If we put a minimum age on memoir writing, we invalidate the experience of youth. “But they don’t have perspective!” they say. But that’s not true: Young memoirists have a different perspective from someone who is older.

The first quarterly read for The Memoir Method Podcast is From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle. This memoir is about a First Nations young man whose first three decades are defined by abandonment, addiction, crime, homelessness, and hopelessness. We’ll spend time over the next three months diving deep into this memoir and identifying what elements make this memoir shine. Most of these podcast conversations will be happening with my friend and fellow reader and writer Ginny Walters.

The Memoir Method Podcast is a place for readers and writers to connect over the power of story. Underpinned by the Bookish Edits core belief—You have a story that matters—The Memoir Method Podcast will prove to listeners that anyone who wants to write a memoir can.

Writing is all the things: exciting, fun, satisfying, challenging, maddening, and discouraging. Choosing the writer’s life is agreeing to both the highs and lows, but you don’t have to navigate them alone. Today I have three hacks for the memoir writer to keep you on track, connected, and supported.

The Memoir Method is my signature program here at Bookish Edits. It opens for registration only two times a year and is the way that I can make this high-level of editing accessible to more writers. But what is the thinking behind The Memoir Method? Why do writers even need a method? What can a framework even do for writers that they can’t figure out for themselves?

All very good questions. Writing is a vocation that invites people in for free. You can sit down with a pen and paper and start writing and easily consider yourself a writer, no training necessary. The thing is, though, that people find me when they realize that they don’t know what they don’t know. They’ve written and rewritten, submitted their manuscript to publishing houses and agents, and feel stuck in the process. That’s where editors can help.