Everyone has a story, or at least they'd like to believe so.  And everyone who has put their fingers on a keyboard has probably thought of capturing the deep moments of their existence in a moving text sure to race up the bestseller list.

Memoirs like Julie & Julia, Eat Pray Love and The Glass Castle have spawned a number of imitators, clogging up the inboxes of agents and publishers.  In order to provide some perspective and advice for the memoir writer to be, we asked two prominent literary agents a few simple questions about the genre.  One hint...get to know your dog.

Gina Panettieri, Talcott Notch Literary

1.  What would be your simple advice to aspiring (non-famous) memoir-ists?

 

Advice for aspiring (nonfamous) memoir writers. You don't need to be a famous name to sell a memoir if your story and your style are appealing and promotable. Humor is always popular and selling especially well in this economy, but serious 'issue memoirs' (divorce, loss of a child, mental illness, sexual abuse) are also well-received, but with these, you need to be able to distinguish your story from others on the market, so do lots of research on what is already out there. It never hurts to have a well-developed marketing plan, too! Even if you're not a celebrity yourself (yet!) it helps to show publishers you have or can develop inroads into your target market.

And keep in mind, a memoir need not be the story of your entire life. Many memoirs cover a very limited period in the author's life, a pregnancy, a fight with cancer, a year of trying out some lifestyle changes, a journey, etc. and many blend the memoir of the author's life with an exploration of a theme that recurs or impacts that life.

2.  What memoir would you recommend to those same aspirants?

It's hard to choose just one non-celebrity memoir to suggest aspiring writers read. Literally, the shelves are full of inspiration and it would be a mistake for someone to limit themselves and not experience the range of what is possible in memoir-writing. Julie Powell's Julie and Juliais a good example of a non-celebrity memoir that did spectacularly, based on the author's decision to cook her way through Julia Child'sMastering The Art Of French Cooking and write a blog (and book) about it, so it was rather an intentional memoir.  Augusten Burroughs'Running with Scissors, on the other hand, details a period of the author's life that was anything but ordinary and certainly not planned, with captured with a sharp wit and humor that defies that often heart-breaking circumstances the author details. Fifty Acres and a Poodle by Jeanne Marie Laskas is a wildly amusing romp that covers her first year transitioning from city life to country living, as well as transitioning from life as a 'single but in a committed relationship' status to living together and marriage, filled with truly dumb sheep, men in John Deere caps, and dogs that had never realized their full potential until they had lots of room to zoom. A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas is an achingly sad and poignantly touching memoir of a woman coping with having to live a life largely on her own after her husband suffers a massive brain injury and must be institutionalized, and how love survives even the harshest of blows.

Lisa Hagan, Paraview Literary Agency

1.  What would be your simple advice to aspiring (non-famous) memoir-ists?

The author will have to have an extraordinary story, one that is different from what is currently out there. I bet I get 10 queries a week from psychics, writing about their childhood and how they had to hide their abilities as a child. Been there, done that. The other thing that I get a lot of is a comparison to Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, which is an immediate turn off for myself and the editors.


2.  What memoir would you recommend to those same aspirants?

Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea. No one knew who he was. Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo by Lawrence Anthony, he also has a book coming out this November, The Elephant Whisperer...if you get a chance, get that book; it is fantastic. Also worth checking out is, We Bought A Zoo, by Benjamin Mee.