Embracing the Fiction Author Journey

67. Memoir writing tips: Transforming journal entries into a book w/ Sarah Birnbach

• Erin P.T. Canning

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Curious about transforming journaling entries into a published memoir?

Joining us today is Sarah Birnbach, author of the memoir "A Daughter's Kaddish." Sarah shares her surprising journey from journal facilitator to published author and how journaling helped her heal through grief.

But the question remains: How do you take those raw, personal entries and turn them into a compelling memoir?

In this episode, Sarah shares her secrets! You'll hear:

  • Tips for overcoming overwhelm and getting your ideas on the page
  • The unexpected ways grief can inspire powerful narratives
  • Strategies for crafting a memoir that resonates with readers


Get ready to hear Sarah's top journaling tips and advice for crafting a memoir from your own journal entries.

Topics discussed in this episode: 

  • Top 3 tips for journaling
  • Writing about grief
  • 22 years from start to finish
  • Surprises about writing a memoir
  • Dialog tips
  • Finding a good writing group
  • Books on craft


Get her book:


Connect with Sarah: 


Books discussed during the show: 

  • The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface by Donald Maass

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Erin P.T. Canning:

Many writers pour their hearts into journals, and those raw entries help us tap into powerful emotions in other creative writings. But if we want to write memoir, we can't just transcribe our journals into a digital format and hit publish. Instead, we need to transform those raw journal entries into a cohesive narrative story that not only strengthens our voice, but also informs and inspires others. And yet, writing a memoir comes with a whole bunch of surprises, even for those with meticulous journal entries to draw from. Take Sarah Birnback. Not only did she journal regularly, but she also taught others how to do so. Then, after her father passed, she spent every day for 11 months chronicling her grief, her faith, and her healing. That amounts to at least 330 journal entries. But that story wasn't over. After she had some distance from that experience, she transformed those journal entries into an award winning memoir that continues to inspire and heal others. Today, Sarah shares her path from avid journaling to published author, as well as the answers to questions like, How do memoirs differ from journal entries? How can we learn what details to fill in? When do we know it's time to share such personal stories with the world? And if we're struggling to get our thoughts and emotions on the page, how do we get past that? Stay tuned to also learn what to look for in a writing group and what surprised Sarah the most about writing a memoir. As a bonus, I also share tips for writing good dialogue. And if you're looking for an editor or coach, stay tuned to find out how to connect with me. In the meantime, let's start the show. You're listening to Parents Who Write, the podcast that helps you pursue your writing dreams. I'm your host, Erin P. T. Canning. I'm an author, editor, writing coach, and mom of two young boys. And my mission is to help you prioritize your writing, strengthen your voice, and gain confidence and direction so that you can own your identity as a writer and thrive as an author. Hey, friend. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Parents Who Write. Today, I am joined by Sarah Birnbach, who writes memoir. Sarah, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Why don't we just jump right in and give us a bit of your writing background, your writing journey so far.

Sarah Birnbach:

I've been writing all my life. I am a certified journal facilitator, and I've been journaling since I was a teenager. Uh, during my professional career, I was writing personnel handbooks, resource management forms that were used by organizations, policy manuals, and things that had to pass a legal inspection. So part of my writing career was journaling, which is very, uh, from the heart. And the other part was legalese, which is very much from the brain.

Erin P.T. Canning:

That is two very different, um, parts of the brain working together, though. I love that. So, how did that evolve?

Sarah Birnbach:

Well, during the year after my father died, which is the crux of my memoir, A Daughter's Kaddish, I filled four journals that year. I don't journal every single day, but during that period, I was journaling every single day. And after, I don't know, maybe six months or a year, after I finished that 11 month mourning period, I decided to transcribe those journals. I've never done that before, but I wanted to sort of relive that experience. I wanted to reread them, sort of harvest out what were the most important things to me about that year. What had I learned? And so I transcribed the journals. I began taking writing classes at the Writer's Center, which is in Bethesda, Maryland, which is very close to where I live, just outside of Washington, D. C. And I started writing essays, uh, taking segments of those journal entries and turning them into essays. I didn't really think about writing a memoir. I didn't set out to write a memoir, but I wrote these essays for class. And then the instructor said to me, "You should put these together in a memoir." And that was the start of my career as a

Erin P.T. Canning:

Wow.

Sarah Birnbach:

I had had many of my essays published in different literary magazines. I had one, uh, National Awards for Essays. When my instructor said you should put these together as a memoir, I was, wow, okay. Alright.

