Afleveringen
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Tom McAllister joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about finding the right container for our work trusting our writing to speak for itself, giving ourselves homework, writing constraints as guiding principles, his approach to teaching nonfiction, the challenge of self-promotion, strategies for creating companion pieces, stating things boldly and with confidence, the podcast Book Fight he co-hosts, and how he wrote a short essay for every year of his life and turned it into his new book It All Felt Impossible.:42 Years in 42 Essays.
Also in this episode:
-trusting the reader
-when the well feels dry
-handling rejection
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Largess of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
My Documents by Alejandro Zambra
A Childhood: The Biography of a Place by Harry Cruz
The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen
Tom McAllister is the author of the novel How to Be Safe, which was named one of the best books of 2018 by Kirkus and The Washington Post. His other books are the novel The Young Widowerâs Handbook and the memoir Bury Me in My Jersey. His short stories and essays have been published in The Sun, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Black Warrior Review, and many other places. He is the nonfiction editor at Barrelhouse and co-hosts the Book Fight! podcast with Mike Ingram. He lives in New Jersey and teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers-Camden.
Tom's article in The Writer's Chronicle: https://writerschronicle.awpwriter.org/TWC/2025-february/preview/04_From-Anecdote-to-Essay-preview.aspx
Connect with Tom:
tom.mcallister.ws
https://www.instagram.com/realpizzatom/
https://bsky.app/profile/tmcallister.bsky.social
https://www.facebook.com/tom.mcallister.12
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Bonny Reichert joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about not knowing if sheâd find a way to tell the story that weighed on her, growing up in the shadow of traumatic family history, selling on proposal and working out the boundaries of a book, her background as a food journalist, hammering out the details of the narrative arc, eliminating the squishy middle, reverse outlining for emotional resonance, creating composite characters, telling a story through food, crafting the self as a character, shortening chapters for flexibility, drawing the complexity and sense of beauty and wonder around her fatherâs story of surviving the Holocaust, and her memoir How to Share an Egg.
Also in this episode:
-food as glue
-writing a culinary memoir wrapped around a family story
-the toll of intergenerational trauma
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Also a Poet:Frank OâHara, My Father, and Me by Ada Calhoun
-H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald
-Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl
Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist. She has been an editor at Todayâs Parent and Chatelaine magazines, and a columnist and regular contributor to The Globe and Mail newspaper. When she turned forty, a now-or-never feeling made her quit her job to enroll in culinary school, and sheâs been exploring her relationship with food on the page ever since. Bonny was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and lives in Toronto with her husband and little dog, Bruno. HOW TO SHARE AN EGG won the 2022 Dave Greber Book Award for social justice writing.
Connect with Bonny:
Website: https://bonnyreichert.com/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/bonnyreichert
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Vicky Nguyen joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up Vietnamese in America and what this country has meant for someone like her, writing memoir as a public figure, pivoting as a writer, not being too quick to self-edit, managing backstory to keep a memoir propulsive, having conversations with loved ones about shared family history, connecting through vulnerability, book promotion as a whole other job, exhausting every marketing channel, writing about people who donât necessarily want to be in our memoirs, how we ârememoirâ things, digging deep, and her new memoir Boat Baby.
Also in this episode:
-when family remembers things differently
-writing in our voice
-anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S.
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
-Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen
-The Manicuristâs Daughter by Susan Lieu
-Sigh, Gone by Phuc Tran
-The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
-The Writer by James Patterson
Vicky is an NBC News senior consumer investigative correspondent and anchor of NBC News Daily. She reports for the Today show, Nightly News with Lester Holt and NBC News Now. She graduated as valedictorian from the University of San Francisco. Vicky lives in New York with her husband and three daughters. Her parents are always nearby.
Connect with Vicky:
Website: https://www.vickynguyen.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vickynguyentv
Get Boat Baby: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Boat-Baby/Vicky-Nguyen/9781668025567
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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KB Brookins joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about transness, masculinity, and race, how how being a writer has crystalized their experience and made it legible to an audience and to themselves, turning to prose to say the hard things, the tenacity of memoir, resisting erasure and pushing back on toxic systems, coming at creative nonfiction from a poetic impulse, having patience with ourselves, what we might need to let go of as writers, looking at our work with kinder eyes, the way we treat people because of gender, and their multi-themed memoir Pretty.
