Memoir by Sheila Johnson

 Through my MA course, I have recently discovered that Memoir is quite a large book category. Firstly, Memoir is different from autobiography. Autobiography is someone writing their entire life story. Memoir, is someone writing just a portion or part of their life story. 

For example, I have recently been really enjoying ACW writer, Fran Hill's book, 'Miss, What Does Incomprehensible Mean?' So much so,  I have to keep disturbing my husband's reading to say, "listen to this.". Fran's book is a very funny diary memoir, which is perhaps one of the easier memoir categories to discern as the book is written in diary form. 

'Anne Frank's Diary' is another example of diary memoir. In both cases, the authors write just a snippet or portion of their lives - Fran is writing about her teaching year and Anne about her teenage years, mostly in hiding, until captured by the Nazis and taken to a Concentration Camp.

I have also discovered, Misery Memoir. There has been a spate of these in the last few years, suggesting that a lot of writers faced a rather difficult childhood forty or fifty years ago. Some still do. For example, Frank McCourt's 'Angela's Ashes' is a classic example of this kind of memoir, as is Dave Pelzer's 'A child called it'.

Tracey Williamson is will be launching her latest book, 'A Beautiful Tapestry' about her friendship with the blind Christian singer, Marilyn Baker, on 13 November. This is also a memoir. I'm guessing it's a character memoir but I'm not sure because I'm still learning about all the different categories. There are more I'm sure that I haven't even mentioned. However, I recommend these and other memoirs to all of our readers. It is such a privilege to learn about a part of another's life story and as we read, perhaps our own life story and our writing become a little richer for the experience.

Sheila Johnson lives in Cheltenham and is a qualified journalist who has written for a number of publications both local and national. She has also written two books under her pen name Sheila Donald, Alpha Male and Waireka. Her website can be found at www.journojohnson.com