Fixer Upper: Renovating and Revising (Your Memoir)

By Stephanie Denman

Standing in the apartment I’d bought in Italy from 7,000 miles away, sight unseen, in a village I’d never heard of, I struggled to catch my breath. The amount of work needed was overwhelming. It’s the way I feel every time I look at my manuscript. 

The foundation was solid, but the flat was a mashup of two homes plastered together with an exposed hole in the middle where grimy, moss-covered front and back porches collided. Decorated over decades, the interior layered...