Also in this episode:
-stages of grief
-permission to have anger
-when lines for genre arenât as helpful
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Asatta: An Autobiography by Asatta Shakur
-Black Boy by Richard Wright
-Heavy by Kiese Laymon
KB Brookins is a Black queer and trans writer, cultural worker, and visual artist from Texas. KBâs chapbook How To Identify Yourself with a Wound won the Saguaro Poetry Prize, a Writerâs League of Texas Discovery Prize, and a Stonewall Honor Book Award. Their debut poetry collection Freedom House won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for the Best First Book of Poetry. KBâs debut memoir Pretty, released in May 2024 with Alfred A. Knopf, won the Great Lakes Colleges Association Award in Creative Non-Fiction.
Connect with KB:
Website: https://earthtokb.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthtokb
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthtokb
Substack: https://substack.com/@earthtokb
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/earthtokb.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/earthtokb
Get the book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724994/pretty-by-kb-brookins/
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Michelle Yang joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about her bipolar diagnosis and becoming a mental health advocate, immigrating to the U.S. as a young child, writing at the intersection of body image, mental health, and Asian American identity, building an author platform, revisiting old family dynamics and patterns, grieving a family of origin, mourning make-believe mothers, doing a lot of processing before writing about trauma, keeping the reader in mind, removing societal stigma around serious mental health diagnoses, how she survived and found hope, and her new memoir Phoenix Girl: How a Fat Asian with Bipolar Found Love.
Also in this episode:
-keeping strict boundaries
-writing in short digestible chapters
-revising a manuscript from past to present tense
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Relative Strangers by A.H. Kim
-Educated by Tara Westover
-Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me by Ellen Forney
-Rock Steady by Ellen Forney
-Iâm Telling the Truth But Iâm Lying by Bassey Ikpi
-The Body Papers by Grace Talusan
-Hunger by Roxane Gay
-What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo
Michelle Yang is an advocate whose writings on the intersection of Asian American identity, body image, and mental health have been featured in NBC News, CNN, InStyle, and Readerâs Digest. Michelle has also been featured on NPR, Washington Post, and The Seattle Times for her advocacy. She loves exploring new parts of her new home state of Michigan with her family and smoking up the kitchen with spicy recipes. Her new memoir is Phoenix Girl: How a Fat Asian with Bipolar Found Love. You can find her on michelleyangwriter.com or on Instagram @michelleyangwriter.
Connect with Michelle:
Website: michelleyangwriter.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michelleyangwriter/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelleyangwriter
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Julie Brill joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and her journey to understand the unexamined childhood stories she grew up with, being a reluctant memoirist and leaning into telling the story of an ordinary person figuring things out, the Holocaust and the history of the Jews of Serbia, inherited memories, making ourselves the central character, when our parentsâ foundational stories become ours, finding our place, permission to tell a story if you didnât live through it, and her new memoir HIdden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia.
Also in this episode:
-the missing missing
-the unthought known
-making research readable
Books mentioned in this episode:
Three Minutes in Poland by Glenn Kertz
Paper Love by Sarah Wildman
Plunder by Menachem Kaiser
Big Magic by Liz Gilbert
The Creative Process by Twyla Tharp
As a child, Julie Brill held two conflicting beliefs. She knew Germans had murdered her Jewish grandfather in occupied Yugoslavia, yet she somehow believed the Holocaust had never come to his hometown of Belgrade. The family anecdotes her father passed down, a blend of his early memories and what his mother told him, didnât match what Julie had heard about Germany, Poland, and Anne Frank in Holland during World War II.
Even frequent readers of Holocaust history likely do not understand the Serbian story. Destruction there came early and fast. Without cattle cars, gas chambers, or distant camps, the Nazis murdered almost the entire Jewish population before the plan for the Final Solution was even set.
With so few Jewish survivors and descendants from Serbia, the story of the Shoah there has gone untold. Julieâs quest to understand and share what she learned led to Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia.
