In this master class, we focus on chapter two, “The Truth Contract Twixt Writer and Reader,” of Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir. There she talks about how inventing situations that never happened breaks the author’s contract with the reader.

In this video, we discuss the use of speculation, inference, and imagination in memoir and examine Karr’s list of liberties she’s taken in her writing on pages 24-26.

Watch the video, and let us know what liberties you are comfortable taking and how you determine what to include, qualify, or leave out of your stories.