The Memoirists Collective

Check out our site to meet our latest All-Star Guest-Star memoirist, Felicia Sullivan, author of The Sky Isn't Visible From Here

THE MEMOIRISTS COLLECTIVE is a group of four established, recently published memoirists who met online through MySpace.com, and banded together to start a revolution in the world of book promotion, through collaboration instead of competition. Not only is The Memoirist's Collective on a mission to help ourselves, we're also on a mission to help other writers find success, readers, and publishers, and we're sponsoring contests to make it happen.

DO GO CHECK OUT OUR BOOKS!

Memoirists Collective contests offer real entry into the world of publication, not just the typical contest prizes of "publication on our site" or… maybe… just maybe… a read from someone lurking in the caverns of some small publishing house somewhere. Not that we have anything against small publishing houses. We love them. Especially the ones that take risks and publish the truly great writers in the world.

However, we're also firm believers in the idea that a person can, in fact, make a living doing what they love. Even if you happen to be a writer. Therefore, our prizes are readings by Agents. Editors with Large and Commercial Publishers. And us. Well, okay, we're writers too. We do, however, happen to be opinionated writers, and we've historically been available in a semi-workshop format to comment on our winner's work. We don't have a magic wand. We can't make bad writing good. We can, however, introduce good writing to the right people.

The rest is up to you.

Write on!

And here's a little something on our credentials, lest you think we're fly-by-night-freaks...okay, we ARE fly-by-night-freaks, but we do have some high class history:

Individually, the Memoirists Collective members have been:
- On the cover of the New York Times Book Review (with a rave inside)
- Preached against in the Bible Belt
- Kissed on the lips by professed CIA assassin and Gong Show host, Chuck Barris
- Blurbed by James Frey
- Featured on Oprah, who was a bit nicer to them than she was to James Frey
- On the New York Times Bestseller list
- Boycotted by PETA
- On the couch of the Today Show causing Matt Lauer to say something about "beating around the bush," but we're sure he didn't mean it that way

Since banding together in April 2006, the Collective has already sponsored three contests on MySpace. In the first, the winner got their manuscript read by a literary agent at William Morris Agency for possible representation. Hundreds of aspiring authors entered, and all entries were posted online for a special "Readers' Choice Award," voted on by the Collective's followers. In their second contest, "Win a Date with the Memoirists Collective," the winner got to hang out with all four authors when they gathered together, for the first time, in New York City.

The Memoirists Collective's third contest, "WIN A SHOT AT GETTING YOUR MEMOIR PUBLISHED!" was sponsored by Joseph-Beth Booksellers, and drew a lot of attention .

From June 12th through July 19th, the Collective accepted submissions of 800 words excerpted from a memoir in progress, along with a one paragraph synopsis. The Collective chose six finalists out of hundreds of entries. A "Readers' Choice," voted on by the Collective's followers, was also named. Finalists submitted an additional 2,000 words, and the grand prize winner was selected from those submissions. CHECK THE BLOGS ABOVE TO READ THE FINALISTS' pieces, and look in the COMMENT BOXES below for all entries.

In their first joint reading extravaganza, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cleveland, OH, on August 7th, Josh, Maria, Danielle and Hillary announced the winner via a live webcast

The grand prize winner, LUKE SON, is getting his proposal read by not one, not two, but THREE editors at prominent publishing houses - HarperCollins, Hyperion and Holt!

For mo' info on the Collective, to read press, etc, check out our website! www.thememoiristscollective.com