Let’s Talk Memoir

219. Revealing More Than We Intended featuring Lora Arbrador

Lora Abrador joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation weaving together three themes in her memoir, writing about the ancient technique of egg tempura paint, incorporating 300 images in her book, gaining confidence as an artist, struggling to form a lasting romantic partnership, nature vs. nurture, our innate personalities, self-actualization, love addiction, feeling like a wounded bird, really connecting with an editor, publishing options, working with copyeditors, factchecking, recording an audio book, not intending to reveal ourselves but doing so anyway, and her new memoir Art & Love: My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera.
 
Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story  
This episode is brought to you by Prose Playground. If you’ve been writing for years but haven’t published, have tons of ideas but can’t get them on the page, if you have a book coming out, or you’re simply curious about writing, join Prose Playground—an active, supportive writing community for writers at every level. Visit www.ProsePlayground.com to sign up free.
Also in this episode: 
-trade reviews 
-beta readers
-proof readers and proof listeners
 
Books mentioned in this episode: 
Editing the RedPen Way: Ten Steps for Successful Self-Editing by Anne Rainbow
When She Comes Back: a memoir by Ronit Plank
Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage by Eleaonor Vincent
Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over  by Nell Painter
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by Musa Mayer
Hold Still by Sally Mann
My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand
At the age of 19, Lora Arbrador was given a recipe for making egg tempera, a homemade paint that combines colorful pigments with egg yolk. Like a musician with a strong affinity for a particular instrument, Ahrbrador found her creative home in egg tempera.  To support her art practice, Arbrador became a registered nurse and the medical world has been the inspiration for many of her paintings, including the series, Ways of Dying: A Chronicle of the AIDS Epidemic. Her painting, Don’t Go My Friend: The Death of John Walsh, MD, won first place at the Art and Healing exhibit at Artwest Gallery. 
 
In 1997, Arbrador co-founded the Society of Tempera Painters which was modeled after the 1901 Society of Painters in Tempera in England.  Her first book, A History of Roman Calligraphy, is housed in the Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center of the San Francisco Public Library. Arbrador has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the US, including South Bend Regional Museum of Art, Wenatchee Valley College Art Gallery and the Bade Museum of the Pacific School of Religion. Arbrador is the former Editorial Director of NurseWeek magazine Art & Love: My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera.
 
Connect with Lora:
Website: www.artandlovebook.com
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arbrador
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arbrador
https://www.facebook.com/lora.arbrador/
substack: artblotterplus.substack.com
Purchase the book: www.artandlovebook.com/shop
 
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
 
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

218. Honoring Our Own Momentum featuring Gretchen McGowan

Gretchen McGowan joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the grit and glam of the 90s in New York, her career producing independent films, the thrill of creating something from nothing, honoring our own process, willing to be self-deprecating, negotiating manuscript revisions in digestible ways, keeping writing momentum in mind, getting character-you into trouble, when everyone around you seems to have it figured out, loving the hustle of NY, scrappiness, her role as the head of Goldcrest films, and her memoir Flying In: My Adventures in Filmmaking.
Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story 
This episode is brought to you by Prose Playground. If you’ve been writing for years but haven’t published, have tons of ideas but can’t get them on the page, if you have a book coming out, or you’re simply curious about writing, join Prose Playground—an active, supportive writing community for writers at every level. Visit www.ProsePlayground.com to sign up free.
 
Also in this episode:
-doing what works
-transcendental mediation
-women’s career memoirs
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
-An Unfinished Woman by Lillian Hellman
-The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith
-Fast Draft Your Memoir by Rachael Herron
 
Gretchen McGowan is an award-winning producer and the head of production for Goldcrest Films in New York City where she has overseen titles such as Cat Person, Carol and Restrepo. Gretchen independently produced Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, helped to make his iconic film Coffee and Cigarettes and has made over sixty films across the globe. Her new memoir is Flying In: My Adventures in Filmmaking.
 
