Life Writing for Publication

As a grade-schooler, I roamed my small-town public library, always returning to the kiddie biographies. I read these stories about eminent people like Florence Nightingale and Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt over and over again. Now grown up, I still find a volume of journals or letters-the recording of a real person's life experience-more compelling than the best fiction, or poetry, or drama.

Publishers know that readers love life stories. Historically, biography and autobiography have consistently outsold other nonfiction genres. For all the commentary it has generated, the memoir craze of the last few years (Having Our Say, Angela's Ashes, The Kiss) only reflects a long-standing public enthusiasm for life stories.

If you want to publish your life writing-stories from your own life or about the lives of other fascinating women-you should feel encouraged. You can sell your work, to a variety of publishing markets. But how to do it? Like any other organizational culture, the publishing industry has its own values, professional expectations, and standard operating procedures. Knowing the rules and playing by them can improve your odds for successful publication. Beginning with the next issue of the Story Circle Journal, I'll contribute a regular column offering information and resources specifically for women who want to publish life writing. Upcoming topics include information about:

• references for the professional writer, such as Writer's Market and Literary Marketplace, plus reference guides that will help you create an effective, persuasive proposal;
• professional organizations that provide information and support to women life writers;
• literary agents;
• periodical markets for women's life writing, including women's service magazines, general and special interest magazines, and magazines that focus on contemporary culture
• markets for girls' and women's life writing in children's books and magazines;
• professional standards for queries and manuscript submissions;
• the whys and hows of self-publishing;
• Internet resources for women life writers
• Internet publication of women's life writing;
• help with researching and applying for grants to support women's life writing.

Having recently left a ten-year academic career, I now work full-time as a writer and editor. I have published magazine features on the topic of life writing and profiles of interesting people's lives. For two years, I wrote a column about members' professional lives for the Austin Writers' League. I also teach life writing workshops, and I am helping to write the workbook for the Older Women's Legacy Circle, sponsored by the Story Circle Network. In this regular column, I will be offering the kind of information and support that I have so gratefully received in my own writing career-with the hope that some day soon, I will see your writing in print!