It’s 2026: Should You Write A Memoir?

(Should You Publish A Memoir?)

Dear Esteemed Readers,

A tardy but hearty welcome to 2026.

As most of you already know, I’ve written a memoir. For those of you who did not google this information already, it’s called:

DAD, LOVE, ME is set to be published on July 21, 2026.

You can read the summary by clicking the green rectangle right below this sentence, which will take you to the Simon & Schuster website.

If you have been following my Substack, you already know that I have put a somewhat terrifying amount of myself into this one. It was extremely difficult to write.

But, these days, I’m feeling surprisingly at ease about publishing my debut memoir.

At the time of writing this post—here in early December 2025—we haven’t even copyedited the manuscript yet, so there, of course, haven’t been any reviews. And it’s too early to know whether meaningful prepublication momentum might build. (Fingers crossed here.)

Why am I feeling so relaxed?

I recently received an email from an aspiring writer. She told me about her childhood and current life, listing some of her past and present struggles. Then she asked whether she should write a novel or a memoir. I got the sense that she might have believed the memoir would be the easier option. Like maybe the memoir would be a warm-up for the novel.

It’s always hard to know how to respond to such emails. Writing is so personal, as are the individual lives that inspire both fiction and non-fiction. I briefly wrote her back, but didn’t answer her query. I’ll do that now. Except I’ll expand the scope to include everyone, by asking each and every one of you this question:

It’s 2026: Should you write a memoir?

I’ve heard people say that first novels are always autobiographical. To a certain extend, THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK was. I never suffered brain trauma like Pat does in the book—nor have I ever been given a bi-polar diagnosis like Pat receives in the movie—but I did have a strained relationship with my father who was (and is) a big Philadelphia Eagles fan. I experienced depression and anxiety. In my thirties, this former teacher felt lost and alone. And I was saved by a woman who likes to dance.

When I learned SILVER LININGS was going to be published, I nearly threw up, it made me so anxious. I didn’t know why at the time, which frightened me. Now I see that I was using fiction to begin telling truths about myself that I had previously kept hidden. I now know that my debut novel was me coming out as a member of the mental health community. Two decades ago, that felt risky. A lot riskier than it might feel today. And I think the risk was the secret ingredient. I was putting something on the line that felt dangerous. The stakes were high for me personally. High stakes usually make audiences turn pages more quickly.

SILVER LININGS was, in some ways, easy to write. It actually flew out of me. And I had a lot of fun living in Pat’s head. But it was very difficult to publish. For the entire year proceeding its debut, I was on the verge of total mental breakdown.

While writing and editing the memoir over the past two years, I’ve often thought that it is—in some ways—the non-fiction version of my debut novel. Yet, it’s a book David O. Russell will never turn into an Oscar-winning film. In many ways, a child wrote THE SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK before he did the necessary work to raise himself up into a man who understands what he’s writing about. That younger me used fiction to camouflage the parts I didn’t want the audience to see and to distract readers from noticing that I was still green and hurting and—in many ways—half-baked. I’m not saying the novel was half-baked. I was.

A long time ago, I met a woman whose life had been scarred by legitimate tragedy. She told me she was writing a memoir. Initially, I thought I would be interested in her story. But whenever I saw her afterward—during her writing process—she would beam prouder than the sun, as she discussed how much joy she was getting from writing her memoir and how eager she was to share it with the world. I was very glad to hear that the creative act was filling her with glee. But that fact made me less and less interested in reading what she was writing.

What was she putting on the line? I wondered. What was she risking? What curtain was being pulled back? Where was the discomfort? The woman sounded as though she was an extrovert preparing to host a holiday party. Writing can be a wonderful form of therapy, a way to get your personal narrative in order, tidying up one’s house, so to speak, getting it ready for guests to visit. There is nothing wrong with this at all. In fact, it’s quite a helpful and productive thing to do.

But if you want people—other than your friends and family—to read your memoir, you have to allow them to see your house looking its absolute worst, meaning you have to show them your house as it is when you are not hosting a holiday party. If your memoir looks like everyone else’s tidied-up house during the holidays, well, then people will yawn.

I’m absolutely not suggesting that writing a memoir is just letting your house rot and saying to your visitors, ‘Here it is, you get what you get.’ That would not be interesting either.

