Why do people publish memoirs? The time commitment is daunting, and the work can be emotionally draining, so the passion to stick with it must flow from a place of profound importance to the author. From what I’ve observed, most memoirists have more than one of the following motivations: to help or entertain others, to preserve unique knowledge, for therapy or – the most popular—for profit.
Why more than one motivation? Those who write for a living (and some who don’t) pen their story primarily for profit, though author Gore Vidal would protest—eloquently, of course—that he wrote Palimpsest to preserve the truth of his life from his exclusive perspective. Ulysses S. Grant, not a professional author, wrote his war memoirs for the same two aims. He had unique insights on the Civil War, and he desperately needed money; he was dying penniless and wanted to have something to leave his family besides debt for treating his throat cancer.
Tara Westover started writing Educated primarily to cope with her family abandoning her, but she, too, had bills to pay, and the money she got from a book that perched on the New York Times bestseller list for over two years must have helped—a lot. Tina Fey’s job is entertainment and her Bossypants memoir is one of the funniest money-makers you’ll ever read.
Paul Kalanithi had the same two goals in mind for When Breath Becomes Air as Thomas Merton did for Seven Storey Mountain. Each had a one-of-a-kind life story to document for posterity; each sought to inspire and uplift others.
Why did I create Strong Glass? In the Author’s Note at the end of my book, I admit that my motivation for writing my growing-up story began as one thing and evolved into another—then another. My daughter provided the first incentive. I wanted to pass on valuable life lessons—knowledge nuggets I called them—that I’d acquired over the years. But then my brother, Bud, made me listen again and again to his two favorite topics: his time growing up in Cresaptown, Maryland, and our dad’s bittersweet life. I knew I need therapy; I just never thought it would begin with Bud’s stories or that in writing about my childhood, I would become my own therapist.
Strong Glass touches on Western Maryland, World War II, the Great Depression, mirror resilvering, child abuse, Catholicism, intergenerational trauma, and the need for a good education. Contact me if you want to learn more.