Memoir Magazines and Internet Sites

Useful Publications and Websites for Memoir Writers

Jul 28, 2009

Memoir publications and websites are a useful resource to the memoir writer. They provide both information and advice as well as a market to promote writers works.

Writing and reading the memoirs of others is both enlightening and rewarding. As can be seen from the wide range of magazines and websites below, the term memoir can mean very different things to different people.

A fascinating website that is dedicated to the six word memoir. The Smith Magazine describes itself as the 'home of the six word memoirs and a vibrant community of storytellers."

This website offers writers the opportunity to share a story. It can be on any topic or a writer can decide to write on a story project. Contributions may get included in books or writers can choose to enter a competition.

The six-word story that started it all was: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” attributed to Ernest Hemingway. In the 1920s, Hemingway bet ten dollars that he could write a complete story in just six words. He won the bet. The team at Smith hope to collect a wide range of memoirs spanning themes and subject matter.

SmithTeens is similar to Smith Magazine but is a forum for young people to share the story of their life.

Memoir (and) is a nonprofit literary journal with a mission to publish traditional and nontraditional forms of nonfiction allied with memoir. This includes, but is not limited to, autobiography, diary, personal and critical essay, reportage, autobiographical fiction, alternative histories, flash memoir,narrative poetry, poemoir and graphic memoir.

Each issue includes a selection of prose, poetry, graphic memoirs and narrative photography.

In 2007 Slate ran Memoir Week. This series includes a wide variety of articles around the topic of memoirs and memoir writing. Articles include the history of the biography, the role of poetry, confessional poetry and also a series of short essays by memoirists on the experience of publishing a book about their lives.

The Observer wrote of Granta: ‘In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world.’

Granta does not have a political or literary manifesto. It does believe in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real.

The above websites and online magazines provide a wide variety of opportunities for memoir writers to spare their work and to read the work of others.

The copyright of the article Memoir Magazines and Internet Sites in Writing Memoirs is owned by Lisa Koning. Permission to republish Memoir Magazines and Internet Sites in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.