This CSS code defines a custom font family called “Guardian Headline Full” with multiple font weights and styles. It includes light, regular, medium, and semibold weights, each in both normal and italic versions. The fonts are loaded from the Guardian’s servers in WOFF2, WOFF, and TrueType formats to ensure compatibility across different browsers.@font-face {
font-family: Guardian Headline Full;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: Guardian Headline Full;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BoldItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: Guardian Headline Full;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Black.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 900;
font-style: normal;
}
@font-face {
font-family: Guardian Headline Full;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-BlackItalic.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 900;
font-style: italic;
}
@font-face {
font-family: Guardian Titlepiece;
src: url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff2) format(“woff2”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.woff) format(“woff”),
url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-titlepiece/noalts-not-hinted/GTGuardianTitlepiece-Bold.ttf) format(“truetype”);
font-weight: 700;
font-style: normal;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive {
margin-left: 160px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive {
margin-left: 240px;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom {
max-width: 620px;
}
@media (max-width: 46.24em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-atom {
max-width: 100%;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase {
margin-left: 0;
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase {
max-width: 620px;
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-showcase {
max-width: 860px;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
max-width: 1100px;
}
@media (max-width: 46.24em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
width: calc(100vw – var(–scrollbar-width, 0px));
position: relative;
left: 50%;
right: 50%;
margin-left: calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width, 0px)) !important;
margin-right: calc(-50vw + var(–half-scrollbar-width, 0px)) !important;
}
}
@media (min-width: 46.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
transform: translate(-20px);
width: calc(100% + 60px);
}
}
@media (max-width: 71.24em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
margin-left: 0;
margin-right: 0;
}
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
transform: translate(0);
width: auto;
}
}
@media (min-width: 81.25em) {
.content__main-column–interactive .element-immersive {
max-width: 1260px;
}
}
.content__main-column–interactive p,
.content__main-column–interactive ul {
max-width: 620px;
}
.content__main-column–interactive:before {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
height: calc(100% + 15px);
min-height: 100px;
content: “”;
}
@media (min-width: 71.25em) {
}For interactive content columns, a left border is added with specific positioning and z-index. On larger screens, the border’s left position adjusts slightly. Within these columns, atomic elements have no top or bottom margins but include padding. When paragraphs precede atomic elements, padding is removed and margins are added instead. Inline elements are limited to a maximum width.
For inline figures on medium screens and above, a maximum width is set. In media sections containing loop figures, captions are layered above, and loop buttons are styled with specific dimensions and alignment. Caption buttons are placed on top.
In the body section, self-hosted video islands take full width up to a maximum, with centered margins. Loop figures and videos within these islands also take full width. For immersive video elements, width constraints are removed, and margins are adjusted. On larger screens, immersive videos expand in width and shift leftward, with captions indented accordingly.
Color variables define various UI elements like datelines, borders, captions, and feature colors, with pillar colors influencing subheadings, pullquotes, and blockquotes. In dark mode, these colors adapt to the dark theme.
Atomic elements within content columns have no padding. Specific rules adjust the first paragraphs after certain elements or horizontal rules across different content areas like articles, interactive content, comments, and features, ensuring proper spacing and layout.The first paragraph after a sign-in gate or a horizontal rule (except the last one) has a top padding of 14 pixels.
For the first letter of the first paragraph following specific elements like an atom, sign-in gate, or a horizontal rule (not the last one) in various content areas (article body, interactive content, comments, features, or elements with a `data-gu-name` of “body”), apply a special drop cap style. This style uses specific headline fonts, sets the font size to 111px with a line height of 92px, floats it to the left, makes it uppercase, adds an 8px right margin, aligns it to the top of the text, and colors it with a custom variable for drop caps.
Paragraphs immediately following a horizontal rule in these content areas should have no top padding.
Pullquotes within these content areas are limited to a maximum width of 620 pixels.
Captions for showcase elements in main content, feature articles, standard articles, and comment sections are positioned statically, taking the full width up to a maximum of 620 pixels.
Immersive elements span the full viewport width, accounting for the scrollbar. On larger screens (up to 71.24em), their maximum width is 978px, with caption padding adjusted at different breakpoints. On medium screens (between 46.25em and 61.24em), the maximum width is 738px. On smaller screens (below 46.24em), immersive elements align to the left edge with adjusted margins and caption padding.
