For the first time in more than a year, we got to watch the ABC Evening News on one of the Hong Kong channels (this is usually blocked for some reason, as was today’s CBS Evening News on the other channel). One of the stories that grabbed our attention was about the discovery that a new memoir was falsified. The news went into a list of recent fabrications from other published memoirs.

We don’t mind lies told in writing–that’s what most people would call fiction. However, writers shouldn’t try to pass off lies as honest memoirs. Perhaps these writers need to take advice from William Goldman’s memoir, Which Lie Did I Tell?

Another solution to this memoir-falsifying epidemic could be the beginning of a new genre. We at Terracotta Typewriter would like to propose that new genre be called “faux-moir“ (patent pending). The faux-moir would need to be stylistically similar to a memoir with the fabrication intentionally added. The work would need to be at least 40% actual memoir, but not more than 75% truthful. The remaining portion of the work must be pure fiction and/or exaggeration.

Terracotta Typewriter is proud to be the first publication to officially acknowledge and accept the genre of faux-moir as a legitimate writing style. Please send your fabrications of reality to tctype@gmail.com.

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