Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
Free Press - Free Press
Release date: 2008-02-12
Hardcover
Author: Natalie Goldberg
Biography And Autobiography, Creative Writing, Language Arts & Disciplines, Language Arts / Linguistics / Literacy, Language, Composition & Creative Writing - Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs, Language Arts & Disciplines / Composition & Creative Writing, Reference / Writing Skills, Composition & Creative Writing - General, Personal Memoirs, Writing Skills, Authorship, Autobiography, Biography as a literary form, English language, Problems, exercises, etc, Rhetoric, Study and teaching
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Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
Date undefinedAny of Natalie Goldberg's books are to me the ones I grab when I need to be spurred on to put pen to paper. This one in particular is a terrific tool to writing a memior. Her prompts are practical and aside from being funny at times, she knows the needs of aspiring writers. And she never writes over my head. I think I have read every one of her books at least once and even her novel "Banana Rose" which was great summer reading.
Do you want to write about yourself and your life as a memory? Try Natalie.
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
Date undefinedThis morning at 4:30 I turned on the light to read a few more pages of Old Friend From Far Away. I skipped toward the end and read about how at a celebration for the twentieth anniversary of Natalie's first book, a woman who took her writing class when she was a young student at an alternative school, stood up to speak. The woman told her story of how one Monday Natalie brought in a bushel of rich red apples she'd picked the day before at an orchard near the school. This was a family orchard where a month before the oldest son had been killed in a bizarre gun accident. The woman revealed that this young man had been her first love.
When I got to the part where the woman explained how Natalie's writing class gave her an avenue for expressing her suffering and grief, I found myself sobbing (in a good way) with recognition of the truth of her words.
After the woman finishes telling her story Natalie writes:
"It's a holy thing to be a writer. It is why you want to write your memoir: to remember all of it. The good and the bad. To trust your experience, to have confidence that your moments and the moments of others on this earth mattered... It is a great thing you are doing whatever it is you are remembering. You are saying that life--and its passing--have true value."
I hesitated to buy Old Friend From Far Away since I already have Natalie Goldberg's other enormously helpful writing books. But all the praise from other writers is well-deserved. Every page makes me want to click my heels with delight--even the pages that make me cry. I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
--Suza Francina, author, The New Yoga for People Over 50 and other books for people at midlife and older.
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
Date undefinedNatalie Goldberg has done it again! As a teacher of fiction and memoir, I recommend this book to all memoir writers. Natalie has prompts that will intrigue and spur writers to put pen in hand or fingers to the keyboard.
By using these prompts, you can't do anything BUT write.
Catherine Alexander
Author and Instructor