For wider screens (above 61.25em), the furniture wrapper uses a CSS Grid layout with defined columns and rows to position elements like the title, headline, metadata, standfirst, and portrait.The CSS styles define a layout wrapper for article components. Headlines have a top border and adjust in size from 32px to 50px on larger screens, with a maximum width that also changes. Meta information includes a decorative top line on wide screens. The standfirst section features underlined links with a custom color that changes on hover, and its first paragraph has a top border on smaller screens which is removed on larger ones. A vertical separator line appears in the standfirst on wide screens.
Layout grids are defined for screens 71.25em and wider, and again for 81.25em and wider, specifying column and row templates for positioning elements like the title, headline, meta, standfirst, and portrait areas. Figures have specific margins and maximum widths. Overall, the styles control the responsive presentation of article headers and introductory content.For screens wider than 740px, hide elements with the class `.keyline-4` or the attribute `[data-gu-name=”lines”]`. Within the `.furniture-wrapper`, style the SVG strokes inside these elements with a custom color variable.
On medium screens and larger, remove the right margin from elements with the ID `#meta` or the attribute `[data-gu-name=”meta”]`.
Inside the meta section, set the border color for social links, comment elements, and their child spans to a custom variable. Also, hide any `gu-island` elements within a specific container.
For the standfirst section, adjust its positioning and padding, adding a left offset. On medium screens, add a small top padding. Style the paragraph inside with a regular font weight, a size of 20px, and bottom padding.
The main media area is positioned relatively, placed in the ‘portrait’ grid area, and given specific margins. Ensure its inner divs take full width. On larger screens, remove the bottom margin. On smaller screens, adjust the width and left margin, with an additional adjustment for medium-small screens.
Style figure captions to appear at the bottom with a custom background and text color, overriding default width and margins. Hide the first span inside and display the second, limiting its width. On medium screens, adjust the caption padding. A hidden state makes the caption transparent.
A caption button is positioned at the bottom right, styled with a circular background and scaled icon, with its position adjusted on medium screens.
For interactive article columns on very large screens, adjust a pseudo-element’s position and height. Also, limit the width of level-2 headings.
On iOS or Android, define a set of dark theme color variables. In dark mode, adjust the primary color variable.
For iOS devices, target the first paragraph after specific elements in different article containers and style its first letter.The first letter of the first paragraph following a sign-in gate, or the first paragraph after an element atom in various article containers on iOS and Android, should be colored using the secondary pillar variable (defaulting to black).
On both iOS and Android, the article header height in feature, standard, and comment article containers should be set to zero.
The furniture wrapper within these article containers on both platforms should have top padding of 4 pixels and horizontal padding of 10 pixels.
Labels within the furniture wrapper should be bold, use the specified font stack, take their color from the new pillar variable, and be capitalized.
Headlines (h1) within the furniture wrapper should be 32 pixels in size, bold, have 12 pixels of bottom padding, and be colored #121212.
Image figures within the furniture wrapper should be positioned relatively, have a top margin of 14 pixels, a left margin of -10 pixels, a width calculated as the viewport width minus the scrollbar width, and an automatic height.
For feature articles on iOS, the inner figure element, image, and link within these image figures should also follow these styling rules.For iOS and Android devices, the following CSS rules apply:
For images within article containers:
– Set the background to transparent.
– Make the width equal to the full viewport width minus the scrollbar width.
– Ensure the height adjusts automatically.
For the article standfirst section:
– Add 4px of padding at the top and 24px at the bottom.
– Apply a negative right margin of 10px.
For paragraphs within the standfirst:
– Use the Guardian headline and serif font families.
For links within the standfirst:
– Set the color to a specific variable.
– Remove any background image.
– Apply an underline with a 6px offset and a specific border color.
– Remove any bottom border.
For hover effects on these links:
– Apply the same styling as above.For Android devices, when hovering over links within the standfirst section of comment articles, the text underline color should match the new pillar color.
On both iOS and Android devices, for feature, standard, and comment articles, the meta section should have no margin. Within this meta section, the byline, author name, and related links should all be displayed in the new pillar color.
Additionally, the meta miscellaneous area should have no padding, and any SVG icons within it should use the new pillar color for their stroke.