Connect with Gretchen:
Website: www.gretchenmcgowan.com
Links: https://linktr.ee/gretchenmcgowan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gretmcgowan
Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class
Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story
 
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
 
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

217. Writing Real Sex in Memoir featuring Sarah Gallucci

Sarah Gallucci joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being the child of a teen mom and early influences on ideas of love and relationships, pivoting from journalism to reporting on her own life, the hey day of mommy blogging, when relationships become incredibly messy, how we experience pleasure, manipulative, coercive, and nonconsensual sex, giving a partner a hall pass, measuring the brokenness of a marriage, writing when you’re in the thick of it, the aftermath of divorce, why writing real sex is imperative to literature, the autonomy of self-publishing, when family stops speaking to us after publication, strategies to writing about sex, and Laid: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Marriage.
 
Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story 
 
This episode is brought to you by Prose Playground. If you’ve been writing for years but haven’t published, have tons of ideas but can’t get them on the page, if you have a book coming out, or you’re simply curious about writing, join Prose Playground—an active, supportive writing community for writers at every level. Visit www.ProsePlayground.com to sign up free.
 
Also in this episode:
-trusting your truth
-blogging and going viral
-writing from a raw, unprocessed place
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Hunger by Roxanne Gay
-Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
-Wild by Cheryl Strayed
-Push by Sapphire
 
Sarah Gallucci is the author of Laid: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Marriage. She has written reported features for CNN, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, among others. Sarah works as a professor at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is also a speaker, and has given two TEDx talks. Most importantly, Sarah is the mother of two with storytelling, creative healing, and pasta in her blood.
 
Connect with Sarah:
Website: www.SarahGallucci.com
Instagram: @_Sarah_Gallucci_
TikTok: @_Sarah_Gallucci_
Threads: @_Sarah_Gallucci_
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Laid-Memoir-Love-Sex-Marriage/dp/B0DVCBXVZ7/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
Talks: https://www.sarahgallucci.com/speaking
 
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
 
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
 

216. Multidisciplinary Approaches to Memoir and Consuming Art in All Its Forms featuring Elizabeth Rynecki and Tony Kaplan

Elizabeth Rynecki and Tony Kaplan join Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about multi-disciplinary approaches to memoir, the different skills we need for storytelling modalities, their new podcast That Sinking Feeling: Adventures in ADHD and Ship Salvage, searching for answers to family stories, the documentary about Elizabeth’s great grandfather who perished in the Holocaust, drawing connections, how to weave two very disparate things, being humble, the hoops we jump through to get a project made, ADHD and autism, capturing a spectrum of voices, respecting privacy, consuming art in all its formats to enrich your own creativity, Elizabeth’s memoir Chasing Portraits: A Great Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy.
Also in this episode:
-steep learning curves
-mother-son challenges
-the importance of vulnerability in storytelling
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Story of a Poem: A Memoir by Matthew Zapruder
-I Am I Am I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell
-Unraveling by Peggy Orenstein
-The Souvenir by Louise Steinman
Documentaries mentioned in this episode:
-Crip Camp by Nicole Newham and James LeBrecht
-Shermans’ March by Ross McElwee
Elizabeth Rynecki’s narrative non-fiction memoir, Chasing Portraits: A Great Granddaughter’s Quest for Her Lost Art Legacy was published by NAL/Penguin Random House in 2016 and received a Kirkus Starred Review. She wrote, produced, and appeared in the documentary film, Chasing Portraits. She’s been featured in the New York Times, been a guest on NPR affiliate stations, and been a speaker at bookstores, libraries, book festivals, and film screenings around the world. Her podcast, That Sinking Feeling: Adventures in ADHD and Ship Salvage is available everywhere you get podcasts. She’s working on a novel inspired by real events. Elizabeth has a BA in Rhetoric from Bates College and an MA in Rhetoric and Communication from UC Davis. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, two sons, and three black cats.
Website: https://www.elizabethrynecki.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erynecki/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/erynecki.bsky.social
Substack: https://substack.com/@elizabethrynecki?utm_source=user-menu
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@erynecki
That Sinking Feeling: Adventures in ADHD and Ship Salvage on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/that-sinking-feeling/id1789191829
Tony Kaplan is an Emmy-nominated documentary director, cinematographer and filmmaker. He has more than 20 years of experience as a creative lead working within the film industry, and he produced and edited “That Sinking Feeling,” a podcast about the unlikely intersection of ADHD and ship salvage. 
 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaplantony
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/user210636356
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wraplan
–Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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.comSubscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank
Follow Ronit:https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlankhttps://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on UnsplashHeadshot photo credit: Sarah Anne PhotographyTheme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

