Books appear alphabetically, by author's last name. While some basics recur, each book offers unique tips and perspectives. What you need in a particular stage of a writing project or process of course will depend on your prior experience, your project, and the particular flavor of stuckness you might be struggling with.

My comments in the second paragraph particularly address novice writers of short-form memoir, but all of these books also offer a wealth of advice for writers of all levels of experience and projects of different lengths and complexities.

Judith Barrington: Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art

Mary Karr: The Art of Memoir

Based on Karr's graduate courses on Memoir at Syracuse University, this book introduces the reader to Karr's personal favorites of the genre--she has many, the reading list at the end of the book alone might be worth the price--as she explains why and how they work. The academic's approach to teaching memoir is through close reading. Like a painter training through copying the masters in order to work towards a medium and style best suited to express their inner truth, Karr explores what it would mean to write like Vladimir Nabakov or Geoffrey Wolff or Maxine Hong Kingston, why we can't, and how we let the question of why we can't lead us towards the voice that's uniquely, burningly our own. While the book has brief passages on practical struggles, such as how do we tell truths from lies and how the author's uncertainties about the difference between them make a book worth reading, or how to deal honorably with the very real people in our lives who we are turning into characters on the page, this is not a book of tips, recipes, or writing prompts. Instead, it urges the reader towards entering, with all seriousness, the circle of practitioners in the field: to absorb its history, its heart, its pulse, and, in the process become part of its development and growth. If this sounds dry, think again: Karr's hard-won (she tells you how hard-won), irresistible voice will carry you on this journey like the world's best art history professor can make you forget time in a darkened auditorium at noon.

Maureen Murdoch: Unreliable Truth

Addressed primarily to women interested in learning about memoir, the strengths of this book are its attempts to embed the writing of memoir into the context of the development of female identity in the United States and its reflections on the connections between the writing process and our sense of self. "If we never learn our mothers’ memories and their stories, we are helpless to make the future—for ourselves and our daughters," Murdoch writes. "In the silencing of our mothers’ lives and our own, we lose identity." She ties her ideas about the importance and meaning of the genre to her own memories of her mother and to a string of example memoirs, most of them by female authors. The last chapters provide suggestions for exercises and writing prompts for beginning memoirists and women's writing groups.

Linda Joy Myers: The Power of Memoir

This book focuses on the psychological aspects of writing memoir. It is addressed to readers wishing to write a book-length memoir and it posits that undertaking such a writing project has the potential to deeply change your life. Myers has used memoir writing extensively in her practice as a therapist and she views the writing process as a healing experience in which authors can uncover and process "dark stories" in their life. You may or may not stumble into your own thorny thicket of dark stories as you plunge into your writing project. If you do find yourself bumping up against discomforts or the question of whether it's okay to "tell" whatever you find, this book may be a good place to begin looking for guidance.

Regardless of whether your writing transports you into emotionally shaky territory, I highly recommend reading "Step 6 - Organizing the Narraitve Arc". This short chapter will quickly teach you about what makes a story a story and how to create one from a jumbled heap of memories. Even if you have never thought about the dramatic arc (or if the word make your eyes glaze over), the information in here will quickly teach you some nuts and bolts of story writing that will help you to keep your readers with you.

Sue William Silverman: Fearless Confessions

Through offering systematically organized, well-explained, clear advice, Silverman's book contains some of the best explanations for getting someone new to memoir writing going. Silverman has lots of experience teaching introductory non-fiction writing, and it really shows in the way she presents her stuff. One of the author's themes is the process of discovery in the act of writing:"In fiction, plot is invented; in non-fiction, it is discovered ... We discover our plot slowly, during the writing process." Or: "Only when I write do I discover what my story means, what my metaphors are." And, if you are a little shaky on the concepts of "plot" or "metaphor", you'll walk away from the reading with much more clarity and ready to put them to use.

Marion Roach Smith: The Memoir Project

An enjoyable read full of tiny snippets of advice that can have big effects on your writing practice. Unlike some of the other guide book authors, who seem to assume everyone is out for a book-length project, Smith thinks that starting your writing project small (as in "essay-length") is a great idea. In fact, she champions short writing and has a lot to say about how to cut your topic down to a digestible size. The book itself is un-intimidatingly short and the writing style is entertaining. Because Smith chose a non-textbook-like organization, the plethora of essay-like explorations can make it a little difficult to find particular practical pieces of advice. But if you're up for letting yourself be dazzled and entertained by laugh-out-loud examples, you won't come away feeling disappointed.

Smith's “Galileo-in-Walmart” analogy alone is worth your time (and if you read nothing else in her book, read “Focusing your lens” on p. 48). For a teaser, take a look at the author's 2-minute video clip on the book's Amazon site (linked to the title). Oh, and please read about The Vomit Draft (p. 74): "The biggest shock of writing is that it's difficult." - Need I say more? One chapter to read for sure, before turning in any writing project, no matter what size or topic, is “Life in the Morgue”, a chapter on editing as a life-or-death issue: "To make the piece work, it's essential to murder on demand." It's the final chapter in her book, and it will make all the difference for your final draft.