Hyeseung Song: how to publish a memoir without being a celebrity

I’ll be hosting a most unusual guest this month, a true rarity: a recently published memoirist who is not a celebrity. Memoir, like Middle Grade, has been especially difficult to sell of late. So, how did Hyeseung Song do it with the tale of one unknown woman’s struggle with personal trauma? (I know several of you are writing books to which this same descriptor could apply!) Those question marks aren’t teasers. I really don’t know. But I’m going to find out on February 27th, when I talk to Hyeseung about her memoir DOCILE and what it took to get her an almost unbelievable number of book blurbs and a pile of pink books.

I hope you will join me. You can save your seat here, and I hope whether you are a memoirist or a novelist, or play in any other genre, this interview will inspire you to hold faith in your work and your art, even when all authorities tell you it’s not practical (except if that authority is me, of course).

In the meantime, if you missed my interview with agent Heather Jackson, you will find a recording of the interview here. Many people wrote to me afterwards to say how wonderful, how perfect an agent she seemed. I could not agree more.

And gosh, I am still so mortified that I flubbed two key facts in quick succession. Learn from this, everyone! Don’t get over-confident if you think you just know, ESPECIALLY if you’re over 50. Write down the facts!

Until then, happy writing, and I hope to see you on the 27th for our interview with Hyeseung. And yes, I will have my notebook in hand.

Shirin