Julie has written for Haaretz, the Forward, Kveller, The Times of Israel, Balkan Insight, and elsewhere. She shares her familyâs experiences in the Holocaust in middle and high school classrooms through Living Links.
Additionally, Julie is a lactation consultant, doula, childbirth educator, and the author of the anthology Round the Circle: Doulas Share Their Experiences. She began attending births and teaching childbirth classes in 1992 and has supported thousands of families in the childbearing year. She graduated from Tufts University with a degree in Sociology and Gender Studies and completed the Massachusetts Midwifery Alliance Apprenticeship Course. She is the mother of two adult daughters.
Connect with Julie:
Website: https://juliebrill.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliesbrill/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/juliebrill.bsky.social
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julie.brill1
X: https://www.Twitter.com/juliebrill8
Get her book: https://mybook.to/irl0
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Margaret Anne Mary Moore joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about her realization at an early age that she wanted to be a nonfiction writer and memoirist, facing severe discrimination as a child with disabilities, how she wrote about her disability experience on a granular level, using a communication device, taking breaks to work on other aspects of a project when the writing process grows tiresome, devoting chapters to a single theme, striving to make characterizations rich in detail, looking at rejection juxtaposed against life circumstances, how traumatic memories get seared into our memory, compassion and acceptance, and her memoir Bold, Brave, and Breathless: Reveling in Childhood's Splendiferous Glories While Facing Disability and Loss.
Margaretâs Brevity blog article link: https://brevity.wordpress.com/2024/12/23/who-gets-a-spot-on-the-river/
Also in this episode:
-hermit crab forms
-writing sharp scenes
-embodied writing
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Mindful Writer by Dinty W. Moore
The Shell Game by Kim Adrian
Congratulations, Who Are You Again? by Harrison Scott Key
Margaret Anne Mary Moore is the author of the bestselling disability memoir Bold, Brave, and Breathless: Reveling in Childhood's Splendiferous Glories While Facing Disability and Loss (Woodhall Press, 2023) and is currently writing the sequel. She is a summer 2022 graduate of Fairfield Universityâs Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program, where she earned a degree in creative nonfiction and poetry. Margaret is an editor and the marketing coordinator at Woodhall Press and an ambassador for PRC-Saltillo. A featured book on the AWP Bookshelf, Bold, Brave, and Breathless is her debut book. She is a contributor to Gina Barrecaâs book Fast Famous Women: 75 Essays of Flash Nonfiction (Woodhall Press, 2025). Her writing has appeared in America Magazine, Brevityâs Nonfiction Blog, and Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, Independent Catholic News among other publications.
Connect with Margaret:
Website: margaretannemarymoore.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/margaretannemarymooreauthor/X: https://x.com/mooreofawriterInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaretannemarymoore_authorLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaret-moore-m-f-a-86835312a/Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/29567595.Margaret_Anne_Mary_MooreBook: https://a.co/d/b0VZ8Mk
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Diana Raab joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about connecting with ancestors and tuning into their guidance, books that need to be written, when publisher requests donât resonate with us, adding prompts for readers, unwanted daughters and intergenerational trauma, how books we donât like help us, adding prompts for readers, tapping into authentic voice, and her new book Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors.
Also in this episode:
-reading broadly
-surviving cancer multiple times
-how trauma manifests later in life
Book mentioned in this episode:
This Boys Life by Tobias Wolff
Paula by Isabel Allende
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo
Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo
Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a poet, memoirist, workshop leader, thought-leader and award-winning author of fourteen books. Her work has been widely published and anthologized. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She frequently speaks and writes on writing for healing and transformation. Her 14th and newest book is Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors, A memoir with reflection and writing prompts (2024).Raab writes for Psychology Today, The Good Men Project, Sixty and Me, Thrive Global, and is a guest writer for many others.