Erin P.T. Canning:

love that. I love when we find the right teachers who can inspire and encourage us and nudge us in the direction because they can see our potential. Yeah.

Sarah Birnbach:

I will never forget her. Her name is Ellen Herbert, and she transformed my

Erin P.T. Canning:

that's so amazing. You mentioned being a journal facilitator. What does that mean?

Sarah Birnbach:

I teach other people techniques for journaling, for getting their thoughts, their ideas, and their dreams, their goals down on paper. Many people have said to me, Oh, I have a journal, or I've bought a bunch of journals, but the pages are still blank, and I'm intimidated. And I teach techniques that people can use to get over that intimidation, to get started putting words on paper. I've done some workshops on starting to journal. I've done a workshop on journaling through grief because what we know is that when we hand write, we activate a different part of the brain than we do when we're typing. And there have been many scientific studies that have shown that journaling can help overcome physical challenges, diagnoses, medical diagnoses, it, it, it's like the cheapest form of therapy there is. You could go to the office supply store and buy a composition book for, I don't know, about 2 dollars. And writing helps us so many ways. I know that's not the, the objective of this podcast, but I can't say enough about the power of journaling and how it can help transform

Erin P.T. Canning:

I know, I love that we talk about journaling on the podcast a lot, and I didn't even know that you did that. So this is why I love that it's an open conversation, that we can see where the conversation is going to take us. I mean, I definitely want to dive into what it was like writing a memoir, but I've got to talk about this journaling thing first, because that's where we're at. What are your three top tips on helping somebody to get those words and thoughts down on the page?

Sarah Birnbach:

One tip is if you are a reader of books, just open any book that you love to any page, take a sentence and start writing about it. The other tip I would have is that if you are feeling intimidated, then put the pen on the paper and start writing, "I don't know what to say, or I don't know what to write." And the other tip that I would have is in order to inspire you to journal in the first place, you need to have a journal that inspires you. Pick whatever kind of book. You can go to a bookstore and pay 35 for a leather bound journal. Or you can go to an office supplies store and pay 2, but whatever it is, it should inspire you. I have all kinds of journals. I have large ones, small ones, spiral bound, hard bound, soft bound, lined, unlined, depending upon my mood. I recently was going to Israel to volunteer with the IDF and I wanted a new journal. I wanted to take a new one with me to record my experiences and my thoughts, and I went to Staples, and I found a journal with a velvet cover. This is the journal that I bought and it's so soft, and it's so cuddly. And I brought it home, and my husband said, you bought that? I've never seen you buy a journal that looks like a little girl's journal. But even touching it, it felt so comforting to me. And I carried it all through Israel while I was on my army duty. So in terms of a tip, the journal has to be something that you like to hold. Where the paper is, um, kind to your eyes. I tend not to use white paper because I don't like the glare on the page. Sometimes I'm writing in all different locations. Sometimes I'm on airplanes. Sometimes I'm in restaurants. And so I want to make sure that the pages are not bright white. The other thing you absolutely must have is a pen that feels comfortable in your hand. It can't skip on the paper. It can't blot. Some people like a lightweight pen. Some people like a heavyweight pen. People who know me, over the years I've had people gift me some of the most expensive pens. Montblanc pens. Cross pens. But my favorite, and the one that I go back to over and over again, is a Bic. A Bic

Erin P.T. Canning:

They write,

Sarah Birnbach:

It's

Erin P.T. Canning:

they write so smoothly on the page. I understand.

Sarah Birnbach:

The Bic pen. They do.

Erin P.T. Canning:

I love that writers can talk about our love for pens and which are our favorites. Yes,

Sarah Birnbach:

Yes,

Erin P.T. Canning:

I have, I volunteered for the um, book fair at my kid's elementary school, and I got this one, which has a little owl in a teacup, and then it's a fidget because I can spin it too. And I, I love to just sit there and spin it and I have to hide it from my kids when they come into my office because they're like, "Give me the owl pen mama." And I'm like, "no, I bought you so many books at the book fair, which is why dad is now like, please don't volunteer next year." Um, but I was like, "no, this was, this is my pen." So, there is a very important connection here between your journaling and your memoir, because I've always said that journaling is the gateway to creative writing. And so it makes perfect sense to me that you would then take something that was so deep and meaningful and, um, and emotional and be able to turn it into a memoir. But I have a question about that beforehand. I just did a recent workshop about writing about grief, and yes, it was an amazing workshop, and the instructor was telling us how grief is not portrayed accurately a lot of times in books and films, and that the Five Steps of Grief, that was actually written for people who were in hospice, who were dying. That process is not meant for other people. And the reason why people are trying to get it out now, like, that process is not for you, is because it can make people who are grieving feel like,"I'm not doing this in the right order. I'm not grieving the right way." And it's like, you're already going through so much. You don't need that pressure on you. One of the things that the facilitator said Is that writing about grief is immensely powerful, like you said, but don't put your work out into the world until you have healed. Because if you're already so raw, and people don't receive your work well, you're just adding salt to the wound in a sense, right? So my question is, when you put out your memoir, and while you were writing it, did you feel like it was a healing process? And how did you know that you were ready to share it, that you were in a place where you could do that?

