Patti Miller Books Reviews
Writing True Stories
The complete guide to writing autobiography, memoir, personal essay, biography, travel and creative nonfiction.
Allen & Unwin 2017, Routledge 2020
Writing True Stories is the essential book for anyone who wants to write a memoir or explore the wider territory of creative nonfiction. It provides practical guidance and inspiration on a vast array of writing topics, including how to access memories, find a narrative voice, build a vivid world on the page, create structure, using research and facing the difficulties of truth-telling.
It introduces key writing skills, and then challenges writers to extend their practice into literary nonfiction, true crime, biography, the personal essay, and travel and sojourn writing. Whether you want to write your own autobiography, investigate a wide-ranging political issue, or bring to life an intriguing history, this book is your guide.
Articles and Reviews
Brisbane -Courier Mail
ABC Radio – Sydney
Compulsive Reader Blog
Carpe Librum Blog
The Mind of a Thief
UQP 2012
Prizes
- Winner – NSW Premier’s Award for History 2013
- Short-listed – WA Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction 2013
- Long-listed: Stella Prize 2013; Nita Kibble Award 2013
- NB. The Mind of a Thief also a set text for the VCE
When Patti Miller discovers that the first post-Mabo Native Title claim was made by the Wiradjuri in the Wellington Valley where she grew up, she is lead to the question at the heart of Australian identity – who are we in relation to our cherished stolen country?
Miller uncovers a chronicle of idealism, destruction and hope in its history of convicts, zealous missionaries, farmers and gold seekers who all took the land from the original inhabitants. But it’s not until she talks to the local Wiradjuri that she realises there’s another set of stories, even about her own family. As one Wiradjuri elder remarks, ‘The whitefellas and blackfellas have two different stories about who’s related to who in this town’.
Black and white politics, family mythologies and the power of place are interwoven as Miller tells a story that is both an individual search for connection and identity and a universal exploration of country and belonging.
Thoughtfully and perceptively relayed, this is a story all about identity, connection to place and how we gain a sense of self through stories of the generations.
— Courier-MailA seamless narrative. [Miller’s] powers of observation give her stories a colourful cohesion. She has produced a remarkably fluid, virtuoso piece of writing.
— Saturday AgeNative title is a complex and vexing issue. This thoughtful, well-researched and beautifully written personal story helps us to understand why it is so important to indigenous people.
— Herald Sun "Great Read"This exploration of identity and belonging is brilliantly crafted, brave and full of love.
— Hobart MercuryIf this book does not resolve all the contradictions of its material that is a tribute to Miller’s integrity. It is an appropriately complex and illuminating response to the Mabo judgment.
— Sydney Morning HeraldThe Mind of a Thief deals with the big issues… the book unfolds into one of the best descriptions I’ve seen of the native title mediation process. This is complex stuff but Miller sets it all out calmly and clearly, using the craft of storytelling.
— Weekend AustralianListen to actress, Claudia Karvan reading from The Mind of a Thief, accompanied by artist, Gria Shead’s images, Graphic Festival, Opera House 2013.
Ransacking Paris
UQP 2015
This is memoir of a year spent writing in Paris at a time when Miller’s life is changing. She explores French memoirists – Montaigne, Rousseau, de Beauvoir and others – each one intent on knowing the self through gazing into the ‘looking glass’ of the great world. They accompany her as she wanders the streets of Paris – they even have coffee together – and they talk about motherhood, truth-telling, memory and the writing journey.
This story of a year spent writing and reading in Paris, explores truth and illusion, self-knowledge and identity – and evokes the beauty, the contradictions and the daily life of contemporary Paris.