Connect with Diana:
Website: https://www.dianaraab.com
Forthcoming poetry anthology:
https://gunpowderpress.com/product/women-in-a-golden-state/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dianaraab/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-raab-phd-a1850911/
Facebook (Author): https://www.facebook.com/DianaRaab.Author/
Facebook (Diana M Raab): https://www.facebook.com/diana.m.raab/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/512931.Diana_Raab
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/dianaraab1
Dianaâs monthly newsletter: https://dianaraab.com/signup/
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Rebe Huntman joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about who are we as women and what holds us together as a culture, following questions to their conclusions and changing in the process, running away from grief, magical thinking, reinventing ourselves, Afro-Cuban traditions and relationships to the dead, hungering for answers, permission to be more than one thing, losing mothers and finding them again through memoir, spiritual mothers and keeping the dead close, and her new memoir My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle.
Also in this episode:
-getting a do over
-trusting the writing process
-including the beautiful and the terrible
Books mentioned in this episode:
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Poetry by Richard Blanco
Poetry by Aracelis Girmay
REBE HUNTMAN is the author of My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle (February 2025, Monkfish Books), a memoir that traces her search to connect with her motherâthirty years after her deathâamong the gods and saints of Cuba. A former professional Latin and Afro-Cuban dancer and choreographer, for over a decade Rebe directed Chicagoâs award-winning Danza Viva Center for World Dance, Art & Music and its resident dance company, One World Dance Theater. She collaborates with native artists in Cuba and South America, and has been featured in LATINA Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and the Chicago Tribune, and on Fox and ABC. Rebeâs essays, stories, and poems appear or are forthcoming in such places as The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Parabola, Ninth Letter, The Cincinnati Review, and the PINCH, and have earned her an Ohio Individual Excellence Award as well as fellowships from the Macondo Writers' Conference, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Ragdale Foundation, PLAYA Residency, Hambidge Center, and Brush Creek Foundation. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from The Ohio State University and lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and Delaware, Ohio. Both eâs in her name are long. Find her at www. rebehuntman.com and on Instagram at @rebehuntman.
Connect with Rebe:
Website: www.rebehuntman.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebehuntman
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rebehuntmanauthor
Links to purchase the book at www.rebehuntman.com/mymotherinhavana
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Bridgett M. Davis joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about the effect of trauma and weathering on Black lives, the unique bond between sisters, showing relationships in action and dialogue, homing in on a throughline, giving our books and writing the space they need,finding patterns and switching lenses, exploring varying lived experiences within family structures, shedding light on Lupus, the physiological effects of systemic racism, Black maternal mortality, moments of heartbreak, asking important narrative questions early on, the letters her sister wrote to her, and her new memoir Love, Rita.
Also in this episode:
-birth order
-getting a book optioned or film
-shifting points of view
Books mentioned in this episode:
-The Situations and the Story by Vivian Gornick
-Inventing the Truth by William Zisner
-The Yellow House by Sarah
-Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway
-The Invisible Kingdom by Megan OâRourke
-Fairy Land by Alisha Abbott
-Gather Me by Glory Adams
Bridgett M. Davis (pronounced Brih-jet) is the author of the memoir, Love, Rita, published by Harper Books in spring 2025.Her first memoir, The World According To Fannie Davis: My Motherâs Life In The Detroit Numbers, was a New York Times Editorsâ Choice, a 2020 Michigan Notable Book, named a Best Book of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews, BuzzFeed, NBC News and Parade Magazine, and featured as a clue on the quiz show Jeopardy! The upcoming film adaptation will be produced by Plan B Entertainment and released by Searchlight Pictures.
She is author of two novels, Into the Go-Slow, named a Best Book of 2014 by The San Francisco Chronicle, and Shifting Through Neutral, shortlisted for the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award. Davis is also writer/director of the 1996 award-winning feature film Naked Acts, newly restored and released to critical acclaim, screening in theaters across the US and globally and now available on DVD, Blu Ray and select streaming services.
