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Mary L. Tabor

Goodreads Author

Born

Baltimore, The United States

Website

Https://marytabor.substack.com

Twitter

maryltabor

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Literature & Fiction

Member Since

December 2008

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/maryltabor

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Mary L. Tabor is the author of Who by Fire: A Novel with a book club:: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8.... Join and discover authors in person. I am also the author of (Re)Making Love: A Memoir, available on Amazon http://amzn.to/nqg0yo. My book The Woman Who Never Cooked won Mid-List Press’s First Series Award. If you want one-on-one help, I offer, for a modest fee, via Zoom, an Eight-"session"-course (each session includes 11 parts and one-on-one attention) with slides and more experiments than in the free chapters. Go here and scroll down for free lessons. For private, via Zoom, email me at mltabor @ me. com . I taught variations of this course at George Washington University, in the undergraduate and graduate MFA/Ph.D. creative wr Mary L. Tabor is the author of Who by Fire: A Novel with a book club:: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8.... Join and discover authors in person. I am also the author of (Re)Making Love: A Memoir, available on Amazon http://amzn.to/nqg0yo. My book The Woman Who Never Cooked won Mid-List Press’s First Series Award. If you want one-on-one help, I offer, for a modest fee, via Zoom, an Eight-"session"-course (each session includes 11 parts and one-on-one attention) with slides and more experiments than in the free chapters. Go here and scroll down for free lessons. For private, via Zoom, email me at mltabor @ me. com . I taught variations of this course at George Washington University, in the undergraduate and graduate MFA/Ph.D. creative writing program at the University of Missouri and at the Smithsonian's Campus-on-the-Mall. My first book of fiction was published after a 16-year career in corporate America, a senior executive, director of public affairs writing for the oil industry’s trade association, landing me in both Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who of American Women. I was a high school English teacher who bridged the gap to the business world, rising on the corporate ladder while also raising two children. I then made a transition from the business world to the creative world, leaving her corporate job to earn an MFA degree in Creative Writing. My experience spans the worlds of journalism, business, education and fiction writing. I was a visiting writer at University of Missouri in Columbia, taught creative writing (fiction and memoir) at George Washington University, the Smithsonian’s Campus-on-the-Mall, and worked with the DC library to reach less-privileged populations on how to begin writing about family, personal history and writing a story—the stuff of life. I am a CIC Visiting Fellow (aka Woodrow Wilson Fellow). I've been interviewed on XM Satellite Radio and Pacifica Radio to discuss Joyce, Shakespeare and others and her lifelong career-journey.
The interview that follows was done by Jason Howell Take a look ...
For reviews and more visit: http://www.maryltabor.com and http://www.midlist.org and
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8... ...more

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People tend to take "write what you know" to mean "take facts from your own life and build your fiction around them" but maybe it's more useful to think of it as "make use of invention to explore your own emotions"? But that brings me to the question -- if your novel Who by Fire goes places your memoir couldn't quite, what sorts of things might (Re)Making Love do that your novel is unable?

Mary L. Tabor “Write what you know” in fiction does not mean “write your life.” It’s better explained by acknowledging that artists who write close-to-the-bone rely…more“Write what you know” in fiction does not mean “write your life.” It’s better explained by acknowledging that artists who write close-to-the-bone rely on the unconscious mind to do the work of invention.

You can tell when you’re reading work that does that. One extraordinary example is the unforgettable and brilliant work of Gabriel García Márquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude feels so real that nothing can compare with its brilliance. I am quite certain that even as Gabo invented, he wrote from his own unconscious knowing.

As I said in answer to your first question, I am inside all my characters. My novel is a fictional tale—the narrator is a man and well-versed in Physics, in Quantum Mechanics, in finance. He plays the piano. I can barely balance my check book and I don’t play an instrument, but I did years and years of research to create my narrator’s voice and to think the way Robert would. In this way fiction released me to write the story as if I were my husband who had left me and then lost me, meaning totally lost through death.

