The James Frey mess erupted in January 2006, right before the publication of my own memoir, "If the Creek Don't Rise: My Life Out West With the Last Black Widow of the Civil War." My heart sank when I saw Frey, with his lisp and his hopeful mom, on "Larry King Live" trying to explain why he faked his memoir, "A Million Little Pieces." "You've got to be kidding," I thought, fearing that my book, which I had struggled for decades to write, would be overshadowed by Frey's betrayal of public trust. Luckily, it wasn't. And luckily, my sisters endorsed my story and me with pride -- and our estrangement since I was a toddler began to heal.

Now, two years later, comes Margaret B. Jones, whose memoir of life as an abused, mixed-race foster child drug courier in South Los Angeles turns out to be fiction too. Margaret Seltzer (Jones' real name) and Frey, who are in their 30s, would seem to share a need to appropriate other people's character. After all, what happens in a story? Character is tested in the furnace of adversity and people emerge tough and beautiful and clear about what that process has meant. That lesson becomes a gift to the reader.

The Freys and the Seltzers have it backward. They expect the reader to give them respect, fame and dough for sharing their fantasies. Their hunger drives them to lie to themselves first. How else to explain these undoubtedly intelligent writers who mount the high wire in our 24/7 media environment? Do they genuinely believe that in this day of YouTube and theSmokingGun.com their fibs won't be outed with the click of a mouse or a whisper from a witness inclined to reveal the real deal?

There's such irony in writers gazing over the fence at the pathetic swagger of gangbangers, druggies and drunks, who in turn have their noses pressed against a middle-class window, longing for a place to sleep where the night music isn't coming from a Glock.

As an African American orphan girl in mostly white Colorado, I would have given anything to have two parents with a genuine interest in, and concern for, my welfare, a home where the major worry was a too-dry roast rather than whether we would even have a kitchen to cook in come nightfall. I seethed with envy for a mouth full of orthodontia, ballet lessons, somebody nagging me to come home for the holidays. Instead, I have a doozy of a story to tell. I've got to say, it's more than a little infuriating when the kids who got the braces feel entitled to both a life of ease and the respect earned by surviving the forge of danger and deprivation. This is not to say that writers from good homes don't write fine works. But they call it fiction.

Where I come from, the people with a story would rather have a life, and they are almost always reticent to expose their true selves. When they finally do pick up the pen, it's because they feel compelled to contribute. They know that their contract with readers is to mine the memory for a gem of truth and to tell it richly, with grace -- and that creative nonfiction cannot be an out-and-out lie.

I've taught memoir writing now for two years, and a number of things have become clear -- the core meaning of one's life rarely reveals itself easily or early on. In my case, it took decades of work for me to admit, accept and understand what I had to share -- and then I still had to learn to write! All along there's that nagging whisper -- once I learn the craft, what if my pitiful yarn turns out to be a dud? Thus the urge to embellish is born, and there it must be aborted.

It's not difficult to understand how Frey and Seltzer failed to anticipate the intense scrutiny that accompanies great success. There's a whole gleeful industry devoted to outing the liar. I hate to imagine the scorn that will rain down on them as their untruths are revisited with the exposure of each new faux memoir. The blunt truth is that, contrary to the old maxim, not everyone has a story to tell. But I suspect, given the outrage their books have caused, Frey and Seltzer will. Talk about your unintended consequences.

But given that Seltzer's excuse for presenting herself as a poor homey is that she had an opportunity "to put a voice to people who people don't listen to," perhaps she should score them a book deal. *

Rita Williams has worked as an actor, musician, recovery counselor and, most recently, a writer. She teaches in the master's of professional writing program at USC.