Davis is Professor Emerita in the journalism department at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she has taught creative, narrative and film writing. Her essays have appeared most recently in The New York Times, the LA Times and The Washington Post, among other publications. A graduate of Spelman College and Columbia Journalism School, she lives in Brooklyn with her family. Visit her website at www.bridgettdavis.com.\
Connect with Bridgett:
Website: bridgettdavis.com
Facebook: bridgettdavis
Bluesky: bridgettmdavis.bsky.social
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bridgett_d
substack: bridgettmdavis.substack.com
Links for book purchase: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/love-rita-bridgett-m-davis?variant=43263953174562
Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/love-rita-a-sister-s-story-bridgett-m-davis/21696108
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Megan Williams joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about being a new mother while training at the police academy, looking for validation, resisting the urge to punish ourselves, pushing back against the voice of patriarchal culture, writing to our past self, going too far and not going far enough, the loneliness of motherhood, setting boundaries in memoir, testing ourselves, what motherhood feels like now, moving elegantly through time in memoir, surrounding yourself with talented writers, frontloading a manuscript, and her memoir One Bad Mother: A Motherâs Search for Meaning in the Police Academy.
Also in this episode:
-thinking as a form of writing
-writing community
-writing conferences
Books mentioned in this episode:
Crossing the River by Carol Smith
Starry Field by Margaret Juhae Lee
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Alliosn
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings
Megan Williams is the author of One Bad Mother: A Motherâs Search for Meaning in the Police Academy. After graduating from Haverford College, Megan received her Ph.D. in English from Temple University and taught at Lafayette College and Santa Clara University. She has moved across the countryânever landing in the middleâthree times in twenty years. She now lives in Bellingham with her husband, who runs Blue Dog Bakery and keeps their teenage twins, rescued cat, horse, and mastiff full of treats.
Connect with Megan Williams:
Website: www.meganwilliamsauthor.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1347114175
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ottoisking/
Tiktok: @one.bad.mother
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-williams-6585844a/
Get the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/one-bad-mother-a-woman-s-search-for-meaning-in-motherhood-and-the-philadelphia-police-academy-megan-williams/20964845?ean=9781960573858
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Paul Lisicky joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about how his appreciation for Joni Mitchell and love of her work shaped his life as a musician and a writer, vulnerability and uncertainty on the page, falling outside the containers of whatâs expected, the singular and universal in our work, vulnerability and uncertainty in our creative process, corralling ourselves back to our 5 senses, feeling structure in our bodies, writing for the reader, developing ourselves as artists, being tenacious in pursuing our vision, writing about our idols, and his new book Song So Wild and Blue.
Also in this episode:
-image-based writing
-writing a proposal for the first time
-how structure can help liberate our work
Books/Authors mentioned in this episode:
Sigrid Nunez
Elizabeth McCracken
Sarah Manguso
Mary Gaitskill
Joy Williams
Barry Lopez
Annie Liontis
E.J. Koh
All Fours by Miranda July
Paul Lisicky is the author of seven books including Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship. A recipient of Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, he is a professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden. He lives in Brooklyn.
Website: http://www.paullisicky.net/
Connect with Paul: https://bsky.app/profile/paullisicky.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paul_lisicky/
Get the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/song-so-wild-and-blue-a-life-with-the-music-of-joni-mitchell-paul-lisicky/21517908?ean=9780063280373
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Maggie Smith returns to Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about letting imposter syndrome go, fiercely guarding your interior life, getting back to the core place where creativity thrives, rewriting a book from scratch, how writing feels in the body, swerving out of your creative lane, battling the sophomore slump, what it feels like to be watched, when ego gets in the way, fears of paralyzing failure, playing the long game, the best advice she ever got, staying agile and awake in the creative process, and her new book Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life.
Ronitâs first interview with Maggie Smith: https://ronitplank.com/2023/04/11/lets-talk-memoir-episode-38-ft-maggie-smith/
Also in this episode:
-the inner critic
-assembling a book freestyle
-tenacity and grit
Books mentioned in this episode:
Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Allison
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow by Steve Almond
Greywolf Press series âThe Art ofâŠâ books
Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books of poetry and prose, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir (One Signal/Atria, 2023); My Thoughts Have Wings, illustrated by Leanne Hatch (Balzer+Bray/Harperkids, 2024); Goldenrod: Poems (One Signal/Atria, 2021); Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change (One Signal/Atria, 2020); and Good Bones (Tupelo Press, 2017). Smith's next book is Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, forthcoming from One Signal/Atria in April 2025.
