Our All-Time Favorite Narratively Memoirs

We recently announced our Spring 2022 Memoir Prize, and it got us thinking about memoir pieces we love! Read this selection of our editors' all-time favorite memoirs.

The Adventures of a Pakistani in Texas

Story by Mariya Karimjee 

A young woman from Karachi doesn’t discover how intense Islam can be…until moving to Texas.

Is there anything more magnificently "American" than a massive Christmas tree towering above an ice rink in a Houston, Texas, shopping mall? To Mariya Karimjee, newly arrived from Karachi, Pakistan, on the eve of the new millenium, that gaudy, dazzling symbol of "opportunity" propelled her into adolescence in a community that couldn't have been further from home — but not for the reasons you'd expect. Her story offers a fresh, vital perspective on coming of age, and it's a stark reminder of how America's most historically visible traditions and defining events affect each of us in profoundly different ways. – Noah Rosenberg, Founder and CEO 

I’m Married. I’m a Woman. I’m Addicted to Porn.

Story by Erica Garza 

Countless couples have tackled the taboo subject of racy videos and illicit orgasms. What happens when it’s the woman who can’t stop watching?

Out of all the amazing pieces to choose from, as someone who's no stranger to disclosing deeply personal details of my life in Narratively stories, the first memoir that popped into my mind as a favorite through the years was Erica Garza's I'm Married. I'm a Woman. I'm Addicted to Porn. Erica was awesome to work with. She's such a talent and it was no shock to me that she was able to score a book deal for a deeper-dive manuscript into her issues with sex. The title of that book, Getting Off, is about as good as the headline to her Narratively memoir, which was my primary contribution to the story's success, as I recall her first draft was really strong and editing her work was a breeze. When the publication's staffers think to themselves, 'What makes a story a Narratively story?' one of the most important requirements for the work is that it pulls the curtain back on some element of society to reveal something new. In this case, we have a woman, a wife, addicted to porn, after we've already been fed tons of stories about the pitfalls of sex addiction from the perspective of men, husbands and boyfriends. So, Erica's piece was fresh, and for the hound-dog dudes who might think, "Boy, I wouldn't mind a sex- and porn-addicted partner in my life," think again. – Michael Stahl, former Features Editor

Erica went on to expand her essay into a full-length memoir! Read our Storyteller Spotlight interview with her here.