Why We Write About Ourselves: Twenty Memoirists on Why They Expose Themselves (and Others) in the Name of Literature

by Meredith Maran

I have nothing to protect, which I think is crucial if you’re going to write autobiographically. If you’re going to write a memoir, you have to tell the truth as you know and remember it. Once you start smoothing your own rough edges, you might as well make it a novel.