Wendy Dale is the founder of Memoir Writing for Geniuses. She offers coaching and classes for newbies and professionals to write their memoirs using principles instead of a process of trial and error. Her memoir Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals was published by Three Rivers Press, a division of Penguin Random House. She is also the author of the book The Memoir Engineering System, the result of 15 years of research, which details a six-step process that allows writers to craft their memoirs from the ground up with no structural errors. Her motto is “Make your first draft your final draft.”

If writing a memoir sounds daunting, there is a very simple reason: You haven’t yet learned how. In this groundbreaking book, author Wendy Dale throws out the traditional advice, “Just write” and “Write a crappy first draft,” and instead teaches you a seven-step process for constructing your memoir from the ground up. She compares writing a book to mastering an instrument, learning to knit, or even building a motor — all of these tasks rely on principles that create a desired result. Learn the principles and they work every time. Instead of writing by trial and error, follow a step-by-step plan to engineer your memoir. You’ll have fun completing a great book and you’ll do it in a fraction of the time it takes everyone else. “Wendy Dale is the Robert McKee of memoir writing.” Deborah Jones, Executive Producer of The Team TV series for Search for Common Ground.

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