Known for her dry humor and unrelenting honesty, bestselling memoirist Mary Karr shares how she threw away the equivalent of four finished books, how she gets through the “scary blankness” of bad writing days (and invokes favorite prayers!), why she ALWAYS writes a proposal for every book, and one of her biggest motivations (hint: a lot of writers will disagree with this one). While Mary’s first love is poetry, her 1995 memoir, The Liar’s Club, reignited the memoir movement, while her most recent book, The Art of Memoir, reveals in detail both her personal process and insights from a decade of teaching the form at Syracuse University. You’ll be ready to do the tough work and tell the tough truth after this jam-packed conversation. For more no-holds-barred conversations with your favorite authors, subscribe to the Beautiful Writers Podcast on iTunes.

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