For showcase elements in feature, standard, and comment articles on both iOS and Android, the caption button should be displayed as a flex container. It should be centered with 5px padding, have dimensions of 28px by 28px, and be aligned to the right.On iOS and Android devices, the article body in feature, standard, and comment sections has no side padding. For non-thumbnail, non-immersive images within these articles, the figures have no margin, a width calculated from the viewport minus 24 pixels and any scrollbar width, and an automatic height. Their captions have no padding.
Immersive images in these articles span the full viewport width, accounting for any scrollbar.
Blockquotes styled with the “quoted” class use the new pillar color for their decorative before element. Links within the article’s prose adopt the primary pillar color, remove the background image, and add an underline positioned 6px from the text, using the header border color. On hover, this underline changes to the new pillar color.@media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper {
background-color: #1a1a1a;
}
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .content__labels {
color: var(–new-pillar-colour);
}
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper h1.headline {
background-color: unset;
color: var(–headerBorder) !important;
}
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst p {
color: var(–headerBorder);
}
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .standfirst a,
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta .byline__author,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta span.byline__author a {
color: var(–new-pillar-colour);
}
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,
body.android #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg,
body.android #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper .meta__misc svg {
stroke: var(–new-pillar-colour);
}
body.ios #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,
body.ios #standard-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,
body.ios #comment-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption,
body.android #feature-article-container .furniture-wrapper figure.element-image.element–showcase figcaption {
/ Rule incomplete in original, left as is /
}
}The text appears to be a set of CSS rules. Here is a rewritten version in fluent, natural English:
These CSS rules set styles for different parts of a webpage. First, they make the captions for showcase images appear in a color defined by a variable called `–dateline` on Android devices. Second, they set the text color for quoted blocks within articles to a color defined by `–new-pillar-colour` on both iOS and Android. Third, they apply a dark background, defined by `–darkBackground`, to various article body containers on both iOS and Android, and mark this as important. Finally, they define styles for the first letter of paragraphs that follow specific elements, but this last rule is cut off in the provided text.This CSS selector targets the first letter of paragraphs that follow specific elements within various article containers on iOS and Android devices. It applies to different body sections like article, feature, and comment bodies, as well as interactive content areas. The selector accounts for different page structures, including sign-in gates and elements with specific data attributes.This CSS code defines styles for Android and iOS devices on a website. It sets specific colors, padding, and font sizes for various elements like article containers, buttons, and text. For example, it changes the color of the first letter in certain paragraphs to white and adjusts padding for caption buttons. It also includes dark mode preferences, setting text and link colors to lighter shades. The overall background color for mobile devices is set to white.Every day, I encounter strangers who share intimate details with me. This is what we call reading. In a newspaper article, a former sex addict recalls her need for BDSM (“when a sexual partner hurt me, I felt seen”) and how she overcame her dependency. On Substack, an actor describes her grief after losing a baby (“After the miscarriage, I became convinced my daughter was backstage. I would push back the costumes on the rack and almost expect to find her”). Then there are the published memoirs—first-person stories of trauma, displacement, and heartbreak. Of course, it’s not just women who unburden themselves. As Martin Amis writes in his memoir Experience: “We are all writing it or at any rate talking it: the memoir, the apologia, the CV, the cri de coeur.”
Recent memoirs have raised the stakes, however. What was once a geriatric, self-satisfied genre—politicians, generals, and film stars looking back fondly on long careers—is now open to anyone with a story to tell. The American journalist Lorraine Adams has called them “nobody memoirs.” Candor is key, no matter how fraught the consequences. “Most writers I know,” Maggie Nelson writes in The Argonauts, “nurse persistent fantasies about the horrible things—or the horrible thing—that will happen to them if and when they express themselves as they desire.” But she takes that risk, addressing the book to “you,” her fluidly gendered husband Harry (who is angry when she shows him a draft), while exploring identity, pregnancy, motherhood, and sexuality.
“The words I love you come tumbling out of my mouth in an incantation the first time you fuck me in the ass, my face smashed against the concrete floor”—this appears in the first paragraph of The Argonauts in 2015. It’s hard to imagine an author volunteering such a detail 30 years ago, or being allowed to be so passionately upfront (and violently facedown) at the start of a story. I recall the embarrassment I felt in the 1990s, walking into the office one morning after a reviewer in the Sunday papers highlighted a passage in my memoir about my father, in which I described masturbating in the bath around the time of his death. What possessed me to disclose that? What would my colleagues think of me? Today, I wouldn’t need to feel so blushingly shy about it.