Sarah Birnbach:

My father died in September of 2000, and the prayer practice that I undertook, which is recounted in A Daughter's Kaddish, was an 11 month process. So that took me to almost the fall of 20, uh, of 2001. In the following months, my granddaughter was born. So it was quite some time, I don't remember exactly, 8 months, 9 months, before I started transcribing my journals. So now we're into about 2002, 2003. And then I started taking the classes at the Writer's Center. Yes, absolutely, writing in my journals helped me to heal. It helped me to vent my anger at God for taking my father. It helped me connect with my father. I wrote letters to him in my journals. I wrote dialogues between him and me in my journals. So the journaling process was extremely helpful, and the prayer practice that I adopted was extremely helpful to me in healing. So once I transcribed the journals and started taking the classes, I started writing short stories and essays from those journal entries. I don't remember exactly what year it was when my instructor suggested that I might write a memoir, but it might have been 2006 or 7. I was raising children. I had two jobs. I had a home. I was a single mom, and you talk about parents who write, it took me quite some time to put together what I considered a book. Then I hired two different developmental editors to read it and see if it was publishable, if it was marketable, if it was worthy of being published. After that, uh, I sought an agent. It was about 2015 or 2016, and I started looking for agents. I used Jane Freedman's Guidelines for how to put together a book proposal, and that took me quite some time. I would say it probably took me about a year and a half. But in 2018, an agent picked me up and said she would represent me because my book proposal was the best one she had ever read. And so, I I can't say enough about Jane Friedman's guideline for how to write a book proposal, but it's,

Erin P.T. Canning:

I love her.

Sarah Birnbach:

It is very

Erin P.T. Canning:

I love her. Yeah, she's amazing. Mm

Sarah Birnbach:

too.

Erin P.T. Canning:

Mm hmm.

Sarah Birnbach:

for putting together the book proposal took me a long time. And then I had the agent for two years, from 2018 to 2020. She wasn't able to sell the book to a traditional publisher. And because A Daughter's Kaddish has a Jewish theme, she went out to particularly Jewish focused publishers and after two years I thought, you know, my time clock is ticking away here. I'm not getting any younger. I'm going to take this into my own hands. We parted very amicably, no problems, and I looked for a hybrid publisher. And in 2021,

Erin P.T. Canning:

hmm.

Sarah Birnbach:

the end of 2020, or the beginning of 2021, I contacted Wonder Well Press. And the publisher, Maggie Langrick, said, "We love your story. We think we can make it a stronger memoir." And so I signed with WonderWell, and my book was finally published in September of 2022. A Daughter's Kaddish, My Year of Grief, Devotion, and Healing was published by WonderWell

Erin P.T. Canning:

And so,

Sarah Birnbach:

So, it was a long journey between my father's death in 2000 and the publication of this memoir that In 2022.

Erin P.T. Canning:

that was quite a, quite a time. So you definitely had time to make sure that you were ready to get that out there. Um, but I also really appreciated in the beginning where you were saying how You, you didn't even really start to transcribe the memoir or the journals until about nine to ten months had passed. So even then you still had some, some separation before you were ready to tackle this.

Sarah Birnbach:

Yes, and it wasn't because I was reluctant to do it. It was because I had a brand new granddaughter. And children. And a job. And two jobs. And so, it wasn't that I made a decision to put it off. It was just that life

Erin P.T. Canning:

Oh yeah, life. I get you on that one. I getcha. Um, so what do you wish that you had known before you started writing a memoir?

