Post #59 – Women’s Memoirs, Author Conversations – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Cyber Memoir Friends
One of the joys that Kendra and I find in our blogging about memoirs and memoir writing is the friendships we make. Last year, the start of a friendship began with Kate Farrell. She sent us an email about her Wisdom Has a Voice project and her call for mother-daughter memoir vignettes for her upcoming anthology. Kendra wrote a blog post about Kate’s project and included information about the call for submissions.
Our friendship grew as Kate made comments on several of our posts, including at least one announcing a Women’s Memoirs contest award-winner. As it turns out, that winning author also has a piece in the Kate’s memoir anthology.
Recently, Kate sent me an email to let me know that the memoir anthology, Wisdom Has A Voice: Every Daughter’s Memories Of Mother
We’ll definitely post her call for memoir vignettes as soon as she is ready.
–Matilda
PS The network of friendships is marvelous. One of the introductions to the memoir anthology is Amber Lea Starfire, our regular guest blogger on Women’s Memoirs writing about journaling and memoir.
Editing Memoir Vignettes: A Weaving of Words
Last summer when I first contemplated publishing an anthology of memoirs about mothers for the Wisdom Has a Voice project, I screwed up my courage and began to think harder. The workshops that started this project in 2008, to gather stories about mothers that contain wisdom were easy enough, local homey affairs. But how to reach beyond my Northern California wine country to find writers was another thing entirely.
It felt as though I were casting a very long fishing line into cyberspace with Calls for Submission disappearing into the oceanic World Wide Web. After posting the call on select sites, newsletters, ezines, and blogs (including Women’s Memoirs), I could never know who would respond or when. Throughout the dark, rainy winter months, submissions did arrive, each one a marvel, an almost magical event. I applauded them all, not only for the risk-taking motivation of their authors, but also for their clear authenticity.
It was a bonding experience: every author became a real connection and more, a collaborative creator of the work. Almost immediately the editing process started as I kept to the guidelines posted on the website. I soon discovered that, no matter how loosely constructed the memoir’s first draft was, if the author was willing to revise, I could find a way to include it in the anthology. What I hoped never to lose was the author’s unique voice.
My sense of isolation dissipated as the back and forth of editing tightened the bond of communication between editor and author. When I was certain of our working relationship, I made the final selection for 25 memoirs. If there were any bias in this process, it was for the earlier submissions. Those that came in near deadline were at some disadvantage since I did not have the time to develop an editorial relationship. However, if a submission came in that was close to the deadline but also very close to the guidelines, that disadvantage vanished.
The stunning discovery among the 25 selected memoirs was their diversity of range in so many ways: geography, age, culture, race, social status, ethnicity, and varied experiences with their mothers or mother figures. Though these were factors in making the final choice, they were not the deciding factors. I chalk this happy coincidence up to sheer luck or cyberspace magic.
At this point the editing work began in earnest. Though I now had 25 memoirs, they were in final draft form and needed refining. With the help of an editorial team, local freelancers, the memoirs were gently edited for clarity, structure, grammar, and precise word choice. Edited manuscripts were returned to the authors with suggestions for approval and negotiated changes. Lastly, the entire manuscript was proofread three times for consistency in punctuation and syntax according to a single style manual (Chicago).
Again, I was struck by the need for an open and supportive working relationship with each author. Though often separated by great distances, the respect we had for each other and for the goals of the publication were the glue that kept us on task as paragraphs were slightly changed or deleted, commas replaced with periods, or new titles suggested.
What we had co-created was a work of handmade delight. There are hundreds of fingerprints all over this anthology, a woven tapestry constructed word by word of experiences with our mothers and the truths we unraveled together.
Writing memoir is a personal journey that is publicly shared. The irony of that never escaped me: the inside and outside of memoir. I am grateful to the authors in this anthology who, in sharing their inner vision about their mothers, will assist each reader to reflect on hers. I have a special appreciation for the two introduction authors, Amber Lea Starfire and Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, who pulled together common threads among the individual works with empathy and insight.
Now out as a “sneak preview” is the Kindle edition on Amazon (for just $2.99). I look forward to its launch as a print book in September, published by a small house in Indiana, Unlimited Publishing LLC. Though the eBook is attractive, I can’t wait to hold the “real” book in my hands and leaf through its pages, a finished work.
For more information, resources, and to submit stories: http://wisdomhasavoice.com/
Another Wisdom memoir anthology is planned for 2013.
