Below is an excerpt from a transcript of mediabistro.com's panel discussion, "My Life in Plain View: Writing and Publishing a Memoir" held on May 17, 2005 in New York with editor Ryan Harbage, author Molly Jong-Fast, agent Elizabeth Kaplan, agent and editor Ned Leavitt and author/moderator Susan Shapiro. Join our next batch of experts in May and June for our panel discussion series, "Get a Freelance Life" in Chicago (I'll be there!) , New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. Register now!

Sue Shapiro: Molly, how did you get started writing your book? Did you did you just start writing?

Molly Jong-Fast: I think clips; I think clips are the way to go. To start with newspapers, magazines. Cause that's what I did. I went to you and I was like, how do I become a writer and even though I had come from a family of writers, I still didn't know how. And you were like published somewhere where they'll publish you, which was The Forward. So I published at The Forward and then I got a clip and then I went to The Cover magazine, I don't know if it's still around, and I got another clip and then I sort of went up a little bit every time. Right. But then I sort of moved up to like Mademoiselle which is not around anymore and then Marie Claire and then got better and better and now I don't write at all. No, I'm just kidding. But now...

Sue Shapiro: Okay good, Elizabeth, somebody comes to you and says, I have an idea for a memoir, what do you say, what should, how should they get rolling?

Elizabeth Kaplan: Well you know your answer is a great answer. That not necessarily to go in the memoir direction. That's kind of so to become a writer in general. And I think you know with a memoir, it, you don't necessarily need that. Though obviously it shows you're professional, it shows you can meet a deadline, it shows that your writing is worth reading. I mean, it has all of those good things. But if you're talking specifically about memoirs, then the first thing I would tell everybody to do is to go and buy ten memoirs and read them. The amount of people who you know come to me and say, I say, well what have you, what's prompting you? What have you read, what inspired you? They haven't read a single one. And I think that's the first thing. Really read and know what goes in a book and know why a book works. That's the first thing. But I guess I'm gonna be contrary today, I disagree with you that it doesn't have to be good. I think memoirs are really...