In fact-checking a piece I've written on ten memorable memoirs -- if it gets published, as I hope, I'll link here later -- I found this exceptional
piece on Truth & Beauty. It's a treasure trove of good links.

Vantage point is a crucial issue in memoir. Who gets to tell the story? Why? Does the mere fact of being a writer entitle one to own a story that belongs to many others? You'll find one of those questions, almost word-for-word, in the first chapter of LIFE SENTENCES. It takes me back to the old theatrical joke used in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, when a certain actor is asked to describe ROMEO AND JULIET. "It's about this nurse," he begins. Don't most of us tell stories this way?

It's a snow day in Baltimore. I didn't get them off as a journalist; I don't get them off as a full-time novelist. But I enjoy being surrounded by people having an unexpected holiday. It was the blizzard of 2003 that brought me to Spoons to write; I had such intense cabin fever that I had to find some way to get out of the house.