Cait West joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up in and leaving Christian patriarchy, indoctrination, identifying and writing about the rifts she felt in herself and her family, gender oppression, using geology as a metaphor, moving from memoir in essays to a more linear form, ethical and legal concerns when writing about others, coming to grips with abuse, purity culture, and her memoir Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy. Also in this episode: -protec...
Apr 25, 2024•52 min
Sue William Silverman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about claiming our stories, creative nonfiction as an act of affirmation and courage, tapping into artistic masks, discovering answers along the way, the aware and the unaware voice, writing metaphorically and sensorily, the arc of reflection and the arc of action, her decades of teaching at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program and her newest book Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul. Also mentione...
Apr 23, 2024•42 min
Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about listening to and putting our younger selves on the page, recognizing family codes we can no longer adhere to, place as a character in memoir, writing like nobody will ever see our work, how shame and pain can manifest as silence, sharing with readers what we may not be able to reveal to loved ones, the contracts we enter as writers of memoir, creating intimacy on the page, and her new memoir Loose of Earth. Also mentione...
Apr 18, 2024•50 min
Kate Manne joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about coming of age in fatphobic culture, disentangling the threads of weight, health, and diet culture, the racism at the root of anti-fatness, writing ourselves out and then back into our work, the psycho-social consequences of fatphobia on our bodies, the shame around shame, organizing our time, writing while mothering a young child, gathering and incorporating research in our work, and her new book Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia. Also...
Apr 16, 2024•1 hr
Suzette Mullen joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about digging to find a deeper story and the question we need to ask in memoir, discovering where to begin by getting to the end of our manuscripts, the revision process as revelatory, the effect our memoirs have on loved ones, leaning on trusted readers and writers, her work as a nonfiction book coach, and her coming of age and coming out memoir The Only Way Through is Out. Also in this episode: -the querying process -working with a book...
Apr 09, 2024•43 min
Mimi Zieman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about thinking of ourselves as characters, hooking readers from the beginning, playing with structure, balancing our reflective narrator, trusting your reader and not overexplaining, the true self and the invisible self, when to listen to others and when to listen to ourselves, being the only woman on a historic climbing expedition, and her memoir Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure. Also in this episode: -growing up ...
Apr 04, 2024•48 min
Lisa Cooper Ellison joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about therapy vs. memoir, taking care of our nervous systems while working on charged material, writing about trauma without retraumatizing ourselves, developing a robust self-care practice, how to avoid creating victim narratives in our memoirs, what to do with gaps in our memory, putting more of ourselves on the page, and her new podcast Writing Your Resilience. Also in this episode: -signs of a trauma response -learning how to be ...
Apr 02, 2024•51 min
Paula Ramón joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about pivoting from journalism to memoir to tell the story of Venezuela’s collapse, understanding the history of her country before and after Chavez through her mother’s life, guilt, the physical and emotional losses she and her family have faced, the concept of democracy, when there’s no future in your country, emotional warfare and shrinking resources, the toll of migration on the body, and her memoir Motherland. Also in this episode: -wor...
Mar 26, 2024•45 min
Ellen Weir Casey joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about infertility and becoming the mother of one of the world’s first IVF babies in the earliest days of assisted reproductive technology, the role guilt plays in women’s lives, being part of medical and women’s history, forgiving ourselves, reproductive freedom, and her memoir Unstoppable: Forging The Path To Motherhood In The Early Days Of IVF. Also mentioned in this episode: -The Aspen Institute -giving our work time to settle -resea...
Mar 21, 2024•46 min
Karen DeBonis joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the obstacles and medical gaslighting she faced trying to uncover what ailed her son, postpartum depression, writing about difficult motherhoods, learning how to deal with conflict, sharing our pages with partners, promoting our work, a happy social media story, how she overcome her people pleasing ways to become a warrior mom and her new memoir Growth: A Mother, Her Son, and the Brain Tumor They Survived. Also in this episode: -Munc...
