Books & Book-Length Work
The book a family keeps.
Two manuscripts of my own, and a guided process for people who know their life should be written down and have no idea where to begin.
My own manuscripts
Come On, Marky
A memoir. Fifty-nine years inside Type 1 diabetes, a Montréal Jewish family, a travel agency, a son. Received a full manuscript request from literary agent Margret McBride.
How to Read a Spiral
An essay collection in thirty-seven chapters, built on a spiral architecture rather than a line — the same subject returned to at greater depth each time round. In active querying.
For your book
Memoir, ghostwritten or guided.
Some people want their life written for them. Others have already started and are stuck. Both are ordinary, and neither is a failure of will — a life does not arrive with a structure attached, and finding the structure is most of the work.
The Memoir
45,000–70,000 words across eighteen to twenty-four chapters, built from twelve to fifteen recorded interviews, with three rounds of revisions and up to eighty photographs placed and captioned. Eight to ten months against a written schedule.
The Manuscript Read
You have written up to 40,000 words and do not know whether it works. I read it closely and send a written assessment — structure, what is working, what to cut, what is missing — then we talk for forty-five minutes. No writing, one honest verdict.