I think it’s more like presenting the house as is—with all its imperfections and strange little quirks and even the moldy bathtub and the squirrels in the attic—but making it at least interesting, if not outright transcendent. Writing a memoir is showing one’s decay and messiness in a transformative way that must be honest, healing, and revelatory. I suppose one can do that joyfully, but—in my experience—some part of it also has to hurt like hell.

There is joy in life. There is beauty. There is order. There is meaning. But there is suffering too, which you need, if only to be the south to your west, east, and north.

For me, writing the memoir was mostly the hellish pursuit of joy, beauty, order, and meaning, precisely because those things were often lacking in parts of my life. And the writing process was far from a sure thing. It was a nerve-racking quest to find all that I yearned for, because the inside of my metaphorical house looked like others (or maybe even I) had nuked it. Revisiting all of that, digging through the wreckage, writing it up honestly, attempting to transform it into art, was perhaps the most painful thing I have ever done. It did not feel like tidying up for a charming holiday party. It did not feel like something for which I would send out whimsical invitations. It felt like telling the raw, unvarnished truth for the first time in my entire life.

And when—during the writing process—people asked me about my memoir, I would instinctually recoil, because telling the truth means letting them see the real me, not the me that will make things easy between us. Not the me I present to my neighbors when I wave hi on any given afternoon. The real me is often difficult and complicated. Historically, the real me has been kept secret. The real me is worth writing and reading about, precisely because no one will find that version to be the equivalent of a tidy holiday party.

Showing people the real me means risking rejection.

It also means risking acceptance.

So why am I feeling at ease with only a half-year to go until my debut memoir is published? Why did I feel so mentally unstable six months before my debut novel was set to be published? Why had the debut novel been relatively easy to write and so hard to publish, while my debut memoir had been arduous to write, but left me feeling relatively light afterward?

Maybe the truth shall set a writer free?

Some would-be memoirists mistake memoir writing for a chance to attend a costume ball. What fun it must be to display one’s self in a sparkling, carefully selected outfit, they imagine.

I’ve come to think of memoir writing as forcing yourself to be a nudist. If you are anything like me, walking around nude is a horrifying thought. But here’s the upshot. Once everyone has seen you naked, there’s no need to hide anymore. Just like you feel comfortable wearing your old, worn-out PJs around your spouse or roommate.

I didn’t get metaphorically naked in my memoir because I wanted to be an exhibitionist. I hope that when other people out there—particularly men—see my scars and misshapen body parts, they might feel a little less pressure to hide their own. Or at least they might not be so ashamed. I hope that they will find relief from the life-threatening loneliness that I knew for most of my life.

Secrets and shame. Great ingredients for a memoir. Both also become less toxic the more they are exposed to the light of day.

I’m sure there will be some rough publishing moments ahead for me. Each publication brings them. But I feel confident that I have told my truth to the best of my abilities. And men with trauma histories have already said that reading DAD, LOVE, ME awakened something that had been previously sleeping in them. They have called me on the phone and talked excitedly about how enlivened they felt post read. They sent me emails claiming that they were irrevocably altered. And I could tell that they were glad to feel less alone, which made me feel less alone too.

If done correctly, the memoir is most definitely the harder beast to tame, when compared to the novel. It’s more dangerous. Requires more thought, better strategies, and maybe even mental health support. That’s been my experience anyway.

I think everyone should attempt to write up their life story. It can certainly be a rewarding thing to do. But if you want strangers to read it or a major publishing house to publish it—and you aren’t either a legit celebrity with millions of adoring fans or the owner of an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind life story—you are going to have to put something very real on the line. You are going to have to dig deep inside of yourself and mine personal truths and insights that will probably be painful to share.

If you haven’t done so already, please read the synopsis for DAD, LOVE, ME and you’ll see what I’ve been talking about.

Thank you for sticking with me here in 2026. You are appreciated.

Let’s make it a good year.

Your man in the Lowcountry,

Matthew

PS - Did you read the December 21st post? The Gift Of Waiting (I Appreciate You)

PPS - If you respond to this email, your words will be sucked into an internet black hole; I will not see them. If you wish to contact me, please use the information on my website.