Let’s Talk Memoir

183. Becoming the Hero of Our Own Story featuring Deb Miller

Deb Miller joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how her memoir began as a family project, being surprised to have become an author, discovering and latching onto a framework, using an “e” structure, what we recognize during the process of writing, focusing on our behavior and patterns, leaning into generational shifts, the women's movement and breaking society’s norms, connecting with readers on a personal level, innovative ways to market and launch a book, promoting a message not ourselves, becoming the hero of our own story, and her new memoir Forget the Fairy Tale & Find Your Happiness.
 
Also in this episode: 
-finding a marketing hook
-creating new relationships and working them
-living your own fairy tale
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Wild by Cheryl Strayed
-High Hopes: A  Memoir by Anne Abel
 
Deb Miller is the author of Forget the Fairy Tale & Find Your Happiness, a memoir that explores her personal journey toward self-reliance and strength, using the evolution of Disney princesses as a metaphor for her own transformation. A passionate advocate for personal empowerment, Deb’s writing encourages readers to question societal expectations and discover their own path to happiness.Having visited nearly 50 countries as a corporate executive, she is now on a mission to visit all of our national parks. A part-time marketing professor, Dr. Miller lives in Redmond, Washington, and can be found outside landscaping, walking her energetic Auggie, or hanging out with her three kids and grandchildren. Degrees: BS Purdue University, MBA University of Dayton, DBA City University of Seattle. Also a CPA. She is former VP of marketing and communication for several Fortune 500 companies. 
 
Connect with Deb:
Website: https://forgetthefairytale.net/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-deb-miller-acc/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forget_the_fairy_tale/
Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Forget-Fairytale-Find-Your-Happiness/dp/1647429226/
Simon and Schuster: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Forget-the-Fairy-Tale-and-Find-Your-Happiness/Deb-Miller/9781647429225
 
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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

182. Rewriting a Story About Medical Trauma featuring Kate Gies

Kate Gies joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the lasting effects of trauma on the body and mind, taking care of ourselves while writing by remembering our purpose, allowing early drafts to be angry and raw and finding meaning later, body shame and body acceptance, coming of age later in life, weaving together a medical narrative, protecting ourselves from reinjury by focusing on the larger message, writing where the energy is, finding boundaries, practicing self-compassion, and her memoir It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body.
 
Also in this episode:
-writing where the energy is
-giving yourself time
- writing in vignettes
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealey
The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso
Bluets by Maggie Nelson
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
The Sucide Index by Joan Wickersham
 
Kate Gies is a writer and educator living in Toronto. She teaches creative nonfiction and expressive arts at George Brown College. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have been published in The Malahat Review, The Humber Literary Review, Hobart, the Best Canadian Essays 2024 Anthology, and other places.She is the author of It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body, which details her childhood medical experiences related to a missing ear. It was published by Simon & Schuster in February of 2025.
 
Connect with Kate:
Website: kategies.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katygies
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kategies.bsky.social
Get the Book: US: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/It-Must-Be-Beautiful-to-Be-Finished/Kate-Gies/9781668051054
Get the Book: Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Must-Be-Beautiful-Finished-Memoir/dp/1668051052
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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

181. Proof of Life featuring Jennifer Pastiloff

Jennifer Pastiloff joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about getting out of our own way, practicing curiosity, feeling like we have a right to tell our stories and be creative, finding a way into our work, the yes and, tapping into other art forms, not throwing people under the bus, harnessing the mental space to write, accepting change as a necessary part of living, when “fine” is not fine, putting ourselves out there, sharing deeply, refusing to hide in shame, leaving her marriage, and her new book Proof of Life.
Also in this episode: 
-genre schmenre
-getting past the inner a*shole
-when change feels like it will equal death
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Chronology of Water by Lidia YuknavitchReading the Waves by  Lidia Yuknavitch
From Under the Truck: A Memoir by Josh Brolin
Everyone at This Party Has Two Names by Brad Aaron Modlin
Stolen focus by Johann Hari
Fired Up by Anna Durand
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
 
