What is it like to hold your life up for the world to examine? How do writers sift through memories and shape them into a story? Critically acclaimed authors Alysia Abbott and Howard Axelrod know. Abbott authored _Fairyland_, about growing up with her gay father in 1980s San Francisco – a book the New York Times Book Review calls a "daughter’s compassionate, clear-eyed reckoning" with her "girlhood at the dawn of the gay liberation movement." Axelrod penned _The Point of Vanishing_, which describes his two years in solitude in the Vermont woods after a freak accident. Booklist, in a starred review, calls his work an "elegant, questioning memoir." The two memoirists speak about their experiences - both living them, and re-telling them decades later. (Photo: [Flickr/Meagan](https://www.flickr.com/photos/peroshenka/7064964081/in/photolist-bLiMFx-4DoGC6-4DoHxe-4DsYTo-afUuYG-61nW25-8srXQ9-9KdQ3C-5jM41D-6ZLBkd-3jxhx4-5xYt9i-5QPait-8spKrV-7aQA1q-8ssQMm-8ssBpU-GKR34-9JU28w-GqM8i-2XSX7H-9aMg7X-GKR2K-5rZVkS-ae7SQ4-3pXRU-9JYkQv-cjx6SU-8ssLpN-9KdQ2N-4cGxKF-4xq47n-99RTvh-dHv2nM-3aL2kF-iTpoZ-5cTfmc-7Cu3Db-bBMypD-5tfysk-GKR2V-5Rsi88-rnP8hr-6rUyhs-9JYghT-9KdPZQ-9KaZSc-eSgy2p-oJurL9-eXzxXW "JournalsMemoirs"), resized)