Her poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, The Best American Poetry, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, AGNI, Ploughshares, Image, the Washington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, and many other journals and anthologies. In 2016 her poem "Good Bones" went viral internationally; since then it has been translated into nearly a dozen languages and featured on the CBS primetime drama Madam Secretary. Smith has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the Ohio Arts Council, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Karen Kirsten joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about the messy complexity of family, asking the right questions, writing about a time in history when you werenât present in that history, utilizing and incorporating primary research, recorded interviews, archived documents, diaries, film, and photographs into memoir, writing fact-based vivid scenes, working with historians to accurately depict world-altering events, being honest with the reader and grappling with conflicting information on the page, changing the central question of your memoir, being a detective and being dogged, having a care plan and a nurturing creative community, writing about transgenerational trauma, inserting yourself into the narrative as a character, and her new memoir Irinaâs Gift.
Also in this episode:
-structural changes late in the process
-delaying reveals to add suspense
-using image systems to address transgenerational trauma
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Fact of a Body by Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
The Most Dangerous Book by Kevin Birmingham
The Sinner and the Saint by Kevin Birmingham
Fairyland by Alysia Abbott
The Postcard by Anne Berest
The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel WIlkers
The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante
Leviathan by Paul Auster
Question 7 by Richard Flanagan
Swimming in Paris: A Life in Three Stories by Colombe Schneck
Who I Always Was by Theresa Okokon
Karen Kirsten is the author of Irenaâs Gift, a National Jewish Book Award finalist for Autobiography & Memoir, winner of Zibby Awards for Best Family Drama & Best Story of Overcoming, and an Australian Jewish Book Award finalist. Irenaâs Gift is also The Australian newspaperâsânotable bookâ, and described by Pulitzer prize winning author Geraldine Brooks as âa disturbing investigation into the power of secrets to harm and to haunt.â
Karen is an Australian-American writer and Holocaust educator who speaks around the world on the topics of hate and reconciliation. Karenâs essay âSearching for the Nazi Who Saved My Motherâs Lifeâ was selected by Narratively as one of their Best Ever stories and nominated for The Best American Essays. Karenâs writing has also appeared in Salon.com, The Week, The Jerusalem Post, Huffington Post*, Bostonâs National Public Radio station, The Boston Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald, and more.
Connect with Karen:
Website: https://www.karenkirsten.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/findingbabcie/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karen.kirsten
Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/747811/irenas-gift-by-karen-kirsten/
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Paula Delgado-Kling joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about how her research and reporting on child soldiers, drug trafficking, and the revolutionary armed forces of Columbia (FARC) led her to tell the story of one woman and her family, the relationships we forge with whom we write about, allowing memoir to answer our questions, negotiating language barriers and class differences, coming to truth and understanding, grounding ourselves, hitting upon the structure a book needs, searching for humanity amidst ongoing violence, and her new book Leonor: The Story of a Lost Childhood.
Also in this episode:
-working as a journalist
-becoming embedded in the story weâre covering
-negotiating dangerous environments to gather information
Books mentioned in this episode:
Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho
It can take a really long time but that doesnât mean it isnât important or good.
Paula Delgado-Kling holds degrees in comparative literature/French civilizations, international affairs, and creative writing from Brown University, Columbia University, and The New School, respectively. Leonor, for which she received two grants from the Canadian Council for the Arts, is her first book. Excerpts of this book have appeared in Narrative, The Literary Review, Pacifica Literary Review, and Happano.org in Japan. Her work for the Mexican monthly news magazine Gatopardo was nominated for the Simon Bolivar Award, Colombiaâs top journalism prize, and anthologized in Las Mejores CrĂłnicas de Gatopardo (Random House Mondadori, 2006). Born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in Toronto, Canada, Delgado-Kling now splits her time between Boca Raton, FL and New York City. To learn more, please visit PaulaDelgadoKling.com or follow her on Instagram @PaulaDelgadoKling.
