by Patti Isaacs I had the huge pleasure of meeting Patti Isaacs years ago when she attended a critique group to which I belonged. I got to see the first version of The Second Long March, a memoir based on her and her husband’s year of teaching in China in 1981 just as the country began to open up. The book has just published by Atmosphere Press! I had the great fortune of reading an advance copy and she perfectly captures the transformative experience of a young American woma

Today I’m recommending My Year of Magical Thinking and Joan Didion’s other works today in honor of her death on Dec. 22 at the age of 87. Joan is probably not someone I would have been friends with. She was at the top of high-end 1960s hipster scene. She “knew people” and had the literary chops to talk boldly about culture and celebrities in a way meant to grind down our illusion of humanity as anything but opportunistic. Because she came from the generation before me, I didn

by Wren Godfrey Chapman NOTE: You can also find this review on Goodreads. I love memoirs where adventurous women grab life by the horns, and Pirate Girl Falls Through Beaver Dam is just that story! In the late 1960s, 18-year-old Wren Godfrey Chapman is a spirited young North Carolinian who catches her two-timing man in the act only a few weeks before they’re set to wed. Attempting to outrun heartache, she quits college and hauls off to Key West for adventures at sea. Possessi

Yesterday I sent out a newsletter offering a Kindle copy of these two fantastic new memoirs. Recommend your favorite memoir(s) below and I’ll add your name! I know so many great authors who write great stories that I often offer giveaways via my newsletter, so consider subscribing! Read my Goodreads review of Gina Troisi’s memoir, The Angle of Flickering Light, and my Goodreads review of Scott Gould’s Things That Crash, Things That Fly. ___ Now available via Amazon and all ot