Micro-Memoir

I went to a micro-memoir workshop this last weekend at the Southern California Writers Conference. What is a micro or flash-memoir? Short lives? No, Judy Reeves, author and memoirist actually says that mini-memoirs can be anything from sentences to short paragraphs, and combined into works of various sizes from small books to larger works, usually with a theme.

So, I didn’t even know it was a genre. It is! There are tons of people who write and publish micro memoirs. Beth Ann Fennelly, for instance, published Heating & Cooling–52 Micro-Memoirs (Norton & Co. 2017). There are dozens of others. Who knew?

How do you choose a theme for your life? Ah, well, that is part of the discovery, which is the fun of writing. In the pre-dawn hours of your memoir or micro-memoir planning, you use this quiet time to discover your theme. I’m still in the dark, as it were, but the first few rays of sunlight are breaking through, and the threads of my life are beginning to weave themselves into a fabric that I may be able to put on. I may wear them for a while, or I may toss them. The process is the thing.

And the discovery.

Enjoy finding yourself, and then share if you dare, or keep it to yourself for a journey you’ll not regret.