Writing Memoir in Flashes

There are many reasons for writing a memoir—from self-discovery to preservation of memories for future generations. Our guest today is Lita Kurth, who has written a book to help you create your very best story. 

Some writing involves moments of agony (my fourteen-year novel, for example) but this one, Writing Memoir in Flashes (out in May from Thinking Ink Press) went very smoothly. As I wrote, I revisited the wonderful students and fellow writers I’d had the privilege to know and the fabulous work they produced.

In fact, one area in which this book might be unique is this: most of my writing samples came from amateurs. I hope their terrific pieces inspire and encourage readers to believe that they, too, can produce such gems. I’m so grateful to my editors and publishers at Thinking Ink Press for allowing me to write this book just as I wished, the way I teach memoir writing. 

At the mention of memoir, some will ask, or worse, be asked: “Isn’t it narcissistic to write memoir? A bit self-involved?” or “Does your life really merit a memoir? Who wants to read about someone ordinary?”

To the first point, I concede that some memoirs and memoir articles are inflated brags or hatchet jobs designed to bring down the famous and garner prurient interest. 

But another, far more significant type of memoir also exists, the kind my book aims to help people write. In this better kind of memoir, authors of great courage reflect deeply and honestly on their lives and render their neighborhood, era, and family unforgettable. They dare to share failures, heartaches, and confusion, relationships that weren’t all joy and bliss, and somehow that’s more interesting than successes. A profound alchemy happens when “ordinary” experience is laid forth with “microscopic truthfulness.” And it happens on both sides: the readers’ and the writer’s. Readers get to enter a life that happened only once, only to specific people in a specific place, and yet they reflect back to us a universal mystery, what I would even call the sacred value of every life. Over and over, I hear from writers, including those who write only for themselves or a very small group, that taking time to investigate their lives, their family history, the times they’ve lived through is a very meaningful activity. Over and over, students describe such writing as the most satisfying they’ve ever done. Perhaps it’s because the self always exists surrounded by a unique world, and its story cannot be told apart from its surroundings. Even the simplest life is vastly complex.

As I released this book into the world of Kickstarters and publicity, I thought back to the earliest memoir-ish writing I’d done: in a high school English class where we were assigned journals. I, who had always enjoyed opining and goofing off on the page, wrote a piece about my dad in the style of an Old Testament chapter: “Thus saith Dad onto his first-born and second-born even onto the seventh-born, ‘Go thou into the garden and pull forth every manner of weed that groweth there.’ And the children of Dad did greatly grumble.”

I wrote to amuse or impress others and kept painful experiences at bay. But over time, first in private journals, then in poetry, and finally in published pieces, I reached toward what I most admired. What that effort brought me, far more lastingly important than publication (though a first or big publication is a thrill), was intimacy, wonder, psychological growth, an enduringly absorbing (and challenging) vocation, community, and friendship. May all memoir writers enjoy such gifts.

Would you like to support this endeavor? Here's how:

How to go to the Kickstarter campaign

Click the Kickstarter campaign link: kickstarter.com/projects/thinkinginkpress/writing-memoir-in-flashes-nonfiction-book

Or you can search for Writing Memoir in Flashes on Kickstarter and find it that way. 

This campaign runs from October 14-November 10, 2026. 

How does Kickstarter work?

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform where you can back campaigns for creative works. To back a campaign, you need a free Kickstarter account. Go to the campaign and select the reward tier that you want.  If the campaign has met its funding goal when it ends, you’re charged the amount you backed for. After the campaign is over, as we move forward with publishing tasks for this book, we’ll share updates. When Writing Memoir in Flashes is ready, we’ll fulfill the rewards.

About Lita

From a family of ten children in rural Wisconsin, Lita Kurth, MFA- Rainier Writers Workshop (PLU) grew to be the author of One Creative Writing Prompt a Day(Callisto Press) and the forthcoming Writing Memoir in Flashes (Thinking Ink Press). She has received multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations for fiction and creative nonfiction and has taught creative writing at De Anza College, CreatorSchoolCA, and elsewhere to students aged 8 to 80, from jail residents to professionals, and has been an invited reader at many events from Cinequest's Poets n' Writers to Poetry Center San Jose's Well-Read series. 

She is co-founder of San Jose’s Flash Fiction Forum; winner, the Diana Woods Memorial Award from Lunchticket and recipient of several fellowships to creative writing conferences. Find her on LinkedIn and Lita Kurth Writing Workshops on Facebook. Sample publications: Cherry Tree, The Millions, Atticus Review, Lunchticket, Brain,Child, Main Street Rag, Wordrunner, Oyedrum, Chicago Literati, Rappahannock Review, NewVerseNews, elllipsis...Verbatim, Unlost Journal, Raven Chronicles, defenestration, Working Class Studies Journal. A featured reader for Peninsula Literary Society, Play on Words, and others, she has performed twice at Poets N' Film for the Cinequest Film Festival.

Thanks for the post and for the book, Lita!