Taking a girl’s voice is the same as taking her power. Petals of Rain: A Mother’s Memoir by Rica Keenum is a memoir about love and loss, secrets and lies. When a young girl from a broken family meets a charming man, she attempts to build a new life. But after a whirlwind marriage and the birth of two sons, their love story rips apart at the seams. Exploring the impact of parents’ sins on the lives of children and the fates we endure for the chance to be loved, the story follows a mother navigating motherhood and womanhood – an abuse survivor emerging and learning to speak, to scream, to sing to her own wounded heart and to finally understand what it takes to be whole after breaking to pieces. Weaving the present and past together, Rica Keenum reveals her truth in hauntingly evocative scenes. Rica Keenum’s journey toward publication began in June of 2018 when Jill Swenson provided an assessment of the first draft of her memoir, and starting in September of 2018, coached her through the revision process. Rica completed a variety of meta-writing exercises, including character sketches, timelines, and the emotional weighting of scenes over the course of one year to strengthen the narrative arc and provide a satisfying story for readers. Because memoir is a fiercely competitive market in the top commercial publishing houses, Rica Keenum decided to shop around for an indie publisher. She received three offers and chose to work with Book Reality, which…

If you are an author of memoir, then you know the story isn’t entirely about you. It’s about the reader. Taking the “me” out of memoir is important if you seek publication for your story. If you use the pronoun “I” in every sentence you actually create a division between you and the reader. Imagine the difference between these two passages. The trees formed a canopy high above my head. A gentle breeze and the shade provided some relief from the summer heat. In the forest, the birds hid in the lush branches and sang. I walked under a canopy of trees high above my head. I felt relief from the summer heat in the shade with a gentle breeze. In the first, the narrator creates a world with words that the reader can step into and experience for themselves in their imagination. When you read this passage, you feel as though you are there walking through the forest. As a memoir writer, you show the reader what you have experienced or witnessed. The second scenario is too egocentric. Such narrators call attention to themselves. This style of narration excludes readers from the meaning-making process which is what makes this genre so rewarding to readers. Readers want to make their own inferences about the tree canopy, a breeze, shade, and birdsong. The narrator in this second example tells the reader what to think, instead of what to think about. Memoir needs to offer the reader an arm-chair adventure, vicarious experiences,…

In Not Good Enough Girl, amidst the control, confusion, and chaos caused by her eight-times-married mother, Sondra Brooks’ story spans the extreme emotions of a mother-daughter relationship, touching on cyclical family dysfunction, addiction, and forgiveness. Beginning at the age of five, Sondra spends decades auditioning for the role of her authentic self. Her dazzling mother casts her as confidante and co-conspirator in her affairs and serial marriages. Sondra vacillates between fierce anger toward her mother—who does nothing to protect her from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse—and a desperate need for her love and approval. As an adult, Sondra enters into and stays in a toxic marriage for years, engaging in affairs with married men rather than divorcing. When therapy and AA eventually propel her out of the sense-deadening haze of alcohol and cigarettes, she summons the courage to tell her husband she plans to leave him. He reacts by playing on her biggest fear, telling her, “You’re going to turn out just like your mother.” Sondra attempts to establish a sober and separate identity, but tensions between her and her mother further increase when she marries someone new—a man who displaces her mother as the epicenter of her life—and her mother’s seventh marriage ends. During this time, traumatic childhood memories suddenly surface and a seismic shift occurs, freeing Sondra from her need for maternal connection. But establishing a life independent from her mother proves far more complicated than she could have imagined. Sondra R. Brooks graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy…