Everyday Canvas

The Legal and Ethical Aspects of Memoir Writing

At this time, I am reading May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude. It is a beautiful, delicate, insightful day-to-day thoughts of the poet. I am reading it as if I am reading poetry, which is very slowly, since I find the book highly but not surprisingly poetic.

Not all memoir writers can be as delicate as May Sarton who hasn’t--up to the page that I have so far read—hasn’t mentioned anyone with a name but has referred to the other people anyhow. Mentioning private people with their names, good or bad, is a breach of the law as it's public disclosure of private facts, which is an aspect of the right of privacy, actionable in most states. It is, therefore, a good practice, if you are writing your memoirs and are about to mention someone by name, to get his or her permission, preferably in writing.

So the question is: If you worry about any legal action and still want to tell your story without risking litigation, what do you do?
A few suggestions, here:

• Talk to a lawyer before you publish or you even start writing.
• Use a pseudonym or write the other person’s name by jumbling up the characters in their name.
• Do not use biographical data to describe why a person did something or failed to do.
• Stay away from describing physical appearances, or better yet, change them.
• Disguise as much personal information about the person as you possibly can.

The above points are what a lawyer would probably tell you; however, if you want your memoir to be authentic, you can’t change very much at all about the characters who have influenced your life. The best thing would be, in my opinion, is to not refer to any person by their full name.

On the other hand, most people will not go to court over this because it would be inviting more public shame and disrepute. So it is up to the memoirist to practice their writing ethics. I would also suggest writing something like this in the foreword or on a separate page in the beginning of their book:

This book tells of events as I experienced them from my point of view depending on how correct my memory can be. Sometimes a memory can be faulty, but I have written everything as correctly as I believe to have happened.

Having said all this, you can be sure I am not going to write my memoirs. Instead, I’ll hide inside my fiction.