Memoir Essays

In the late 1990s, a young physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, published a stunning memoir of his experiences in the highly charged world of the ER. Presented in a series of powerful, poetic vignettes, The Blood of Strangers became an instant classic. Now, over two decades later, Dr. Frank Huyler delivers another dispatch from the trenches—this time from the perspective of middle age. In portraits visceral, haunting, sometimes surreal, Huyler reveals the gritty reality of medicine practiced on the razor’s edge between life and death.

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can’t yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don’t matter, and it’s easier to hide in plain sight. To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: When Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her.

Casey Wilson has a lot on her mind and she isn’t afraid to share. In this dazzling collection, each essay skillfully constructed and brimming with emotion, she shares her thoughts on the joys and vagaries of modern-day womanhood and motherhood, introduces the not-quite-typical family that made her who she is, and persuasively argues that lowbrow pop culture is the perfect lens through which to examine human nature.

In 1994, retired CBS correspondent Charles Kuralt set out to spend a perfect year in America - traveling to his 12 favorite American places, in just the right month for a visit to each. With his well-known warmth, humor, and insight, he shows them to us now in Charles Kuralt's America.

As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize that she was actually trying to write about how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. This gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers.

When Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker’s art critic and the leading art writer of his generation, published his eye-opening autobiographical essay, “The Art of Dying,” in December 2019, he reported that he had lung cancer and had been given six months of life. Fortunately, his treatment was showing some improvement, and so, he wrote, “These extra months are a luxury that I hope to have put to good use.”

In his instant New York Times best-selling book Do You Mind If I Cancel?, Gary Janetti had us all in stitches as he recounted the pains and indignities of everyday life in the way only he can. Now, in Start Without Me, Janetti returns with a hilarious collection about how sometimes the things we most want to get done and over with are the ones that define us for a lifetime. Gary turns his acid tongue (and secretly beating heart) to the moments and times that have defined him, no matter how embarrassing or annoying they might be to admit.

“Giorgio’s compassion is memorable.” –KIRKUS REVIEW It wasn’t a typical response to depression. Reaching a new low in her life, Kathie Giorgio, a natural skeptic, decides to fight her sadness by publically posting one moment of happiness every day on Facebook. The response is overwhelming. People flock to her page to see each day’s new post. Soon, Kathie launches Today’s Moment Of Happiness Despite The News as her blog. She vows to continue this daily Today’s Moment for a year. And what a year! Her husband loses his job not once, but twice. Her autistic daughter is so ...

Kelly McMasters found herself in her mid-thirties living her fantasy: she'd moved with her husband, a painter, from New York City to rural Pennsylvania. The pastoral landscape and the bookshop they opened were restorative at first, for her and her marriage. But soon, she was quietly plotting her escape. In The Leaving Season, McMasters chronicles the heady rush of falling in love and carving out a life in the city, the slow dissolution of her relationship in an isolated farmhouse, and the complexities of making a new home for herself and her children as a single parent.

A powerful, poetic memoir about what it means to exist as an Indigenous woman in America, told in snapshots of the author’s encounters with gun violence.

Not everyone has to be dragged kicking and screaming through adulthood. Dave Barry will help through this process - with his hilarious takes on parenting, changing self-image, the battle of the sexes, technology, health care, celebrityhood, and even vampires!

Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying—and often failing—to be nice. With wit and surprising candor, Leary recounts the bedlam of home bat invasions, an obsession with online personality tests, and the mortification of taking ballroom dance lessons with her actor husband. She describes hilarious red-carpet fiascos and other observations from the sidelines of fame, while also touching upon her more poignant struggles with alcoholism, her love for her family, her dogs, and so much more.

The essays in this collection are the work of a group of friends known as the Northwoods Essayists: The Write People. The name comes from a very special place where we first met each other, the Northwoods Unitarian Universalist Church in The Woodlands, Texas. The group began in 2020, and its membership has evolved over time. Our current members include Hallie Moore, Mira Dessy, Dorothy Kennedy, John Hammond, and Ann McAlpin. Our friend and fellow writer Sharon Ossowski passed away while this book was in progress. We know you’ll be delighted by her wonderful essays in this collection. Our ...

In To Name the Bigger Lie, Sarah Viren “has pulled off a magic trick of fantastic proportion” (The Washington Post), telling the story of an all-too-real investigation into her personal and professional life that she expands into a profound exploration of the nature of truth. The memoir begins as Viren is researching what she believes will be a book about her high school philosophy teacher, a charismatic instructor who taught her and her classmates to question everything—eventually, even the reality of historical atrocities.

The Cool Side of My Pillow is a collection of essays. Don’t let that fancy word fool you. I’m not trying to get highbrow or rant myself blue, but there are experiences and observations outside of the entertainment industry that I feel are worth sharing. What’s it about? Mostly, things that matter to me, like putting in the effort, being honest, and not treating the environment like it’s the enemy.

In his short life, the Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the leading thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, South America, the African continent, and the Caribbean. In each locale, Rodney found himself a lightning rod for working class Black Power. His deportation catalyzed 20th century Jamaica's most significant rebellion, the 1968 Rodney riots, and his scholarship trained a generation how to think politics at an international scale.

After going viral “reading” the chaotic political news, having one-too-many awkward social encounters, and coming to terms with his intersecting identities, R. Eric Thomas finally knew who he was and where he was going. He was living his best life. But then everything changed. In this collection of insightful and hilarious essays, Thomas moves back to his perpetually misunderstood hometown of Baltimore (a place he never wanted to return, even to be buried) and behaving completely out of character.

In 1956, Caedmon had the great fortune to record Eudora Welty reading some of her finest stories. In her sweetly vibrant Mississippi drawl, Ms. Welty deftly draws the listener in to the uproariously multilayered "Why I Live at the P.O.", the spontaneous "Powerhouse", and the insightful voice of women's truths in "Petrified Man". Ms. Welty's reading brings immediacy and resonance to these wonderful tales.

One of the most famous of all literary dogs, Flush was the golden cocker spaniel belonging to Elizabeth Barrett. In this charming and heartfelt biography, Viginia Woolf tells his story: his early days as Miss Mitford's puppy running across the fields in wild abandon and fathering another, then the years spent in his invalid mistress' bedroom in Wimpole Street.

Anchor of the number-one news show on cable, The Kelly File, Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly writes her much anticipated book, a revealing and surprising memoir detailing her rise as one of the most respected journalists working today. From the values and lessons that have shaped her career to her time at the center of the chaotic 2016 Republican presidential primary, this book offers an inside look at an uncompromising woman's journey to the top of the news business.