Let It Bleed
How to Write a Rockin' Memoir
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Author of the international bestseller I'm with the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, Pamela Des Barres shares with women the art of memoir writing.
For the last fourteen years, Pamela Des Barres has been teaching an eight-week women's "femoir" writing workshop. She found that the music-loving ladies who showed up at her door had pent-up stories to tell. Many of them had read her two memoirs, which were wildly personal and deeply confessional, and felt comfortable opening up and experiencing that same freedom of expression.
In this book, Des Barres guides women through the process of writing their memoirs. She has developed exercises to help her "dolls" recall, remember, relive, and reveal their memories, transgressions, temptations, their sleepless nights and brilliant afternoons, loves and losses, fears and regrets, secrets, sins, and sorrows. The assignments in Femoir have proven incredibly cathartic for her students. Just as intimate as one of her in-person workshops, this book includes some of Des Barres's own stories, as well as those of the women she's taught.
Every person has an incredible story to tell—they just need to figure out how to tell it. By understanding themselves better through these writing exercises, women learn to be more fearless, free-spirited, and willing to try something new.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Devotees of 1970s rock 'n' roll are the most likely to be familiar with Des Barres (One Night Band), the so-called "Queen of the Groupies," but even the uninitiated should find her latest book an energetic, surefire way to flex one's writing muscles. Des Barres, a longtime diarist, found bestseller status with her 1987 debut memoir, I'm with the Band, and for the past 16 years has taught writing workshops aimed at women who write nonfiction. For those who can't attend, this book is a worthy substitute. Des Barres begins with baby-step suggestions (keep a journal, read a lot) and then launches into a review of mechanics. After that, she gets readers' memories and imaginations working overtime with 12-minute writing exercises. Des Barres frequently includes her own responses, as well as excerpts, some better than others, from her students, followed by brief critiques. Assignment topics range from the innocuous (parenting moments) to racier "true confessions," making for some jarring transitions. The book is at once encouraging and instructive, a valuable tool for helping writers of all levels discover heretofore untapped material within themselves.