215. Getting to the Heart of Spiritual and Awakened Memoir featuring Sarah Chauncey

Sarah Chauncey joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her many careers in writing, working on a memoir and deciding not to publish, framing the story we want to tell, experiencing ourselves as a part of living system, going deeper and becoming more vulnerable, taking responsibility for our wellbeing and mental health, not seeing oneself as a limited, pursuing inner peace, reading subtextual energy on the page, different forms of storytelling, patterns in memoir, searching for emotional transformation and change, and getting to the heart of spiritual and awakened memoir.
Also in this episode:
-the great mystery
-no longer being a character
-deciding not to be too public
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Working by Studs Terkel
-The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick
-Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen 
-Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life by Marshall B. Rosenberg
-The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown
Sarah Chauncey is a veteran writer and developmental editor, as well as the author of P.S. I Love You More Than Tuna, the first gift book for adults grieving the loss of a pet. In the early part of her career, she wrote for VH1, Comedy Central and other TV outlets, as well as entertainment websites and music magazines. Later, she pivoted to storytelling for organizations including NASA, McAfee and Intel. Sarah writes the Resonant Storytelling Substack, which offers guidance on craft and process for creative nonfiction writers. She also writes The Counterintuitive Guide to Life, which helps readers develop mental health resilience by developing self-awareness; and More Than Tuna, which offers support for those grieving the loss of a pet. In recent years, she’s written for Tiny Buddha, Lion’s Roar, Modern Loss, Eckhart Tolle’s website, Jane Friedman’s blog and the Brevity blog. 
 
Connect with Sarah:
Website: https://www.sarahchauncey.com/
Substack: https://substack.com/@sarahchauncey
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahkchauncey/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahchauncey/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.k.chauncey
 
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s 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 Moll’s Fingers

214. Dismantling Tropes and the Feeling of Being Other featuring Kaila Yu

Kaila Yu joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how she hated writing at first and has had an accidental career in it, how she had no intention of writing a memoir, selling a book on proposal and pitching off a timely event, racial and sexually motivated hate crime, Asian fetishization and the feeling of being other, her experience as a pin up model in the 90s, sexual assault and the flight, fight, fawn response, dismantling tropes, the male gaze, forms of erasure, internalized racism, putting it all out there, and her new memoir in essays Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty.
 
Also in this episode:
-feeling invisible
-shaping a book with an agent
-the marathon that is book promotion
Books mentioned in this episode:
Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
My Body by Emily Ratajkowski
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It by Kamal Ravikant
 
Kaila Yu is an author with bylines in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Bon Appétit, Conde Nast Traveler, and many more. 
Her debut memoir, ‘Fetishized: A Reckoning with Yellow Fever, Feminism, and Beauty,’ was published on August 19th, 2025, with Penguin Random House's Crown Publishing.
Connect with Kaila:
instagram.com/kailayu
tiktok.com/@kaila.yu
KailaYu.com
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738645/fetishized-by-kaila-yu/
 
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s 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 Moll’s Fingers

