KOOSER's MEMOIR-WRITING TIPS

Ted Kooser a native of Ames Iowa, Iowa State University graduate and descendent of the Moser family of Osterdock, Iowa(south of  Guttenberg) is the former U.S. poet laureate and Presidential Professor of the University of Nebraska. He is the author of many books of poetry and encourages people to write about their families and has taught memoir-writing workshops.

His mother was dying in 1997 and he felt an urgency to write about his family of his youth.  His mother read it before she died and was pleased. Over the years he has published pieces of that work in journals and poems. 

All of this was taken from an article by Mike Kilen in the Des Moines Register a few years ago, Kooser believes "that writing about family can give them a bit of immortality. It was a way for me to take a very ordinary people and elevate them into the light." "I have written a lot of poetry about family members.When someone comes upon a poem about my mother, they come into the light."

"Suddenly a person is 70 years old. All this happened and it happened quickly. What do you do with those memories?" "Every day I pick up the paper and look at the obits, like many my age I look at the phographs." "For every one of those faces, there are a million memories taken out of this world. So I am all for putting them down. I hope it inspires people to write about their own families."

KOOSER'S MEMOIR-WRITING TIPS:

*Don't think about writing a book. That's too daunting. Write scenes from memory, little vignettes, that can eventually be assembled into a book.
*Read other memoirs because you learn much from how other people handle it.
* Be economical with words. Why spend 160 pages writing what 60 pages will do?
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I have tried to follow this advice in my own writing of short stories. Another way of saying it in my classes is by asking the question. HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT? One bite at a time! 

Good writing to all!