"Balancing precariously between history and literature, memoir writers have finally found their place on the bookshelf. But increased notoriety brings intense scrutiny: memoirists are expected to create a narrative worthy of fiction while also saying true to the facts. Historians, too, handle tricky issues of writing from "real life," when imagination must fill gaps in the historical record." "In this landmark collection, Patricia Hampl and Elaine Tyler May have gathered fourteen original essays from award-winning memoirists and historians. They are all storytellers, wrestling with a fascinating gray area where memory intersects with history and where the necessities of narrative collide with mundane facts. And whether the record emerges from archival sources or from personal memory, these writers show how to make the leap to telling a good story, while also telling us true."--BOOK JACKET.