Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Every ordinary life story is extraordinary!

Enter Your Memoir or Other Work in a Writing Contest!

For competitive memoir writers, here’s a list of upcoming writing contests. You can enter just a chapter.

We had an email from a member who wanted to enter a chapter from her memoir in a short story contest and asked us whether we knew of any such contests. A little research turned up quite a few of these competitions, both with entry fees and without, so I thought I’d post them here on the blog in case others of you would like to see whether your work can earn you money and accolades. Check right away, because some of these deadlines are approaching.

  1. This page lists a bunch of contests: http://www.writers-editors.com/Writers/Contests/contests.htm
  2. Here’s another long list, and then you’ll have to google the name of each contest: http://www.suite101.com/content/first-quarter-2011-short-story-contests-and- awards-for-writers-a326426
  3. The Gemini Magazine contest: http://www.gemini-magazine.com/contest.html
  4. The Southeast Review contest:  http://southeastreview.org/contests.html
  5. Some international competitions: http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/creative-writing-contests.html

That should keep everyone busy! You can enter just a chapter from your memoirs or, of course, an entirely separate short story. Please let us know either here or on the WriteMyMemoirs Facebook page if you win something—or even if you enter! We would love to announce your success. And if you would like to publish your story into a small book to hand out, please keep in mind our very affordable publishing services.

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Then just set up a chapter and start writing your memoir. Don’t worry about rules. There are no rules to writing your memoir; there are only trends. These trends are based on techniques and features identified in current top-selling memoirs. At best, they’re the flavor of the month. If you’re capturing your life in print for your family, for your own gratification or to inspire readers, rather than aiming to set off Hollywood screenplay bidding wars, these trends don’t even apply to you. You’ll write the memoir that suits you best, and it will be timeless, not trend-driven.There are no rules, but there are four steps:

1. Theme/framework
2. Writing
3. Editing/polishing
4. Self-publishing

You’ve researched this, too, and you’ve been shocked at the price for getting help with any one of those steps, much less all four. That’s because most memoir sites promise to commercialize your work. They’ll follow a formula based on current memoir trends, because they want to convince you that they can turn your memoir into a best-seller. These sites overwhelm you with unnecessary information not to help you, the memoir author, but to address Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms so they can sell more.

That’s not what we do at Write My Memoirs. Our small community of coaches, writers and editors are every bit as skilled as any you’ll find, and we charge appropriately for their expertise and the time they’ll spend helping you craft a compelling, enjoyable read. But you won’t pay an upcharge for other websites’ commercialization, the marketing that follows, and the pages of intimidating “advice.” You can sell your book if you like—we have ISBNs available for you—but our organic process of capturing your story takes a noncommercial path.

If you want help with any or all of the four steps above, choose from our services or save money by selecting one of our packages. If you’d like to talk about what’s right for you, schedule a call. One year from now, you can be holding your published memoir in your hand. And at that point, it will be a big deal!

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