While writing your memoir, unless you diligently kept detailed diaries or filmed your life — which is very possible in these social media-heavy days — you’re dependent on your memory for your information.
As Allegra Huston often reminds writers in her SPARKS FLY memoir-writing workshops, most people don’t recall the same incident in the same way. Even eyewitnesses to an event can have disparate recollections. No one expects the memoirist to remember exactly what they were wearing June 4th, 1997. Still, people usually have strong memories of influential incidents in their lives.
Some memoirs have come under criticism for straying from the facts. There was James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, to which he confessed exaggerating or fabricating some events. Augusten Burroughs’ Running With Scissors was criticized by some of the real-life characters in his work as also being greatly exaggerated; he was sued, and his publisher was forced to adjust the author’s notes in later editions and acknowledge that his subjects and his remembrances differed.
There is currently a very interesting lawsuit pending over The Tell, a New York Times bestselling memoir by Amy Griffin. The Tell focuses on long-buried memories of sexual abuse that the author claims were brought to the surface by MDMA-assisted therapy.
The book has become controversial for many reasons. People question how someone could not remember rapes that occurred between the ages of twelve and sixteen. An individual who was a classmate of Griffin’s in Texas is claiming the rape did not happen to Amy but instead happened to her, and she accuses Griffin of co-opting her abuse for her book.
There has long been a furrowed brow regarding drug-induced memory retrieval. Critics call it false memory syndrome, but state that the individual with the recollections firmly believes these false memories really occurred. This is a very complex and fascinating story.
Two recent articles discuss two different sides of Amy Griffin’s story:
- I Want to Believe Amy Griffin, but I Don’t by Brooke Warner on Substack.
- What’s Missing from the NYT’s Amy Griffin Story by Jules Evans and Erica Siegal.
By the way, there are only a few spots left for Allegra’s next SPARKS FLY memoir-writing workshop will in September/October 2026. You can reserve your spot here!
Diana Leszczynski
Diana Leszczynski is the founder of SPARKS FLY retreats. She worked in film and television development for over twenty years before finally turning to her first love: writing. She is the author of middle-grade novels Fern Verdant, Wretched, and Hawke Farm, and is currently working on her first adult novel.