Vijay Fitzgerald
2 June 2025
•5 min read
I believe we are made in moments—the quiet turning points that define who we become.
Writing a memoir holds a mirror to those moments. It’s not a list of accolades or ancestral timelines, but an exploration of emotional truths—a reckoning between who we were and who we now know ourselves to be. Memoir isn’t just about what happened, but what it meant. Sharing those turning points brings us closer to others because the more personal the story, the more universal it becomes.
When running a workshop for memoir writers, we begin with a question: What moment split your life into before and after? We all have one. For Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love, it was crying on her bathroom floor, realising her marriage was over. For Cheryl Strayed, Wild, it was the moment she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail with no preparation and a backpack too heavy to lift. For Hugo Hamilton, The Speckled People, it was being punished for speaking English in an Irish-German home, realising language could both shape and silence him. These moments are the heart of a memoir. They live in turning points. They ask: What changed you? What did you make of it? What did you learn?
Memoir also requires emotional precision. While honesty matters—and we must treat memory with respect and care—what gives memoir power is capturing what something felt like in the moment. It’s a conversation between who you were and who you’ve become—the narrator. It trades in sensation, memory, and meaning.
If you want to write a memoir, here are three tools to begin:
- Anchor the reader in a scene.
Don’t tell them you were heartbroken. Show them the chipped mug, the voicemail, the unopened letter.
- Use your narrator’s hindsight.
A memoir is written by your present self about your past self. That insight is what makes it powerful.
- Find the universal inside the specific.
Your story is yours alone. But the emotions it reveals—grief, joy, shame, love—are what connect you to your reader.
Memoir isn’t therapy. But it can be healing. It gives shape to what felt chaotic. It allows you to tell your story on your terms.
And in doing so, you permit others to do the same.
If you're ready to write your story, start small. One moment. One room. One change. Let the ripple grow.
You don’t need permission. You just need a pen and the truth you already carry.