Non-Fiction & Memoir
Tambourine Non Fiction titles can be anything from 'how to' books to carefully researched historical event books or books about a whole range of topics from gardening to guided walks.
Tambourine Memoirs are essentially non-fiction true stories and auto-biographical in content. They can, in some respects, for example in dialogue, stray towards fiction. Memoirs usually recount a story of a part of the writer's life - not the whole thing - that would be an autobiography. Nowadays, memoir is called 'creative non-fiction'.
Featured Publication
Writing Memoir - how to write a story from your life
Writing​ Memoir
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In this book you’ll discover
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Whether you really want to write a memoir?
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Perhaps you’ve already begun? Where do you go from here? How do you plan to reach the end?
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Or you haven’t started yet, but something happened to you and you know it’ll make an interesting story?
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Or a series of things happened to you that are unusual, shocking, historical or unique?
You want some support and guidance to get you from start to finish? The chapters are comprehensive – all you’ll need to get started, plan your memoir and deal with any issues re memoir writing. Throughout the book I give short exercises to get you practicing the key points in the chapter you’ve just read.
I found this book really useful! I've been lost on how to begin my own story and this really gave me the push I needed! Particularly enjoyed chapters on story-telling and publishing and marketing...
Clearly written, easy to use, simple to follow guidance.
Anna Meryt's carefully constructed volume takes the reader through a series of exercises thoughtfully designed to turn memories into stories and stories into publishable memoirs. She shares her wealth of experience, both as a writer of captivating personal memoirs and as a teacher of that skill, to enable the novice writer to develop confidence in their voice, their history and their story telling ability. Even those without plans to write a memoir will find her enthusiasm compelling and her advice applicable to other types of writing, while those with a story ready inside them will be further motivated to bring their project to completion.
Anna's Memoir - A Hippopotamus at the Table
The story of a young family's hopes and dreams. Travelling to South Africa for a new life, and learning about the unpleasantness of apartheid in the 1970s. It's about their life over the couple of years they were there, the friends they met and difficulties they faced.
This is a beautifully descriptive memoir set in 1970's South Africa. The author has a real talent for transporting you into her world. A fascinating read with a unique perspective on a country and the impact of its politics on individual lives. I would definitely recommend this book.
Easy to read and I really enjoyed it! Highly Recommended!
This is a true story - a memoir set in Cape Town 1975.
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A young woman, with her husband and baby travelled to South Africa in 1975 at a time when apartheid was at its height.
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Their journey took them from a high rise apartment in Johannesburg, to a chicken farm and then a thousand miles across the Karoo to Cape Town. There they lived for over two years at a time of growing social unrest against the rigid strictures of the apartheid system.
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Her husband’s work as an actor took him touring from Cape Town to the townships and into major roles in innovative theatre.
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Her journey became a spiritual quest to make sense of the world in which she found herself, a world where black and white mingled but were kept apart.
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The government of the time was clamping down, enforcing rigid censorship and the separation of people.
It was the children of the townships who fermented the riots of 1976, rebelling against the oppressive rules ofa hateful system. The murders of these children resulted in a huge outcry across the world. Censorship kept that largely hidden from many of the people who lived there.
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This is a story of a young family living in those times in South Africa. The effects of apartheid crept up on them until two tragedies drove them to realise that continuing to live there had become untenable.
Excerpt from the book:
Waiting at the reception desk to check in, I saw the toilet signs for the first time, in both Afrikaans and English – Blanke Dames (White Ladies), Nie Blanke Vrou (Non-White Females) … the first time I had to go, I stood outside, hesitating, feeling that by choosing one I was accepting their distinction.