Sarah Birnbach:

I wish I had known that journal entries do not a

Erin P.T. Canning:

Ah, yes,

Sarah Birnbach:

ha ha. ha. ha ha. That there are things that I know about my life that I don't write in my journal. For example, the day that the nurse called us from the hospital and said, we should come right away. My father probably wouldn't last that day. I don't write in my journal that my mother was wearing her pink nightshirt and standing over the sink when the phone call came. I just wrote in my journal. The nurse called us and we hardly. We rushed to the hospital. So, writing a narrative that will be of interest to a reader is different than writing to yourself in your own journal.

Erin P.T. Canning:

How did you recall that she was wearing a pink dress and be able to put that in your book?

Sarah Birnbach:

I just remembered it because when that phone call came, my mother looked at me. And my mother never cried, never cried, but she was tearing up, and she said he's not going to make it. And, um, that vision of my mother turning around from the sink to face me, it just lives in my memory. It's like one of those moments in time that sort of lives in your memory like a photograph. It's just a snapshot of a moment in time, but I remember it like I remember wearing Mary Jane shoes to go to synagogue with little white lacy anklet socks. It's not in my journal that I wore Mary Jane shoes with little white anklet socks, but it's a memory that I have. And so writing a narrative was, was one of the more challenging things because my essays derived from my

Erin P.T. Canning:

Mm, and your developmental editor has helped point that out, saying we need a setup here, and these details filled in, and yeah.

Sarah Birnbach:

Make the scene come alive. Show the scene. Build the scene.

Erin P.T. Canning:

it. I love it. I love hearing, I love hearing people quote back to me. That's great. What did you assume about writing memoir, and what were you correct about, but what actually really surprised you? Aside from having to write a narrative instead of journal articles.

Sarah Birnbach:

What surprised me about the writing of it, or since I've written it?

Erin P.T. Canning:

Either. Yes! Mm. Mm

Sarah Birnbach:

What surprised me since I've written and published the memoir is that readers have actually been inspired by my words. I've received emails, unsolicited emails from readers, thanking me and telling me the ways that my memoir has resonated for them. I've never written to an author after I've read a book. Even authors of the, like the top five books that I've ever, that, that I think of as the best books I've ever read. It never occurred to me to write to an author. So that's been one of the surprising things. The other thing that surprised me when the book was ready to go to print, and it had been copy edited and proofread and gone over and over by tons of different sets of eyes. I asked my publisher to give me two days. I wanted to read it out loud. And when I read that memoir out loud, it took me two days. I found mistakes. I was like, Oh my gosh, A Daughter's Kaddish has been read by at least six, eight, 10 sets of eyes over and over again. Reading it out loud, I found that I had the word buoy three times within two sentences. When you're reading it, you don't think of that, but when you read it out loud, it's like, oh my gosh, why was I so stuck on that one word? Um, other things that surprised me in the writing, I don't know so much if it was a surprise as much as a learning. I, I learned how to write more narratively. I, I, I learned how to create scenes. I learned how to create dialogue because even though in my journals, I do dialogue with my dad, for example. I had to write in my memoir dialogues that I had with my mother. And in my journals, I don't have them written out the way you would see a script written out the way dialogue appears in a book. I just had mom said this and I said that, and can you, I can't believe my mother said this. I can't believe mom said this to me. In writing A Daughter's Kaddish, I had to make it dialogue that the reader could tell who was saying what and how it was being said. And it also surprised me that you can't say, she said, she said,

Erin P.T. Canning:

Haha. Action tags. So, that is one of my favorite things that I go over with clients. I'm going to put that in here right now because I really think it's important. When we say that you don't want to always say said, said, said, said, said, that doesn't mean that you replace said with commented, replied, um, you know, murmured. It's like, right? All of those versions. Exactly. You don't want to do that because our brains as readers are trained to skip over said and asked. They are invisible words to us. So we do want to default to those words. Yes. And so when you put a lot of emphasis on replied, retorted, murmured, commented, whispered, all of those things, you're actually drawing more attention to them and it pulls the reader out of the story. So yeah, I'm glad this is what I love. What I do. So. The trick around that to get rid of the saids and the asks so you don't have them is when you add an action tag in front or behind the dialogue on the same line that tells you who is speaking. So instead of, I love you, Bob said. Instead, you can put before or after that, Bob put down his glass and looked at me. Thank you. I love you, right? And so you don't have to have the said and the asked all the time. Sometimes you do just want to do that because you want the dialogue to move a little bit faster, so you don't have to put in all those action tags. But otherwise, you wanna, you do want those action tags because it reduces the number of saids and asks. There you go. Editing tip thrown in.