Shock is an integral part of memoir, and sometimes the facts are shocking without any embellishment. Thomas Blackburn’s autobiography, A Clip of Steel, takes its title from the mechanical device his father sent him at boarding school to discourage involuntary ejaculation or self-abuse: “The instrument had an outer clip of thin firm steel whose inner edge was serrated with spiked teeth … if you had an erection then your expanding penis pressed into the sharp teeth of the firm outer clip.” Ouch. Yet this isn’t a contemporary memoir pushing new levels of explicitness. Blackburn’s book was published over half a century ago, as were J.R. Ackerley’s two memoirs, My Dog Tulip and…The book My Father and Myself is remarkably frank, not only about the author’s homosexuality and his father’s secret second family, but also in its astonishingly detailed description of his sensual arousal when touching his pet Alsatian.
In literature, this style was once called confessionalism. Today, it’s often dismissed pejoratively as oversharing. At its best, it prompts a welcome sense of recognition: “Wow, here’s someone who has had the same experiences, thoughts, and feelings as I have.” But there is often resistance too: “Ugh. TMI. I don’t need to know this.” Whether the divulgence is sad-fishing on Facebook, curated self-glorification on Instagram, or a shocking revelation in a memoir, readers can feel irritated or affronted. They reject this “me-me-me-ism” and refuse the proffered hand. When I wrote a book about the murder of James Bulger by two ten-year-olds, some reviewers appreciated the personal approach; others hated that I had brought my own children into my brooding on the age of responsibility.
After all, it’s not essential for writers to spill all their beans. They are not victims on a talk show, outmaneuvered by a host like Jerry Springer; they are writing on their own terms and in control of what is committed to print. As Margo Jefferson says in her memoir Negroland: “I think it’s too easy to recount unhappy memories when you write about yourself. You bask in your own innocence. You revere your grief. You arrange your angers at their most becoming angles. I don’t want this kind of indulgence.”
It’s not even compulsory to use the first person in a memoir. In Bone Black, bell hooks uses “she” and “we” as well as “I.” As one of six children, she writes some chapters in a collective “we” voice. In key emotional episodes, whether masturbating or being beaten by her father, she presents herself at a distance in the third person, as if observing another person—the self that hadn’t yet grown up to be bell hooks. Salman Rushdie uses “he” instead of “I” in his fatwa memoir, Joseph Anton, expressing his strange displacement into a religious hate figure he doesn’t recognize. J.M. Coetzee does the same in his two childhood memoirs (“Whoever he truly is, whoever the true ‘I’ is that ought to be rising from the ashes of his childhood, is not being allowed to be born”). There’s even a case for using “you,” which implicates the reader, as if what happened to the author could happen to anyone.
Such discretion is fine if it isn’t evasion. There’s no point in telling a personal story if you censor yourself and hold back too much. I’ve urged life-writing students, terrified of what their ex, siblings, or grouchy uncle will think, to be brave: get that monkey off your back; it’s your version of events, and if people close to you object—never mind—let them write their own memoir.
But candor requires art: what works as a pub anecdote won’t work on the page. It needs compression, structure, and the right tone of voice. The task is to set down what happened, not to parade extremes of feeling. An author can be open without closing the space for readers, who need room to interpret and explore. Tara Westover’s Educated is a heartfelt account of a violently dysfunctional Mormon family in Idaho, but she ends with notes acknowledging that other family members remember things differently.
Giving offense is always a risk. Readers are no less sensitive than they ever were, just sensitive about different things—racism, homophobia, and child-beating, for instance, where a generation or two ago the stigma was around abortion, illegitimacy, and homosexuality. Push it too far—with titles like My Life As a Drug Dealer, The Joys of Stalking, or Confessions of a Copro-, Zoo-, Formico-, Stygio- or Necro-philiac—and there might…A social media storm and public backlash can happen to any writer. This was the case for Kate Clanchy, who wrote warmly in a memoir about the children she taught but upset some readers with what were seen as racist, classist, and ableist tropes. Her publisher recently apologized, four years later, for the “hurt” caused to her and “many others” in how the controversy was handled. Writers cannot afford to ignore the moral climate of the times, but they don’t have to kowtow to it either. Someone on social media might criticize them harshly, but if they are writing truthfully, someone else will give them the highest praise.
