Bett Dorion Fitzpatrick grew up in Newfoundland when there wasn’t a child alive who didn’t know the story about the tragic shipwrecks of the USS Truxton and USS Pollux. In this small mining town along Canada’s craggy shores, local villagers mounted a rescue operation and carried up the cliffs the 186 U.S. servicemen who survived the shipwrecks in the midst of a blizzard in February of 1942. This history of her hometown left an indelible impression on Bett, and she returned to it as an author when she retired from teaching. She conducted interviews with eyewitnesses, dug into the historical archives, and read every published account. She came to know the story inside and out. When Bett first contacted me in 2017, she had written her manuscript in verse. Yes, verse. I loved it. Like the ballad about the shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior, the poetic form suited the subject matter. But I recognized how challenging it might be to sell it to a commercial or trade publisher. This was hard news to deliver to such a talented author. A bit of a unicorn, the manuscript didn’t fit easily into an identifiable niche in the market. Several memoirs in verse had done well, but there didn’t appear any recent releases based on historical events. Bett bounced back like one of those cute yellow rubber ducky bathtub toys! She had hopes that this amazing history would be kept alive in a new book for the next generation, so…

It can be intimidating to think about writing your life story. Relax. Memoir isn’t your entire life story. It’s a slice of life, not birth to death. Don’t confuse memoir with autobiography. Today the only autobiographies which find publishers are those written by presidential candidates, retired statesmen, and superstars. And typically written by authors who don’t trust biographers to paint their portrait in a flattering light. The classical forms of autobiography are called apologia, oration, and confession. Apologia are written as self-justifications for one’s actions. Orations are written to document one’s literary talents in description of one’s successes. And confessions are written about racy events or radical ideas with self-criticism like Augustine and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. First-person accounts which serve to protect ego, flaunt id, or appease superego misses the mark of the memoir genre. Gore Vidal described memoir as how one remembers one’s own life experiences. It is not fiction even though the genre employs many of the same literary conventions and devices. If you want to start writing a memoir, start by closing your eyes and draw upon those crystal clear recollections from your lifespan. Moments you can’t forget. The ones that a smell can invoke. Memories jogged by the weather, or how a garment feels, or the taste of a seasonal dish. Engage your senses in the recollection. Begin here. With one snapshot moment from the past. Lisa Dale Norton calls these moments “shimmering images.” Those lucid memories that you can bring into the palm of your hand and can…

In the pre-dawn hours of February 18, 1942, three American warships zigzagged in convoy along the south coast of Newfoundland. Caught in a raging blizzard, the three ships ran aground on one of the most inhospitable stretches of coastline in the world—less than three miles apart, within eight minutes of each other. The Wilkes freed herself. The Truxton and Pollux could not. Fighting frigid temperatures, wild surf, and a heavy oil slick, a few sailors, through ingenuity and sheer grit, managed to gain shore—only to be stranded under cliffs some 200 feet high. From there, local miners mounted an arduous rescue mission. In Hard Aground, based on eyewitness accounts of survivors and rescuers, and corroborated by archival and historical research, Bett Fitzpatrick tells the story of the men who saved themselves, the miners who carried survivors up the cliffs on their backs, and to the people of St. Lawrence who opened their homes and their hearts to the victims. Among them are seaman Edward Bergeron, who scaled the cliff and brought help, Lanier Phillips, the only black man to survive, Ena, who collected food and blankets and snapped the only pictures of that horrific day, and Clara, who took the last survivor home and nursed him through the night. Bett (Dorion) Fitzpatrick, grew up in Newfoundland when there wasn’t a child who didn’t know the story and the people who carried up the cliffs the 186 U.S. service men who survived the shipwrecks of the USS Truxton and USS Pollux. Award-winning author of Melanie Bluelake’s Dream (1995), Bay Girl (1998), and Whose Side Are You…