I am every character in the novel. I tell stories about myself all through this novel, stories I don’t actually know. My daughter, who is in fact a philosopher, accuses me regularly of remaking the past.

Memory by its very nature is flawed. Revisiting memory again and again is the way we search for the narrative of our lives.

William Faulkner says in Light in August, “Memory believes before knowing remembers.”

The difference between memoir and fiction is that memoir is bound to the facts. Fiction, on the other hand, when it is startlingly good often reads like memoir in this sense: We believe it as if it is happening as we read. A gorgeous example is Lydia Davis’s The End of the Story.

In the memoir (Re)Making Love, I recall events. I cannot make up those events to suit the narrative. I cannot lie in the book. But, for example, the psychiatrist in the chapter “Something Old for Something New” would surely not tell the story the way I have—with the notable exception of the phone conversation between us that he recorded, transcribed and then e-mailed to me.

The reason I chose memoir as my form for this tale is that, in this case, the truth is stranger than fiction. I don’t think anyone would believe my story if it were written as fiction. In that sense it’s a romantic comedy that really happened—but was deeply wounding to live through. (less)

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With so much fiction being published these days it makes sense for authors to turn to the multi-novel series more and more. The idea being that Book 1 gets the reader "hooked" and guarantees the purchase of Books 2 thru 6 (or what have you). In your own work Mary, to what extent do you consider "hooking" the reader to be a part of the job?

Mary L. Tabor The idea of working to “hook” a reader only operates for me in the sense that I know how good writing works. On the macro level: I read great fiction …moreThe idea of working to “hook” a reader only operates for me in the sense that I know how good writing works. On the macro level: I read great fiction and memoir and poetry. On the micro level: I know, as one example, that the first sentence of a story needs to do a lot of work—or forget it. Your reader is already gone, out the door.

However, and more to your point, the real problem for me is that “hooking” a reader based on my last book, would be an act of “selling direct.” And I think the work would be “idea” driven. Ideas are not conflict as we understand the nature of conflict in fiction or memoir. Good memoir and fiction don’t operate that way.

Let me explain this way: Newspaper op-eds sell direct—the idea drives the essay. Stories that sell direct—and no, I won’t name names here—only wear the clothes of good fiction and good memoir.

A story takes on the feeling of experience for the reader when it’s told inside the character. In my memoir (Re)Making Love, I am indeed the foolish, broken-hearted woman who lived the tale to tell it. My readers know I’m telling them the story from inside me, as the character on a journey. I’m not pulling punches. I’m on the page in a way I could never be in person or in any social situation.

I hope my readers will want to read my novel Who by Fire that tells this real-life story through fiction—and a very different story it is: For one thing, the heroine is dead in sentence one. In whatever sense my novel is autobiographical—and maybe Freud would have a field day with this one—I kill myself off at the get-go. I suppose I felt as if I had died when the man I love left me.

In this fictional account I go to the place of hard emotional truth in a way that my memoir can’t do because of its hold on the facts, on what really happened. I hope readers who get to know me will want to read that book and my fourth book. It’s in the works.(less)

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Mary L. Tabor’s books

Average rating: 4.45 · 114 ratings · 41 reviews · 4 distinct works

	Who by Fire 4.76 avg rating — 38 ratings — published 2012 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	(Re)Making Love: A Sex After Sixty Story 4.50 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 2010 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Woman Who Never Cooked: Stories 4.03 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Growing Up (Lifespan #2) by Matt Potter (Editor), Alex Reece Abbott (Contributor), Sara Abend-Sims (Contributor) 4.33 avg rating — 12 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

58 posts
Mary L. Tabor's Blog

Write It! How to Get Started is moving to Substack

Hi, all friends and followers,Please know how much I appreciate followers to my website. I have news to share with you. Some of you may remember that I began to give away free writing classes here with this logo/image:I’ve decided to move this project over to Substack.com —and more stuff will continue to appear here as well.Free lessons will soon be appearing on Substack.com with some changes