Connect with Paula
Website: http://pauladelgadokling.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091961238236
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColombiaTalk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pauladelgadokling/
Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Leonor-Story-Childhood-Paula-Delgado-Kling/dp/1682194477?crid=1M4ML48WOEEV7&keywords=leonor&qid=1683308327&s=books&sprefix=leonor,stripbooks,97&sr=1-1&linkCode=sl1&tag=ongoicom-20&linkId=986106192c06afd126c43cfe6d22043d&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Diane Vonglis Parnell joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up with 9 siblings on an isolated farm under the tyranny of her abusive father and living in constant fear, homing in on the story we are called to tell, steering clear of portraying ourselves as victim or hero, not having closure, yearning for a mother, emotional absence, self-nurturing, trusting readers, the toll of secrets, changing names of family members, sharing manuscripts with siblings, writing about abusers, taking power back, and her new memoir The Taste of Anger.
Also in this episode:
-the importance of therapy to memoirists
-opting for a child narrator
-writing about emotional neglect and depression
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Liarâs Club by Mary Karr
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealey
Creep by Myriam Gurba
Diane Vonglis Parnell grew up on a remote farm in Western New York with nine siblings. Her essay Blame the Milkman was a winner in the Fish Publishing short memoir contest, and included in the Fish Anthology 2022. Vonglis Parnell is a Scrabble enthusiast, and a lover of progressive rock music. She serves as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteer for abused children in her community, and lives a minimalistâs life in a 200-square-foot cottage in San Luis Obispo, California.
Connect with Diane:
Facebook.com/dianevonglisparnell
Instagram: @dianevonglisparnell
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Martha S. Jones joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about being Black, white, and other in America, the origins of her family in slavery and sexual violence, anti-miscegenation laws, passing, who we call kin and why, taking up space, avoiding the Black-White binary, discovering family stories, writing in a full-throated way, leaving complexity in our work, being patient with our material, chasing threads, the duty we have to the people we write about, grappling with contradictions, leaving readers room to decide, writing and rewriting to get someplace new, the courage it takes to confront the past, and her new book The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir.
Also mentioned in this episode:
-false starts
-feeling ready to be read
-taking care of ourselves when writing
Books mentioned in this episode:
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway
Black is the Body by Emily Bernard
Thick by Tracy McMillan Cotton
Inventing the Truth by William Zissner
Martha S. Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, professor of history, and a professor at the SNF Agora Institute at the Johns Hopkins University. A prizewinning author and editor of four books, her forthcoming The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir, confronts the limits of the historianâs craft in this powerful memoir of family, color, and being Black, white, and other in America. She is past copresident of the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians and has contributed to the New York Times, Atlantic, and many other publications. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Connect with Martha:
Website: www.marthasjones.com
X: https://x.com/marthasjones_
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marthasjones
Book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/martha-s-jones/the-trouble-of-color/9781541601000/?lens=basic-books
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Nicole Graev Lipson joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about our cultureâs fascination with reducing women to readymade templates and archetypes, performing fictional versions of ourselves, finding our way back to who we are, the essay as a place where writers can grapple with confusion, working sentence by sentence, finding the most precise microscopic truth, embracing our particularities, focusing on weâre enthralled with, what it means to be a woman today, writing about children, attention as a loving act, drawing from the mess, writing as our own form of protest, how writing can be a shame eraser, and her new book Mothers and Other Fictional Characters.
Also in this episode:
-finding your genre
-the architecture of the sentence
-finding community with other writers
Books mentioned this episode:
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland
Any Person is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert
Spilt Milk by Courtney Zoffness
The Leaving Season by Kelly McMasters
âThe Seam of the Snailâ essay by Cynthia Ozick
NICOLE GRAEV LIPSON is the author of the memoir-in-essays Mothers and Other Fictional Characters (Chronicle Books, March 2025). Her writing has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, selected for The Best American Essays anthology, and nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her work has appeared publications such as The Sun, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Gettysburg Review, LA Review of Books, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and more. Born and raised in New York City, she lives outside of Boston with her husband and children.
Connect with Nicole:
Website: www.nicolegraevlipson.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nglipson
X: http://x.com/@NicoleGLipson
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicole.g.lipson
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Sarah Jaffe joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about allowing ourselves to be known on the page, learning how to pivot from journalism to the very personal, processing experiences through writing, being upended by grief, taking care of ourselves when writing about violence and terror, witnessing and giving voice to other peopleâs hardships with integrity and respect, becoming undone on the page, how we are haunted by the losses we live through, sculpting material down during revision, and her new book From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire.