Jennifer Pastiloff trots the globe as a public speaker and to host her retreats to Italy, as well as her one-of-a-kind workshops, which she has taught to thousands of people all over the world. The author of the popular Substack, also called Proof of Life, she teaches writing and creativity classes called Allow, and workshops called Shame Loss, when she isn’t painting and selling her art. She has been featured on Good Morning America, and Katie Couric, and in New York magazine, People, Shape, Health magazine, and other media outlets for her authenticity and unique voice. She is deaf, reads lips, and mishears almost everything, but what she hears is usually funnier (at least she thinks so). The author of the national bestseller On Being Human, Pastiloff lives in Southern California with her son, Charlie Mel.
Connect with Jen:
Website: JenniferPastiloff.com
Substack: https://proofoflifewithjen.substack.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenpastiloff
–
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

180. Making Peace with a Past You Can’t Change featuring Niko Stratis

Niko Stratis joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about entertaining the queerest part of her soul, working on a book almost by accident, building a manuscript backwards from a title, arriving at a structure early into the process, making peace with the past, being in a safe place to write, processing adolescence, the performance of masculinity, giving humanity to even the difficult people, making a writing habit to hit deadlines, working with a small academic press, her time as a music and culture columnist for Catapult, and her new memoir​​ The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman.
 
Also in this episode: 
-writing slowly
-talking to parents about our memoir
-working with a small academic press
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Night Moves by Jessica Hopper
-Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan Coyote
-Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to a Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib
-Nevada by Imogen Binnie
-Tacky: Love Letters ot the Worst Culture We Have to Offer by Rax by King
 
Niko Stratis is an award-winning writer from Toronto by way of the Yukon, where she spent years working as a journeyman glazier before coming out as trans in her thirties and being forced to abandon her previous line of work. Her writing has appeared in publications like Catapult, Spin, Paste and more. She’s a Cancer, and a former smoker.
 
Connect with Niko:
Website: https://www.nikostratis.com/
Anxiety Shark Newsletter: https://www.anxietyshark.ca/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikostratis.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikostratis/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/nikostratis
Link to book: https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477331484/
 
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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

179. Taking Risks with Genre and Form featuring Erica Stern

Erica Stern joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about self-interrogation and taking risks to tell the story we need to, exploring the liminality of a lived experience through the speculative, hybrid memoir and leaning into history and research to illuminate and deepen understanding, the unexpected complications she experienced in childbirth, the historical misogyny in U.S. medical system, the male takeover of birth, how trauma can stunt empathy, trusting the work will go where it needs to go, giving our projects time and space to grow, when publishers and editors are not quite sure what to make of your book, exercising control over the uncontrollable, the long road to publishing, capturing the timelessness of an experience, and her new book Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story. 
 
Also in this episode: 
-discovering material through writing
-meditations on the history of childbirth
-when an editor encourages you to make your book even more like itself
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
 
-The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham
-An Encyclopedia of Bending Time by Kristen Keane
-My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shaplans
-A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk
 
Erica Stern’s work has been published in The Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, the Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Erica received her undergraduate degree in English from Yale and her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A native of New Orleans, she now lives with her family in Evanston, Illinois.
 
Connect with Erica:
Website: erica-stern.com
Instagram: @ericasternwriter
Substack: @ericastern
Bluesky: @ericarstern.bsky.social
Get the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/frontier-a-memoir-and-a-ghost-story/876292ffe52fe93f?ean=9798985008937&next=t&next=t
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/frontier-erica-stern/1146916883?ean=9798985008937
https://www.barrelhousemag.com/books/frontier-erica-stern
 
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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

178. Fragmented Forms, the Speculative, and Resisting Restriction featuring Marty Ross-Dolen

Marty Ross-Dolen joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation discovering the story while writing, inviting the speculative and magical elements into a narrative, rediscovering lost relatives, advocating for our vision and for our books, scaffolding fragmented forms, being raised by a mother in protracted mourning, incorporating letters, photographs, and erasure poetry, when people tell you what your book is supposed to be, living with an inherited sense of grief, unspoken family pacts, when structure is a surprise, and her new memoir Always There, Always Gone: A Daughter’s Search for Truth.
 