Truth-telling is the measure of a memoir, and it is not the same as autofiction. Readers allow an author some wriggle room, for comic exaggeration, for instance, but where there is knowing fabrication, they will feel cheated, even outraged. This explains the scandal last year following claims that Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path had omitted and obscured key details. Why was there no mention of the alleged embezzlement behind the loss of her family home? Was her husband Moth’s condition—CBD, or corticobasal degeneration, a rare degenerative brain disease—as serious as she claimed? Did she really undertake her 630-mile coastal walk exactly as described? Winn continues to write; her sales haven’t suffered, and another memoir is scheduled for January 2028. But as I write, she is in trouble again for having claimed that The Salt Path was her debut—and for winning a £10,000 prize for a first book—when she had written a previous one under a pseudonym. And since its honesty has been questioned, can The Salt Path really be considered, as the Sunday Times acclaimed it, one of the top 100 books of the past 50 years? (Winn has published a response denying many of the allegations.)
When readers feel that memoirs can’t be trusted, the genre suffers and the publishing industry comes under fire. Nonfiction sales slumped last year. Memoirs also now face the risk of being sidelined by social media outlets, not least Substack, which feeds the same market in smaller doses. If you want a quick fix without trawling through a whole book, it’s the ideal platform, and it aspires to the same kind of intimacy. As Naomi Alderman puts it: “I’m actually really surprised by the kind of writing Substack is unlocking in me, that I basically didn’t know I had in me before. And it’s the paid subscribers who make it possible: the fact that I don’t feel I’m shouting into the void but that there are people who are telling me that this work has value.”
Where Instagram highlights the glossy upsides of life, Substack memoirs acknowledge the downsides. The writers are troubled, not least about writing itself. They let you in on their woes, whether broken relationships or family trauma. A quick browse brings me to Ros Barber (“In the eighteen months after leaving my ex, I lived in a state of fear. I was tailed by a series of men that I suspected he had hired as part of his promise that I wouldn’t live very long if I left”), Kevin Jack McEnroe (“My mom was a heroin addict, and I always worried about her, and still do. I became one, too”), and Dorothy O’Donnell (“My daughter’s no stranger to depression. Or thoughts of suicide. She was in kindergarten the first time she told me she wanted to die”).
When writers like these hit their stride, you want more than snippets. And there are cases of someone posting a full-length work on Substack, as Bowen Dwelle has done with the story of how he survived “growing up in San Francisco in the 80s, lived through years of depression and addiction, and eventually found my way back.” His 66,000-word piece comes in 28 chapters “as a work in process… in pre-publication form.” Many writers do use Substack as a pre-publication try-out.As far as I know, Dwelle hasn’t yet published his memoir, even though he serialized it in 2023.
Is it better to keep drafts private rather than sharing them publicly? Perhaps not, if you’re already an established writer with a compelling story to tell. Hanif Kureishi’s book Shattered, which chronicles his experience after an accident left him quadriplegic, first appeared on Substack. There, it was less a rough draft made public and more an earnest engagement with readers, made possible with the help of his son Carlo, who took dictation. Many other writers use Substack, including Margaret Atwood, George Saunders, Elif Shafak, Howard Jacobson, and Miranda July. It’s easy to see why publishers view the platform as both an opportunity—a chance to discover new talent—and a threat. If memoirists can earn a living through online snippets (Substack pays well with enough subscriptions), why worry about print publication? What’s so sacred about a physical book?
Personally—I’m no social media enthusiast—I believe published memoirs offer plenty that social platforms can’t. This includes the rewards of a full-length story with a narrative arc, a cast of characters, and an approach that doesn’t rely on sensational self-exposure. Memoirs allow room for reversals, surprises, digressions, complications, and a tension between adversity and reprieve. At their best, memoirs develop with a subtlety unavailable in short extracts, and the writer grapples with bigger questions than just how much to share: which tense to use, what period of time to cover, how many points of view to include, and what resolution to offer, if any, since a life story written by a living person isn’t over yet. Far from reveling in the drama of their tale, memoir writers often worry that their story is mundane or insignificant. Success lies in the quality of the storytelling, not in the shamelessness of the tale. Can a ghostwriter’s life be interesting? Yes—Jennie Erdal’s Ghosting is a comic masterpiece. Can a book about immobility move readers? Josie George’s A Still Life does.
