I had a dream about a month ago. I was with a group of women, and we were to give each other items of clothing to make mix-and-match outfits. We all had the same bright colored blouse as the featured piece, and we were to select from the traded items to assemble an outfit. I went to my dressing room to see my options. I put on some things, but they didn’t feel right. I was uncomfortable. I walked out to get others’ opinions, and they all agreed: it wasn’t working.

Writing a dissertation was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It was a huge feat to grapple with so much and present an original interpretation. By the end, I was a wreck – out of balance, out of touch, drained. When my friend Mary asked me what I wanted to do next, the words tumbled out of me: “I want to write things that are beautiful and true.”

After so many years studying history, I put my money on memoir—a genre that memoirist Mary Karr has called “low rent.” Not respectable as history, not elevated like literature, just navel-gazing and often rendered poorly. What gives?