Also in this episode: 
--being raised in silence around a tragedy
-telling 3 stories at once
-memoir as erasure
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas
-Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
-Ghostbread by Sonja Livingston
-Disconto for My Father by Harrison Kandelaria Fletcher
-Fearless Confessions by Sue William SIlverman
 
Marty Ross-Dolen is a graduate of Wellesley College and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is a retired child and adolescent psychiatrist. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Prior to her time at VCFA, she participated in graduate-level workshops at The Ohio State University. Her essays have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Redivider, Lilith, Willow Review, and the Brevity Blog, among others. Her essay entitled “Diphtheria” was named a notable essay in The Best American Essays series. She teaches writing and lives in Columbus, Ohio.
Connect with Marty:
Website: www.martyrossdolen.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martyrossdolen
Get the book: https://a.co/d/5HtWU4s
https://www.thurberhouse.org/adult-writers-studio
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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

177. The Loss of a Lifetime featuring Alyson Shelton and Lynn Shattuck

Alyson Shelton and Lynn Shattuck join Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about writing about sibling loss, creating an essay anthology as means to advocate for grief, taking care of ourselves while crafting work about loss, helping people tell their stories, laughter and making space for the rest of our lives, coping with rejection, creating a mosaic with essays, feeling empowered, self-acceptance building community, independently publishing as an act of defiance, and their new anthology The Loss of a Lifetime: Advice from Grieving Siblings.
 
Also in this episode: 
-owning out stories
-rejecting shame
-how no can send us in new directions
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Viktor Hansen and Amy Newmark
-Encyclopedia of an Ordinary LIfe by Amy Krause Rosenthal
-The Heart and Other Monsters by Rose Anderon
Always a Sibling by Annie Sklaver Orenstein
ALYSON SHELTON is an award winning screenwriter and essayist. Her writing is widely published at outlets including The New York Times, Ms. and The Rumpus. She’s anthologized in Comics Lit Vol. 1 (Accomplishing Innovation Press), No Contact: 28 Writers on Family Estrangement (Catapult 2026), Root Cause: Stories of Health, Harm and Reclaiming Our Humanity (Editor: Jeannine Ouellette) and The Loss of a Lifetime: Advice from Grieving Siblings (Contributor and Co-Editor). She’s best known for her Instagram Live series inspired by George Ella Lyon’s poem, Where I’m From where she’s hosted close to 200 writers. The poem also provides the spine for her memoir in progress.@byalysonshelton on Instagram, Threads, Youtube. www.alysonshelton.com
 
Lynn has been publishing essays on the topic of sibling loss for more than a decade. She was a paid columnist at Elephant Journal for ten years; several of her essays on the topic of grief and sibling loss have gone viral. Lynn co-founded the website lossofalifetime.com, a hub of resources for those who’ve experienced sibling loss. She also co-edited the essay collection, The Loss of a Lifetime: Grieving Siblings Share Stories of Love, Loss and Hope; the book is expected to be available in June, 2025
https://www.instagram.com/lynn_shattuck/
 
Connect with Alyson:
Alyson Shelton on The Body Myth podcast: https://ronitplank.com/2022/03/22/the-body-myth-from-childhood-gymnastics-to-puberty-to-motherhood-a-body-judgment-story-ft-alyson-shelton/
Website: www.alysonshelton.com
 
Connect with Lynn:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lynn_shattuck/
 
Get the book: https://www.lossofalifetime.com/book
www.lossofalifetime.com
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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

176. Using the Tools of Fiction to Move Readers featuring Maureen Stanton

Maureen Stanton joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her writing beginnings in fiction and using the scenic and immersive to move readers, falling in love with creative nonfiction, revisiting and recreating a love story, discovering the question behind her book, facing the blank page, bad first drafts, writing an illness narrative, placing an essay in Modern Love, authenticity on the page, the long winding path to publishing, not thinking your book will ever get published, working on multiple projects while querying, how love evolves, and her new memoir The Murmur of Everything Moving.
 