Perhaps it comes down to two kinds of writing: flash nonfiction on one hand and book-length memoir on the other. Under the tag “Memoir Junkie Someday Author,” Claire Tak writes insightfully about this on—where else?—Substack, distinguishing between a “moment” and a “season.” She explains, “A writing ‘season’ means you’re in a stretch of time when writing is a big focus. You’re in a groove, maybe working on a project, maybe just showing up regularly. There’s a rhythm, and you know what you’re doing and where you’re headed.” During times when you’re less fluent, she notes, you have to rely on moments:
> After giving myself a break from my memoir, it felt like I was falling behind or had given up. But I’ve realized I don’t need to be in a full season to stay connected to writing. I just needed to pay attention and take the moments when they came.
> What I’ve found is that those moments still move things forward—not always linearly, but they add up. A Substack post here, a thought there. It’s slower, but it’s not wasted time… You don’t have to be in a full-on writing season to keep going. Pay attention to these moments and take what you can.
Moment versus season. Episode versus story. Online post versus full-length book. There’s room in the world for both. Substack serves memoir well, including through “a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web,” and I enjoy dipping in. But what would my life be without the memoirs published in recent years by writers like Annie Ernaux, Deborah Levy, Hisham Matar, George Szirtes, Rebecca Stott, Maggie O’Farrell, Tabitha Lasley, Miriam Toews, Lea Ypi, and Leslie Jamison?
O’Farrell’s story of her 17 brushes with mortal…The intensity in I Am, I Am, I Am is every bit as captivating as in Hamnet, and Ernaux’s diary-style Getting Lost, which chronicles an affair, carries more weight than the brief fictional treatment she gave it in Simple Passion. Similarly, a fragment from an online journal can hardly compare to the 700-plus pages of diaries in Helen Garner’s How to End a Story, which offer the ultimate justification for writing: “writing about my life is the only thing that makes it possible for me to live it.”
Of course, when an author is an overbearing chatterbox or a catastrophizer piling on the drama, published memoirs can be as off-putting as online snippets. But when the self-revelation is subtle and the prose absorbing, you gladly lose yourself in the narrative, content to listen in and follow wherever the memoir leads.
Blake Morrison’s On Memoir: An A-Z of Life Writing is published by Borough Press on 9 April. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Frequently Asked Questions
FAQs Enough of this me me me Blake Morrison on Memoir Oversharing
BeginnerLevel Questions
1 What is Blake Morrisons main argument in Enough of this me me me
He argues that the modern memoir fueled by social media and a culture of oversharing often becomes selfindulgent and lacks the artistic craft reflection and consideration for others that define the best autobiographical writing
2 Whats the difference between a good memoir and just oversharing
Oversharing is dumping personal details for attention or catharsis without reflection A good memoir uses personal experience to explore universal themeslike love loss or identitywith careful storytelling selfawareness and respect for the privacy of others involved
3 What are the benefits of reading or writing a wellcrafted memoir
They help us understand different lives feel less alone in our experiences and see the world from a new perspective For writers the process can bring clarity and meaning to their own past
4 Can you give an example of what Morrison might criticize as oversharing in a memoir
He might criticize memoirs that focus heavily on scandalous or traumatic details purely for shock value without examining their deeper meaning or impact or that exploit the stories of living people without their consent
Advanced Practical Questions
5 How can a writer avoid the me me me trap when writing about themselves
By asking Why does this story matter to someone else Focus on transformationhow an event changed you Include other characters fully and ethically and practice rigorous selfediting to cut irrelevant personal details
6 What does art have to do with writing a memoir Isnt it just telling the truth
Memoir is not just a diary entry The art lies in the selection of events the narrative structure the language and the creation of meaning Its a shaped version of the truth designed to communicate an experience effectively to a reader
7 Whats a key ethical problem in memoir writing that Morrison highlights
The ethical treatment of other people in your story Writers have a responsibility to consider how their portrayal affects the lives and privacy of family friends and acquaintances which sometimes requires disguise negotiation or omission
