It’s a beautiful Friday in Scottsdale, Arizona. The weather is sunny and mild–warm enough for me to swim laps outside a few hours ago–and my brain is firing creatively.

I’m preparing to lead my next memoir writing workshop later this month at the Scottsdale Public Library (Mustang location).

I expect a dozen aspiring writers will file into a large conference room on January 17 for session #1.

I will welcome them with a smile and a commitment to prompt and guide them as they move ahead on their memoir writing journeys.

It will be a free-and-safe space to begin to dislodge vivid memories, write a few pages, share respectful feedback across a table with other writers, develop a writing practice, and (hopefully) leave on the last day (January 31) with a little momentum to tell their stories.

I know how much work, time, and commitment is required to make it happen. But when you are a writer, it’s worth it. It’s what you are meant to do.

You tell stories of all kinds. Simple. Complicated. Painful. Joyful. Unbelievable true-and-false stories.

The best memoirs are filled with emotional and sensory details: visuals, smells, tastes, sounds, personal touches.

I think that is one of my strong suits … not only telling but showing readers the story, so that they must keep reading to find out what happens at the end of the story.

It’s rather like sitting with a friend in front of a cozy fireplace. That is what I will tell my workshop attendees to imagine as they begin to write their memoirs.

I don’t think you need to be famous to write a great memoir. It’s really the story that must be compelling, not the namedropping that some celebrities like to smear over every page.

You simply must be authentic and artful in the way you approach your story–whether it’s a story of love and loss, transformation, redemption, survival, success, or a recollection of a vivid place, time or person that makes your heart swell.

In addition to writing memoirs (somehow, I’ve written and published four since 2016) and encouraging others to bring their stories to the page, I enjoy reading memoirs.

January is a good time of year to assemble a recommended reading list.

Here are ten memoirs (written by famous and ordinary people) I have read over the past ten years that have moved me, entertained me, spoken to me, and broadened my appreciation for creative, true storytelling in the world of nonfiction.

By the way, I will share this same list with my memoir writing workshop attendees later this month. So, in a sense, you are getting an insider’s preview.

(Note: I have included one of my books–From Fertile Ground–on this list … because I feel it is an unusual creative concept/structure for a memoir about a family of writers sharing their diverse voices across three generations.)

Happy memoir reading (and writing), everyone!

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My Recommended Memoir Reading List

The Year of Magical Thinking (by Joan Didion; 2005) … possibly the best book I’ve read about grief.

Ever By My Side: A Memoir in Eight Pets (by Nick Trout; 2011) … perfect if you are an animal lover.

From Fertile Ground: The Story of My Journey, My Grief, My Life (by Mark Johnson; 2016) … a writer’s mosaic about love and loss.

Between Them: Remembering My Parents (by Richard Ford; 2017) … revealing portrait of parents.

Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me (by Bill Hayes; 2017) … gripping, personal, New York study.

The Best of Us (by Joyce Maynard; 2017) … finding true love late in life, then losing it to pancreatic cancer.

Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces (by Michael Chabon; 2018) … poetic snippets about a son’s love for his father.

All the Young Men (by Ruth Coker Burks; 2020) … a woman comes to the rescue for dying AIDS patients in the 1980s.

My Name is Barbra (by Barbra Streisand; 2023) … if you love Barbra, a must read.

My Mama, Cass: A Memoir (by Owen Elliot-Kugell; 2024) … revealing odyssey of a daughter constructing her life after the death of her famous mother.