Mar 19, 2024•46 min
Cathy Shields joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the role guilt and grief have played in her experience parenting a unique child, how she has navigated her daughter’s diagnosis of severe cognitive disability, writing about complicated mothers and complicated mothering, protecting children in our work, critical mothers, living in the contradiction, and her memoir The Shape of Normal. Also in this episode: -not giving up -social anxiety -forgiving ourselves Memoirs mentioned in this ...
Mar 14, 2024•28 min
Joelle Tamraz joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about yoga cults and self-declared spiritual gurus, searching for something outside ourselves, mind control, transcendental meditation, capturing the emotional vulnerability of our memoir characters, the many drafts in our manuscripts, and the story of how she pried her way out of the decades-long spiritual emotional, financial, and physical abuse she writes about in her new memoir The Secret Practice: Eighteen Years on the Dark Side of Yo...
Mar 12, 2024•38 min
Rona Maynard joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about allowing ourselves to get lost in our writing, realizing you've actually been writing your book, observing our animal companions keenly, embracing surprises in our work, discovering joyful moments, looking for a narrative arc, using Scrivener, going more deeply, writing from the heart, and her memoir Starter Dog. Also in this episode: -taking in the world around us -photographs as writing aids -learning who we are Books mentioned in t...
Mar 07, 2024•37 min
Ann Batchelder joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about using myth as a jumping point for interpreting ourselves, trusting intuition, the idea of mother failure, regret and letting go, addiction and recovery in loved ones, mental health stigma, deciding when to show loved ones the manuscript, and her memoir Craving Spring: A Mother’s Quest, a Daughter’s Depression, and the Greek Myth that Brought Them Together. Also in this episode: -how stories save us -Alanon -mother guilt Books mentio...
Mar 05, 2024•32 min
Brooke Warner joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about nontraditional publishing, the massive sea change we’re seeing in memoir, how for authors visibility and marketing work is never done, protecting our memoir worlds, accountability groups, what all memoirs require, the genesis of She Writes Press, balancing her multiple roles, the project she is working on now and the many resources she offers memoirists. Also in this episode: -when creativity merges with our working life -carving out...
Feb 27, 2024•43 min
Joni B. Cole joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about following our creative hunches, what to look for in workshop groups and writing teachers, the power of positive reinforcement, the magic of revision, the right to tell our stories, her approach to teaching, the writer’s center she founded in White River Junction, Vermont and her new book of essays Party Like It’s 2044: Finding the Funny in Life and Death. Also in this episode: -connecting with other writers -checking in on our expecta...
Feb 22, 2024•43 min
Jane Wong joins Let’s Talk memoir for a conversation about the challenge of reflection in memoir, writing that teems with the specific and particular, capturing the experience of being a chinese american woman on the page, writing about exes and domestic violence, keeping ourselves safe while creating, constellations in our lives, avoiding sentimentality, and her new memoir which she calls a love song to her mother, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City. Also in this episode: -how she’s never funny i...
Feb 20, 2024•51 min
Lisa Niver joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about disagreeing and then agreeing with your agent, her career in travel, accountability groups, working with developmental editors and book and proposal coaches, divorce, all the non-writerly jobs being a published memoirist requires, and her new book Brave-ish: One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty. Also in this episode: -taking time to rest -switching where our memoirs begin -asking for help Books mentioned in this ...
Feb 15, 2024•39 min
Rosa Lowinger joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up in Cuba, her storied career in art restoration, taking a closer look at the complicated and evolving relationship she’s had with her mother, sending manuscripts to family and exes before they go to press, protecting loved ones in our work, how much metaphor is too much, and her new memoir Dwell Time. Also in this episode: -finding community -working with book coaches -approaching writing like a job Books mentioned in this ...
