Accomplished memoirists deliver rich insights

My mother taught me to read when I was 4 by having me sound out letters on the label of a bottle of ketchup. I learned to love language.

But as a journalism student in my early 20s, I hadn't had much life experience. I had just read John Hersey's book, "The War Lover," and I told an older classmate that I was excited by recognizing Hersey's insights.

She brought me up short: "What are you talking about? That's what writers need to have — insights. Otherwise, what they write has no value."

These columns deal mostly with mechanics that help us write clearly. But the more experiences we have, the more insights will find their way into our writing.

Because, like you, I am always trying to improve my writing, a lot of what I read is helping me. Last week I read a memoir by Patricia Hampl — "The Florist's Daughter" — about her growing up in St. Paul and, despite her dreaming of going somewhere else, why she has stayed.

She explores how her parents viewed their place in society — "in the middle," between wealth and poverty — in contrast to her vision of a larger future. She provides rich insights into how her feelings about her parents' values shaped hers.

In almost all the writing I have done in my career, I have remained the distant journalistic observer, keeping myself out of the stories I have covered.

But now, as I undertake to write about that career and my own life, I have had to struggle against that training and find ways to explore and reveal my own feelings and how they have shaped my values.

It is not enough merely to regale readers with dozens of what I consider great stories from my reporting career. We've all had life experiences that can feed into stories we want to tell, stories that reveal not only the lives of others, but of ourselves as well — filled with insights that my journalism classmate urged upon me.

In that respect, Hampl and other accomplished memoirists are gifts to us.

Gilson conducts writing workshops online. He can be reached through www.writebetterwithgary.com.