213. Who We Are After Mother Loss featuring Tamara Jong

Tamara Jong joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up Jehovah’s Witness, her mother's untimely passing, losing faith, disguising who we are, trying multiple approaches to a writing practice, navigating material that resists us, becoming vulnerable, the tenderness of losing, learning to trust ourselves, weaving in motherhood and mother figures in our work, finding community and home, spirituality without religion, when we feel comfortable enough to be ourselves, and her new memoir in essays Worldly Girls.
Also in this episode:
-learning to trust others
-leaning into what works for us
-feeling compelled to finish books
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Lit by Mary Karr
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
Unquenchable Thirst by Mary Johnson 
 
TAMARA JONG is a Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) born writer of Chinese and European ancestry. Her work has been published in the Humber Literary Review, Room Magazine, and The Fiddlehead, and has been both long and shortlisted for various creative non-fiction prizes. She is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, and a former member of Room Magazine’s collective. She currently lives and works on Treaty 3 territory, the occupied and ancestral lands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabewaki, Attiwonderonk, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (Guelph, ON). Worldly Girls is her first book.
 
Connect with Tamara:
Website: https://www.tamaraljong.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bokchoygurl
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/bokchoygurltjong.bsky.social
Twitter: @Bokchoygurl
Book*hug's website: https://bookhugpress.ca/shop/author/tamara-jong/worldly-girls-by-tamara-jong/
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/worldly-girls-tamara-jong/1146964224?ean=9781771669504
Also available on Amazon or ask for it at your local bookstore or your library
 
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s 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 Moll’s Fingers

212. Setting Your Writing Apart: A Conversation with Four Editors - Diane Gottlieb, Jennifer Fliss, Nina B. Lichtenstein, and Ronit Plank on Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage

Diane Gottlieb, Jennifer Fliss, and Nina B. Lichtenstein join Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about their work as editors and what they look for in submissions, setting your writing apart, knowing where to omit for maximum impact, the magic of prompts, working with supportive editors, how constraints give us freedom, ordering an essay collection, how stories sustain us, disentangling the artist from politics, allyship, the process of becoming ourselves, celebrating our heritage, the ecosystem of Jewish life, submission calls, and our new anthology Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage.
Also in this episode:
-being seen
-writing into joy
-being a Jew by choice
 
 Purchase Manna Songs here: https://elj-editions.com/mannasongs/ and wherever you get your books
www.Dianegottlieb.com
www.Jenniferflisscreative.com
https://www.ninalichtenstein.com/
 
Diane Gottlieb, MSW, MEd, MFA, is the editor of Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture & Heritage, the award-winning anthology Awakenings: Stories of Body & Consciousness, and Grieving Hope. Her writing appears in Brevity, Witness, River Teeth, 2023 Best Microfiction, Smokelong Quarterly, Bellevue Review, Colorado Review, JUDITH, and Jewish Book Council among many other lovely places. She is the winner of Tiferet Journal’s 2021 Writing Contest in Nonfiction, and a finalist for Hole in the Head Review’s 2024 Charles Simic Poetry Prize and Florida Review’s 2023 Editor’s Choice Award in Nonfiction. Diane is the Prose/CNF Editor at Emerge Literary and the Special Projects Editor at ELJ Editions.
Connect with Diane: 
https://elj-editions.com/mannasongs/
dianegottlieb.com
@dianegotauthor
 
Jennifer Fliss (she/her) is a Seattle-based author of the collections, As If She Had a Say and The Predatory Animal Ball. Over 200 of her stories and essays have appeared in F(r)iction, PANK, Hobart, The Rumpus, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She was a Pen Parentis Fellow and recipient of a Grant for Artist Project award from Artist’s Trust. 
www.jenniferflisscreative.com
https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810146259/as-if-she-had-a-say/
https://okaydonkeymag.bigcartel.com/product/the-predatory-animal-ball-by-jennifer-fliss
 