Also in this episode:
-the fog of grief
-killing our darlings
-submitting to writing contests
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
-Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
-The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
-This Boys Life by Tobias Wolff 
-Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
-Barbarian Days by William Finnegan
 
Maureen Stanton is the author of The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir, winner of the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence; Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood, winner of the Maine Literary Award for memoir and a People Magazine "Best Books Pick"; and Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: An Insider’s Look at the World of Flea Markets, Antiques, and Collecting, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award in nonfiction and a Parade Magazine "12 Great Summer Books" selection. Her nonfiction has been widely published, including in The New York Times, Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, Longreads, New England Review, Florida Review, River Teeth, The Sun and many others. Her essays have received the Iowa Review prize, The Sewanee Review prize, Pushcart Prizes, the American Literary Review award, and the Thomas J. Hruska award from Passages North. She's been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maine Arts Commission, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and lives in Maine. 
 
Connect with Maureen:
Website: https://www.maureenstantonwriter.com
LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/maureenstanton41
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maureenstanton41
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@maureenstanton41
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/maureen-stanton-6693ab11 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maureen.p.stanton
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/maureenstanton.bsky.social
 
–
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

175. Book Promotion 101 Bonus Episode: A Conversation with Leah Paulos of Press Shop PR

Leah Paulos of Press Shop PR joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about 2 things writers can do right now to help launch their book successfully, how to find your targeted readers and effectively reach them through media, the dedicated focus required to promote a book,tapping into your storytelling chops to help you with marketing, tools for positioning your book with media and journalists, the lead time we need to promote our books and when to pitch, selling journalists on covering your book, finding the story and the audience for your book, the cost of publicity, your job as your own publicist, being proactive, and the classes she offers at Book Publicity School.
 
Also in this episode:
-using spreadsheets
-building a media contact list
-working with in-house publicity teams
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
-The Sounds of Life by Karen Bakker
-The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korellitz
-Writing to Persuade by Trish Hall
 
Leah Paulos is the Founder and Director of Publicity at Press Shop PR and Book Publicity School, and has worked at the intersection of books and media for over 25 years. Twice named a top PR firm by the Observer, Press Shop PR has worked on many notable books and #1 bestsellers including MARCH by Rep. John Lewis and ON TYRANNY by Timothy Snyder, as well as books by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Neil deGrasse Tyson, James Kirchick, and Pulitzer-finalists Samuel Freedman and Louise Aronson. Leah has spoken on book publicity at Columbia School of Journalism, CUNY Graduate Center, and as part of her regular workshop series, Book Publicity for Literary Agents. 
Book publicity 101
Leah began her career as a magazine editor at a NYC-focused glossy magazine in 1998. She later worked as an editor at Conde Nast and as a freelance writer for dozens of national magazines. She made the shift to book publicity in 2006 and launched Press Shop in 2012. She graduated from Cornell University and now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.
 
bookpublicityschool.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/leahpaulos/
https://www.facebook.com/PressShopPR/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090936998502
https://x.com/PressShopPR
 
www.PressShopPR.com
www.BookPublicitySchool.com
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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:
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Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

174. Hybrid Memoir as a Means to Sift Through Experience and Mitigate Shame featuring Jill Damatac

Jill Damatac joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up undocumented in the US and how she ultimately self-deported, weaving Filipino food, mythology, history, and culture in her narrative, opting for a hybridized memoir to mitigate the fear of talking about her experience, American exceptionalism, internalized doubt and unworthiness, contextualizing the self within a broader set of stories, when fear is a defining container for our lives, being willing to announce our lived experience via memoir, wanting to shrug off the yoke of shame, offering the reader a kaleidoscopic view, and her new memoir Dirty Kitchen A Memoir of Food and Family.
 
Also in this episode: 
-sifting through hybridized aspects of a memoir
-knowing where to cut and where to expand 
-shame around trauma writing
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Another Country by James Baldwin
Bodywork by Melissa Febos
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
 
Jill Damatac is a writer and filmmaker born in the Philippines, raised in the US, and now a UK citizen, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her film and photography work has been featured on the BBC and in Time, and at film festivals worldwide; her short documentary film Blood and Ink (Dugo at Tinta), about the Indigenous Filipino tattooist Apo Whang Od, was an official selection at the Academy Award–qualifying DOC NYC and won Best Documentary at Ireland’s Kerry Film Festival. Jill holds an MSt in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Documentary Film from the University of the Arts London. 
 
Connect with Jill:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jilldamatac/
Website: https://www.jilldamatac.com/
Get the book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dirty-Kitchen/Jill-Damatac/9781668084632
 
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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