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Published on June 22, 2022 12:14

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Mary is Currently Reading

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The Luminaries

by Eleanor Catton

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Apr 01, 2014 08:07AM

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Do Not Say We Have Nothing

by Madeleine Thien

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Hooked: seven poems

by Carolyn Smart (Goodreads Author)

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May 03, 2017 01:58PM

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Mary finished reading Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1) by Hilary Mantel	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Dec 08, 2025 01:01PM · like
Mary is now following Kimberly Warner Author of Unfixed: A Memoir of Family, Mystery, and the C...
Aug 17, 2025 12:28PM · like
Mary rated a book it was amazing Unfixed: A Memoir of Family, Mystery, and the Currents That Carry You Home by Kimberly Warner (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Unfixed is a marvel of personal revelation, empathy and a real-life story of discovery. What Warner has done is to blend her own unusual illness—a kind of real-life floating—with the discovery of her parentage: Two stories of fracture and healing tha ...more
Aug 15, 2025 02:20PM · 2 likes · like · see review

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Quotes by Mary L. Tabor (?)

“One sure window into a person's soul is his reading list”
― Mary Tabor

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Mary’s Quotes

“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”
― E.E. Cummings

tags: love, poetry

11252 likes

“There it was before her - life. Life: she thought but she did not finish her thought. She took a look at life, for she had a clear sense of it there, something real, something private, which she shared neither with her children nor with her husband. A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her; and sometimes they parleyed (when she sat alone); there were, she remembered, great reconciliation scenes; but for the most part, oddly enough, she must admit that she felt this thing that she called life terrible, hostile, and quick to pounce on you if you gave it a chance.”
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

tags: life

176 likes

“To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity.”
― Soren Kierkegaard

527 likes

“Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.”
― Nora Ephron

281 likes

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

3441 likes

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Mary’s Friend Comments

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message 5: by Mary

Dec 28, 2014 06:50AM

Peg wrote: "Just watched your video! Adorable! You radiate positivity and yes, HOPE. Definitely have to read your book now! I'm thinking starring Meryl Streep ... everything we wanted Eat, Love, Pray to be ......"

I certainly hope I replied to this earlier! Such a lovely comment. I am seeing it now on my page and so touched by what you said, Peg. --Mary

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message 4: by Mary

Nov 03, 2012 07:57AM

I have a book club here on Goodreads at http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/8... that I hope all my Goodreads friends will join. At this club, I interview live authors you want to know and may very well have read. I have interviewed worldwide journalist Michael Johnson, poet extraordinaire and author of The Paper Garden Molly Peacock, Cuban author of Tomorrow They Will Kiss Eduardo Santiago and on Wednesday November 7, 2012 at 4 pm ET, I will interview the poet and literary force Dana Gioia. All the links to the radio shows are on the club site. Please join: no obligation whatsoever to my novel that will be released November 15.

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message 3: by Mary

Nov 03, 2012 07:49AM

For the record: The quote on my page that I do agree with and love: “One sure window into a person's soul is his reading list.” was not said by me. Its author is the journalist Mary B.W. Tabor. I did not put the quote on my page and can't figure out how to give Mary B.W. Tabor credit. But she deserves it!

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message 2: by Mary

Oct 03, 2010 09:33AM

Dear Peg,

You have made my day. How lovely of you to have taken the time to watch the video and to comment. My world is better today for what you have written here. Your generosity and your hope for my book radiate from your post.

With gratitude,

Mary

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message 1: by Peg

Sep 30, 2010 01:54PM

Just watched your video! Adorable! You radiate positivity and yes, HOPE. Definitely have to read your book now! I'm thinking starring Meryl Streep ... everything we wanted Eat, Love, Pray to be ...... but alas it was not ;(

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