Feb 13, 2024•53 min
Eileen Vorbach Collins joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing her young daughter to suicide and the essays she wrote as she contended with her loss, the role of reflection, change, and growth in memoir, calling yourself a writer, finding your people, choosing what stays in essay collections and what goes, and her memoir Love in the Archives. Also in this episode: -bad writing groups -titling our work -finding homes for our essays in literary magazines Books mentioned in this epi...
Feb 06, 2024•35 min
Kelly McMasters joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the elusiveness of “home”, creating space for our children in our art, questions as writing tools, letting go of what we thought our lives would be, falling in love with narcissists, the critical distance necessary to our work, writing about exes, landscape as a foil, and her memoir in essays The Leaving Season. -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir -Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey:...
Jan 30, 2024•44 min
Jamie Brickhouse joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about writing and teaching memoir, performing and telling stories, alcoholism and life as a sober artist, being a 5-time Moth StorySLAM winner, his Texas tornado of a mother, why we don't need good a memory to write a memoir, and his memoir Dangerous When Wet. -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir -Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle/mctvsv9MGvzDRn8D6 Help shape upcoming L...
Jan 23, 2024•40 min
Morgan Baker joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about motherhood and identity, giving back to ourselves and creating boundaries, confronting depression, worrying about our memoir’s structure later, juggling our jobs as writers, why we write about hard things, and her new memoir Emptying the Nest. -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir -Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle/mctvsv9MGvzDRn8D6 Help shape upcoming Let’s Talk Memoi...
Jan 18, 2024•35 min
Gretchen Cherington joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about complicated family legacies and processing sexual abuse, confronting the public view of a loved one we’re writing about, protecting manuscripts before we have book contracts, corralling information and organizing heaps of material, reading broadly, building relationships and being above board with sources, and her true crime, investigative, family memoir The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy. -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir...
Jan 16, 2024•52 min
Dina Gachman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about ambiguous loss, taking risks on the page, writing about family, connecting with and pursuing editors, her approach to building bylines and writing book proposals, pushing past our fear of judgment in service of our stories, and her new memoir So Sorry for Your Loss. -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir -Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle/mctvsv9MGvzDRn8D6 Also in this ...
Jan 09, 2024•34 min
Pamela Petro joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the stories landscapes hold, why she resisted memoir and how she ultimately put herself on the page despite trying hard not to, pushing ourselves to keep asking questions, writing a braided memoir and the responsibility of incorporating research, deep time, the presence of absence, and her newest book The Long Field. -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir -Take the Let's Talk Memoir surve...
Jan 02, 2024•48 min
Thank you for such a great year! Very grateful for your kind words, downloads, and reviews. You are cordially invited to share your feedback. Help shape upcoming Let’s Talk Memoir content - a brief survey: https://forms.gle/ueQVu8YyaHNKui2Z9
Dec 27, 2023•4 min•Ep. 67
Victoria Buitron joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the power of flash and lyric creative nonfiction, when chronology doesn’t work, accountability partners and writing mentors, the trauma of being a women in the world, knowing our writing will be there for us even when we stop for a while, and her memoir in essays A Body Across Two Hemispheres. -Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir -Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle...
Dec 26, 2023•39 min
Maya Golden joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about extensive complex childhood trauma and the repercussions of sexual abuse, recovering from addiction, approaching memoir writing with authenticity and vulnerability, the effect of religious and societal pressure on women, telling a story from the safety of adulthood, and her memoir The Return Trip. Help shape upcoming Let’s Talk Memoir content - a brief survey: https://forms.gle/ueQVu8YyaHNKui2Z9 Also in this episode: -setting boundarie...
Dec 19, 2023•37 min
Sherry Sidoti joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about memoir in present tense, reckoning with the complexities of transgenerational trauma, dysfunctional families, the effect writing memoir can have on our significant others, mother-daughter-sister relationships, self-care practices and engaging with our bodies while working on charged material, vulnerability hangovers, and her memoir A Smoke and a Song. Also in this episode: -broken backstories -making material digestible -reprocessing...
Dec 12, 2023•55 min
