The Memoir Project/Your Memoir Project

  • $497 or 3 monthly payments of $169

Your Memoir Project

Discover the proven structure that makes writing memoir so much easier.

Writing memoir is hard work. Writing good memoir is 10X harder.

If you’ve ever aspired to write a good memoir, you already know this. It’s hard to find the courage. Hard to find the time. Hard to decide what to write about.

But most of all, it’s hard to actually write the book.

You aren’t sure how to get started. You don’t know what to include or what to leave out, what to write next, or if what you’re writing is even any good.

I speak from experience.

How I Discovered the Memoir Formula

For years I wanted to be a writer. You see, I come from a family of writers. My father was a sportswriter. My mother was a reporter. My sister is a writer and former publishing executive. My husband is a newspaper editor, columnist and public radio show host. My best friend is the best science writer there is.

But none of that made me the writer I am today. None of it allowed me to publish four mass-market books, and none of it made me one of the most sought after memoir coaches in the world.

That came from thirty years of long nights, working with talented editors, first at the New York Times and then with the four publishers who graciously published my books.

These thirty years of practice molded me into the writer I am today, and prompted literally thousands of writers to ask me to help with their books.

So I began to teach a class, where I revealed the formula successful authors use to write compelling memoir.

That class consistently sold out for roughly twenty years. But there are two problems.

  1. You had to live in upstate New York to attend.
  2. It no longer runs.
And for those two reasons, I’ve been forced to say no to hundreds of students who have contacted me after either reading my book on how to write memoir or who read about the course I used to teach. And saying no bothers me. Because if not for the guidance of all those editors in my life, I would still only dream of being a writer. And I love sharing what I’ve learned with people who want to embark on the noble task of writing memoir.

So, after years of requests, I’ve created an online course that teaches you, step-by-step, how to structure and write a book-length memoir.

My ONLINE Course — Your Memoir Project

This step-by-step course will teach you:

  • The powerful structure virtually all the best memoirs follow
  • How to create a clear argument and plot line for your book
  • The key scenes you must include no matter what you’re writing about
  • The 3W Formula for writing memoir — once you understand this, everything changes
  • The exact system I use to edit all of my manuscripts
  • How to accelerate your writing process (with a workbook and specific punch lists)
  • How to write a truly compelling piece of memoir readers will love and share
The course is taught online, with video lessons you can watch any time. There’s nowhere you have to be and no schedule you have to keep.

You will also receive a workbook, which will make it easy to remember your assignments and to review key concepts you learned in the videos.

Remember, my goal is to make writing a good book EASIER.

You can get this entire structure course for $597.

And because, after years of teaching this material, I know it works, I stand behind this course 100% with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try the program risk-free.

Testimonials

"It is neither simple nor comfortable to strip yourself naked in 200-plus pages of a memoir. Even more painful is shipping said document to a stranger for a thorough review and content edit. But in hiring Marion Roach Smith to edit my manuscript, I discovered not only a caretaker but a craftsman. Marion knows the art of story: how to pull all the right pieces together, arrange them in perfect order, so the telling is both honoring and rich. She took my raw, exposed draft and helped me turn it into a masterpiece. It will not be the last time I bare my soul to such a talent."

Jules Draper

"Marion Roach Smith isn’t just a fine teacher, generous mentor, and sharp and kind critic, she’s also a master at the form of memoir. She coaxes from you and your text what you’re really trying to communicate. She whittles away the unnecessary until all that’s left is the shining essential: your story."

- David Leite, Author of Notes on a Banana: A Memoir of Food, Love and Manic Depression, Blogger at Leite's Culinaria