Sarah Birnbach:

Great wisdom. Great wisdom. Thank you. Thank you. Another tip I'll use.

Erin P.T. Canning:

Yes, I love that. So, um, What is the best writing advice that you got or that you found made the biggest difference in your, in your narrative writing?

Sarah Birnbach:

One of the biggest differences was joining a critique group and, uh, this particular group that I'm in emerged out of one of the classes at the Writer's Center. After the class was over, we decided we really wanted to keep going, workshopping our pieces together. We started that writing group, I think it's about 15 years ago now, and we still meet twice a month. We workshop each other's pieces. I've had a book published. One of the members of our group is on his third book now. Uh. All of us have had essays or short stories published in different literary magazines and journals. Um. And we are wonderful support to each other. If you can find a group or a class where your work can be workshopped, it is one of the greatest things that you can do for yourself. Of course, you have to be open to hearing critiques. And an important thing to remember would be to join a group where people know how to give feedback in a way that doesn't cut you off at the knees. And I've been very blessed with my group because we are kind to each other. So having a critique group or taking classes where you can have your work workshopped by other people, but do so where the environment is compassionate, and people are really committed to helping you be your best writer. I don't encourage people to join a group where somebody just says to you, Oh, I really liked your story. Period. That isn't helpful. It's nice to hear, yeah, I really like your story, or, oh, this is a great story, but I want to know, what did I leave out? What do you need more of? What do you need less of? We do line edits for each other's pieces, but we also do more overarching comments like, you know, I need to know more about this character, or your protagonist doesn't feel quite authentic in this section, or, you know, page eight seems like you're rambling. Um, those kinds of things, um, that has made the biggest difference. And if I can encourage any writer who is listening to this call to find a writing group, I feel like I would have made a difference in the listeners

Erin P.T. Canning:

Thank you for sharing that. I'm going to pass on another bit of wisdom then, based on what you just said. It's one of the best things that I learned when, uh, I got my master's in creative writing from Hopkins, and I will forever love Mark Farrington. I've mentioned him before on the podcast. I should tell him, Mark, I mentioned you on my podcast. Um, but he taught us how to provide feedback that truly helped the author. And it was, he made us look at the piece. And first thing we had to do was identify what the author's goal for the piece was. And because we could pinpoint what the author was trying to do, their goal, their purpose for that, it prevented us from saying, well, I wish this had happened, or I wanted this to happen, because instead you're focusing like, no, the author's goal is this, and then he would have us identify what in the piece supported that goal, helped them achieve that goal, and what distracted and took away from it.

Sarah Birnbach:

That's

Erin P.T. Canning:

It was amazing. And I've taken that through all of my editing. So when I'm looking at my client's chapters, I always start with, what is the purpose of this chapter? What is working really well, and what's distracting? And so it's, it's advice that I have used for the last 20 plus years.

Sarah Birnbach:

I also suggest, um, reading

Erin P.T. Canning:

Mmm.

Sarah Birnbach:

books on how to write. During the time that I was writing A Daughter's Kaddish, I read so many books on the craft of writing. I am now working on another book, and it is non fiction, but a friend just referred this book to me, The Emotional Craft of Fiction, and it is transforming the way I think about putting emotion into my writing. I'm, I'm not even I've passed the second chapter and already I've gone back to my draft manuscript and made amazing changes in the writing. So if you don't have a place like the Writer's Center we have in Bethesda, which by the way offers many of its classes online, and so people from all over the world can attend classes at the Writer's Center. But if you don't have that luxury or that ability or that time, then reading books about craft, uh, is also amazingly

Erin P.T. Canning:

That is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing that. And thank you for joining me on the show. All of your contact information is located in the show notes, but what is your last message to our audience?

Sarah Birnbach:

Keep writing. Put the pen on the paper. Put the butt in the chair, and keep writing. And if your internal critic starts talking to you, tell her to take a seat in the chair over there and 30

Erin P.T. Canning:

I love that. I love that. And where can our, where can we find you?

Sarah Birnbach:

The best place to find me is at www. saraburnback. com, that's S A R A H B I R N B A C H dot com, and I hope you will come and look for me there.

Erin P.T. Canning:

And there you have it, key tips on how to transform raw journal entries into a narrative memoir. If you're tired of going it alone, and you're ready to publish a story with confidence and direction, then schedule a strategy call with me today, so you too can fulfill that dream of becoming an author this year. All you have to do is click the link at the bottom of the show notes. I can't wait to hear about your book.

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Erin P.T. Canning

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