We’ve talked some, here, about memoir, creative nonfiction, and personal essays, probably because it’s a type of writing I particularly enjoy (for work and personal reading). I’ve even reviewed some I’ve read: Michael Hainey, Elizabeth Bard, Eddie Huang, Phyllis Rose, and Michael Paterniti.

So this article grabbed my attention right away. In it, the editors at Salon note it’s hard to write a good memoir—and then bring together ten accomplished memoirists with piquant advice on how to do it. Here are some samples (strong language warning):

• Your early work will probably be too earnest and overwrought and snarky, and you’ll try too hard to sound ironic and erudite, but if you keep at it, you will get better and better.

• Don’t fucking lie.

• Honesty is not the same as confession.

• Lean toward discomfort.

• Tell your story through a particular lens; hew closely.

• I have learned over the years that memory and imagination are in fact very similar cognitive functions and I’ll bet if I looked into it, I’d find that they involve the same neural circuits in the brain.

• In the best memoir it’s not the what, it’s how the writer tells the what—meaning and effect through form.

• If you’re not sure about the difference between publishing a story and therapy, you especially should find a good shrink.

• Since the details will be so perspective-wreckingly close, work hard to increase that distance. … Change your narrator from “I” to “she” (or “he”). Write the whole thing in that third-person voice, and then—after typing your final period—do a word-replace to get yourself back in there. You’ll be amazed at how freeing that is.

• Write as though you were never going to show it to anyone. Write it with the liberation of complete privacy. You can always change your mind later.

I was astonished to see that I’d read six of the ten authors here. You may have too. Regardless, read what they have to say! It’s good.

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