📚 Overview
Whether you’re writing a memoir for those near and dear to you or seeking commercial success, join us for a masterclass with memoir experts Amanda Nell Edgar and Rebecca van Laer. You’ll walk away with an understanding of the memoir market and what it takes to write a bestselling memoir in 2025.
In this packed double-session, you’ll learn about the internal and external elements you need to create a memoir with wide appeal – from finding your voice and narrative arc, to identifying your purpose and target audience, and selecting the publishing path that is right for you.
There will be a 15 minute break between sessions, plus a Q&A with the instructors at the end of the event.
🎓 What You’ll Learn
⏱️ Schedule
15:00 - 15:45 EDT
Understanding the Memoir Market
In this session, ghostwriter and book coach Amanda Nell Edgar, PhD will share her industry knowledge and teach you about the components of a marketable memoir, current publishing trends, and building your author platform. She’ll also share advice for choosing your path to publication – covering self-publishing, hybrid, and traditional publishing. This essential introduction to publishing a memoir will help you understand the market, your publishing options, and the external factors to consider before you start writing.
16:00 - 16:45 EDT
Writing a Page-Turning Memoir
Writing a memoir is about much more than collating your memories on paper. In this session, author Rebecca van Laer, PhD will dive into the internal factors of crafting a commercially successful memoir, from finding your “hook” to setting up your narrative arc. She’ll draw on examples from popular memoir genres and advice from fiction writing to demonstrate how you can shape your life events into a compelling story that readers won’t want to put down.
Speakers
Amanda Nell Edgar
Author, ghostwriter, and book coach
Dr. Amanda Nell Edgar is an award-winning author, ghostwriter, and book coach and the founder of Page & Podium Press. Amanda has authored three traditionally published books and ghostwritten many more. After a fifteen-year stint in academia, Amanda left university life to found Page & Podium Press, a publishing company that helps values-driven women share their stories and ideas through world-changing books. Additionally, Amanda has been invited to speak at organizations ranging from FedEx to the National Communication Association to the US Department of State, sharing relatable examples and digestible philosophy on issues of identity, leadership, and socially conscious storytelling.
Rebecca van Laer
Author
Rebecca van Laer is a writer based in New York’s Hudson Valley. She is the author of a novella, How to Adjust to the Dark (Long Day Press, 2022), and a memoir, Cat (Object Lessons/Bloomsbury, 2025). Her fiction and essays appear in The New England Review, Joyland, The Florida Review, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. She holds a PhD in English from Brown University, where she studied modernist autobiography.
