a college class on creative nonfiction that I realized memoirs were not just autobiographies of people with exciting lives. Anyone with any amount of life experience can write a memoir—no dramatic childhood or odd-defying life accomplishments required. A short memoir might be an account of a single, life-changing event, or it may be reflection on a period of growth or transition.

Of course, when a young adult tells people she likes writing creative nonfiction—not journalism or technical writing—she hears a lot of, “You’re too young to write a memoir!” and “What could someone your age possibly have to write about?!” As Flannery O’Connor put it, however, “The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can’t make something out of a little experience, you probably won’t be able to make it out of a lot. The writer’s business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.”

Discussion Questions:

1. Do you agree that “anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days,” and why or why not?

2. What kind of story do you need to tell the world? What knowledge do you have to share with the world?

3. What experiences have you been contemplating lately?