personal essay Archives - Memoir Magazine

How 90 Day Fiancé Helped Me Tell My Story as the Child of a Mail Order Bride by Katya Suvorova

I don’t have a mom who fell in love how I was able to fall in love. My mother is a survivor in a way most Americans won’t ever understand. I am honored to be th...

Black Memoirs Matter/Contests and Prizes/Featured/personal essay/Race Matters

Black Memoirs Matter. The Anthology

Now Open for Submissions: Black Memoirs Matter. The Anthology.

The Hope of Better Hearing Aids by Rosann Tung

I try to cool the heat in my cheeks that her sarcastic “wise, rich daughter” comment brings on. Her walker embarrasses me, too – unsightly, attention-seeking, d...

10 Minute Read/Adversity/Black Memoirs Matter/Escape/Identity/Immigrants/Inspirational/Justice/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/morality/nonfiction/personal essay/Race Matters/Society/Storytelling/trauma

“Into the Racial Divide, A Story of Hope” by Jerry Waxler

In 2020, George Floyd's sadistic public murder ripped away the grand illusion of universal empathy at the core of the American Promise and vividly demonstrated ...

10 Minute Read/Black Memoirs Matter/Family/Identity/Justice/Literature/Loss/Man in The Mirror/Memoir/Mental Illness/nonfiction/personal essay/Race Matters/Religion/Society/trauma

Main Street Madness by Mary McBeth

But I don’t say that, instead I will say that I’m going to build a Tiny House, and ditch the double-wide. That way they will be awed instead by my quirky ingenu...

5 Minute Read/Bi-Polar/Depression/Grief/Loss/Mental Illness/nonfiction/personal essay/Regret/Suicide

End Of Message by Jen Waldron

If you had asked me before this tragedy what the chance was of her committing suicide, I would have said zero percent. Zero. Ask me now and I’ll tell you, if it...

10 Minute Read/Adversity/Being Body/Featured/Girls & Women/Health/Inspirational/Love/Man in The Mirror/Mental Health/nonfiction/personal essay/Sexism/Society

The Shock of Self Love by Sylvie Beauvais

I traveled between France and the United States every summer, and in France I was beautiful, and in America I was ugly and people told me so. Beauty as a cultur...

15 Minute Read/Adversity/Childhood/Escape/Family/Identity/Inspirational/Institutions/Justice/Man in The Mirror/morality/nonfiction/personal essay/Race Matters/Society

Turning Left: The Case for Social Democracy by N. S. G. Holm

Leaning Left, 2:1, millennials want America to be an “us” society. They call it socialism, but this is incorrect. They do not want state ownership and control o...

5 Minute Read/Adversity/Childhood/Funny/Identity/Inspirational/nonfiction/personal essay/Society

The Shocking Truth About Jews in Sports by Jim Sollisch

I grew up in the Jewish version of The Wonder Years, an alternative universe where just about every person I interacted with was a Jew.

Adversity/Featured/Health/Inspirational/Justice/LGBTQ/Love/men/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/Society

In Sickness and in Health by Scott Bane

Right in the middle of some everyday activity, I’m overtaken by a sense of joy, peace, or contentment. The window often closes up just as quickly as it has ope...

5 Minute Read/Addiction/Childhood/Family/Fathers/Grief/Loss/Love/nonfiction/Parenting/personal essay/Regret/Relationships/war

King’s X and Cabbadoni by Marguerite Welch

Life with Dad was an endless game. We shot candles out of Mother's silver candelabra on the picnic table. I learned to drive racing the jeep around hay bales in...

10 Minute Read/Aging/Being Body/Childhood/Fathers/Girls & Women/Identity/Loss/nonfiction/personal essay/Relationships/Sexism/Society

Laguna Main by Clementine Moss

Jim Morrison lolls on the beach in my mind, and I let go of the day and follow him down to this other world. Do women get to be so free, lounging, writing, owni...