Nina B. Lichtenstein is a native of Oslo, Norway, and holds a PhD in French literature from UCONN and an MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program. She is the founder and director of Maine Writers Studio, and the co-founder and co-editor of In a Flash Lit Mag. Her writing has appeared in various journals, magazines, and outlets, as well as in several anthologies. Her book, Sephardic Women's Voices: Out of North Africa, was published by Gaon Books in 2017, and her memoir, Body: My Life in Parts by Vine Leaves Press in May , 2025. She has three adult sons, and lives in Maine with her husband. 
https://www.facebook.com/ninalich/
https://www.instagram.com/vikingjewess/
https://ninablichtenstein.substack.com/
https://www.ninalichtenstein.com/
https://www.mainewritersstudio.com/
https://vineleavespress.myshopify.com/products/body-my-life-in-parts-by-nina-b-lichtenstein
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s 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 Moll’s Fingers

211. Writing About Ourselves and Others with Nuance and Complexity featuring Edgar Gomez

Edgar Gomez joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up poor in Florida, wanting to believe in the American dream and realizing it’s not accessible, surviving a precarious childhood, reckoning with trauma, grappling with and excavating shame, what queer people want vs. what they get, navigating sex work, the Pulse nightclub tragedy, when to tell family about our memoirs, writing about others with generosity, staying true to our identity, fighting for joy, and their memoir in essays Alligator Tears.
 
Also in this episode:
-staying true to ourselves
-growing up NicaRican
-navigating queerness
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Butterfly Boy by Rigoberto Gonzalez
Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Nora Neale Hurston
 
Edgar Gomez is a queer NicaRican writer born and raised in Florida. He is the author of the memoir High-Risk Homosexual, winner of the American Book Award, a Stonewall Israel-Fishman Nonfiction Book Honor Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. Their sophomore book, Alligator Tears, was released in February 2025 and was called "Triumphant, dazzling, and unfailingly stylish" by Publisher's Weekly. A graduate of the University of California’s MFA program, Gomez has written for The LA Times, Poets & Writers, Lithub, New York Magazine, and beyond. He has received fellowships from The New York Foundation for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Arts, and The Black Mountain Institute. He lives between New York and Puerto Rico. Find him across social media @OtroEdgarGomez.
 
Connect with Edgar:
Website: EdgarGomez.net
@OtroEdgarGomez on Bluesky and instagram. 
Get the book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743399/alligator-tears-by-edgar-gomez/
 
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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s 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 Moll’s Fingers

210. Why It’s Never Too Late to Move Forward featuring Anne Abel

Anne Abel joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her experiences winning the Moth StorySLAM, what she learned from the storytelling community, the lifelong toll of her parents’ abuse and her chronic, recurrent depression, overcoming self-loathing, how Bruce Springsteen changed her life, following a hunch, overcoming writers block, why it’s better to overwrite than underwrite, her giant following on TikTok and Instagram, why it’s never too late to move forward, taking a leap and landing on our feet, allowing ourselves to persevere and dream, and her new memoir High Hopes.
 
Also in this episode:
-capturing story
-leaning into dialogue
-why it’s never too late to move forward
Books mentioned in this episode: 
-Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
-Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
-Educated by Tara Westover
-Small Fry by Lisa Brennan-Jobs
 
Anne Abel is an author, storyteller, and influencer with over 700 thousand followers. Her first memoir, Mattie, Milo, and Me, (2024), about unwittingly rescuing an aggressive dog, was inspired by her Moth StorySLAM win in New York City. Her second memoir, High Hopes, was inspired by her Moth StorySLAM win in Chicago. It will be published September, 23, 2025. In January, 2025 she was featured in Newsweek, “Boomer’s Story About How She Met Her Husband of 45 Years Captivates Internet.” She holds an MFA from The New School for Social Research, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and a BS in chemical engineering from Tufts University. She has freelanced for multiple outlets over the course of her career.
 
Anne lives in New York City with her husband, Andy, and their cavapoo puppy, Wendell. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok: @annesimaabel
Connect with Anne:
Instagram, TikTok, FB @annesimaabel
Website: www.anneabelauthor.com
High Hopes: A Memoir: https://a.co/d/88HiMkb
Mattie, Milo, and Me: A Memoir: https://a.co/d/aiDwCqw
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s 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 Arts’ 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 Ronit’s 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 Moll’s Fingers