Also mentioned in this episode:
-documenting activism and organizing
-climate change
-the cognitive dissonance of social media
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Ghostly Matters by Avery Gordon
-Love and Borders by Anna Lukas Miller
-Who Cares by Emily Kenway
Sarah Jaffe is the author of Work Wonât Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted and Alone, which Jane McAlevey called âa multiplex in still life; a stunning critique of capitalism, a collective conversation on the meaning of life and work, and a definite contribution to the we-wonât-settle-for-less demands of the future society everyone deserves,â and of Necessary Trouble: Americans in Revolt, both from Bold Type Books.
She is a Type Media Center reporting fellow and an independent journalist covering the politics of power, from the workplace to the streets. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, the Guardian, the Washington Post, The New Republic, the Atlantic, and many other publications. She is the co-host, with Michelle Chen, of Dissent magazineâs Belabored podcast, as well as a columnist at The Progressive and New Labor Forum.
Sarah was formerly a staff writer at In These Times and the labor editor at AlterNet. She was a contributing editor on The 99%: How the Occupy Wall Street Movement is Changing America, from AlterNet books, as well as a contributor to the anthologies At the Tea Party and Tales of Two Cities, both from OR Books, and Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trumpâs America, from Picador. She was also the web director at GRITtv with Laura Flanders.
She was one of the first reporters to cover Occupy and the Fight for $15, has appeared on numerous radio and television programs to discuss topics ranging from electoral politics to Superstorm Sandy, from punk rock to public-sector unions.
She has a masterâs degree in journalism from Temple University in Philadelphia and a bachelorâs degree in English from Loyola University New Orleans. Sarah was born and raised in Massachusetts and has also lived in South Carolina, Louisiana, Colorado, New York and Pennsylvania.
Connect with Sarah:
Website: https://sarahljaffe.com/
X: https://x.com/sarahljaffe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahljaffe/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahjaffetrouble
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Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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Susan Lieu joins Letâs Talk Memoir for a conversation about realizing youâre an artist later in life, becoming a multi-hyphinate storyteller, being a mother when you never knew your own, piecing together a family story, feeling plagued by structure, sticking to the throughline, writing residencies, writing down goals, deciding to stop searching for approval from loved ones and getting it for and from ourselves, accepting loved ones as they are, grief journeys, storytelling as closure, and her new memoir The Manicuristâs Daughter.
Also in this episode:
-using a book doctor
-mental health stigma and older generations
-body acceptance
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Ma and Me by Putsata Reang
SUSAN LIEU is a Vietnamese-American author, playwright, and performer who tells stories that refuse to be forgotten. She took her award-winning autobiographical solo show 140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother on a ten-city national tour, with sold-out premieres and accolades from the Los Angeles Times, NPR, and American Theatre. Her debut memoir, The Manicuristâs Daughter, is an Apple Book of the Month, Apple Book Must Listen of the Month, and has been featured on The New York Times, NPR Books, Elle Magazine, LA Times, and The Washington Post. Creator of The Vagina Monologues, V (formerly Eve Ensler) calls The Manicuristâs Daughter âa stunning, raw, brave memoir that wouldnât let me go.â She is a proud alumnae of Harvard College, Yale School of Management, Coro, Hedgebrook, and Vashon Artist Residency. She is also the cofounder of Socola Chocolatier, an artisanal chocolate company based in San Francisco. Susan lives with her husband and son in Seattle, where they enjoy mushroom hunting, croissants, and big family gatherings. The Manicuristâs Daughter is her first book.
Connect with Susan:
Website: https://www.susanlieu.me/
Model Minority Moms Podcast: https://modelminoritymoms.com/
Instagram: @susanlieu, @celadonbooks
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/susanlieuofficial
TikTok: @susanlieuofficial
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanlieu/
â
Ronitâs writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writerâs Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Artsâ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.
She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Subscribe to Ronitâs Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Mollâs Fingers
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