Writing True Stories By Patti Miller

Stories and Stanza

Please join me in welcoming Patti Miller for today's episode. She is joining us today to discuss her book "Writing True Stories".

She is the author of ten books, including the award-winning The Mind of a Thief, the critically acclaimed Ransacking Paris, The Joy of High Places, and True Friends. The Mind of a Thief was longlisted for the Stella Prize and the Nita Kibble Prize, shortlisted for the WA Premier's Prize for Non-Fiction, winner of the NSW Premier's Prize for History and on the syllabus for English for the VCE in Victoria. She is widely published in literary magazines and national newspapers. She is also a teacher of memoir and nonfiction and has offered workshops for over 30 years in Australia, Paris, Bali, Fiji, and London. Over 65 of Patti Miller's writing students have been commercially published. She currently teaches at the Faber Academy, Sydney and London.

Writing True Stories is essential for anyone wanting to write a memoir or explore the wider territory of creative nonfiction. It provides practical guidance and inspiration on a vast array of writing topics, including how to access memories, find a narrative voice, build a vivid world on the page, create structure, use research and face the difficulties and pitfalls of truth-telling. This book introduces and develops key writing skills and strategies and then challenges more experienced writers to extend their knowledge and practice of the genre into literary nonfiction, true crime, biography, personal essay, and travel and sojourn writing. Whether you want to write your own autobiography, investigate a wide-ranging political issue or bring to life an intriguing history, this book will be your guide.
This second edition encompasses over five years of updated study in the field of life writing with entirely new material on journal and diary writing, the ethics of writing true stories and extended material on creative nonfiction, including
biography and new journalism, plus brand new extracts from key writers such as Joan Didion, Janet Malcolm, Zadie Smith and many others.