Let’s Talk Memoir
Let’s Talk Memoir is a podcast for memoir lovers, readers, and writers, featuring interviews with memoirists about their writing process, their challenges, and what they’ve learned about sharing the most personal of narratives. Hosted by writer, editor, and teacher Ronit Plank, each episode highlights different aspects of the memoir-writing experience, and offers writing tips and inspiration. Ronit is the author of the award-winning story collection Home is a Made-Up Place and the memoir When She Comes Back about the loss of her mother to the guru at the center of Netflix’s docuseries Wild Wild Country and their eventual reconciliation. For more memoir advice, workshops, and encouragement find Let’s Talk Memoir and Ronit on Substack, Instagram, and at ronitplank.com
Listen on:
Episodes
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Heather Lanier joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about finding the psychic distance and narrative voice your memoir needs, writing about our children, defying the tyranny of normal, personal narratives for social change, excavating our own ableism, blogs vs. literary essays, avoiding self-pity, and Raising a Rare Girl, her memoir of parenting a child with a rare syndrome.
Also in this episode:
-Revealing the ‘ugly’ side of ourselves on the page
-The right we have to tell our stories
-How narratives begin with voice
Books mentioned in this episode:
Stranger Care by Sarah Sentilles
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Heather Lanier is the author of the poetry collection, Psalms of Unknowing (Monkfish Publishing 2023) as well as the memoir, Raising a Rare Girl (Penguin Press 2020), a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Sun, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Longreads, McSweeney’s, TIME, and elsewhere. She works as an assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University, and her TED talk has been viewed three million times and translated into 18 languages.
Connect with Heather:
Twitter: twitter.com/heatherklanier
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherklanier/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heatherkirnlanier
Website: https://heatherlanierwriter.com
Heather’s new poetry book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/psalms-of-unknowing-poems/19664834?ean=9781958972069
Heather’s Memoir: https://bookshop.org/p/books/raising-a-rare-girl-heather-lanier/13330911?ean=9780525559658
"Rules for Writing about Fiona." https://starinhereye.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/rules-for-writing-about-fiona/
--
Care/of: Get 50% off your first order when you use promo code "Memoir50"
–
Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/
Connect with Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo: Canva
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday Sep 26, 2023
Tuesday Sep 26, 2023
Patty Lin joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her former career in television and how she knew she was done with show business, naming names in memoir manuscripts and legal reviews, mother-daughter narratives, sensory details that put the reader in the room, and her new memoir End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood.
Also in this episode:
-trusting our instincts
-protecting our creative life
-putting it all out there
Books mentioned in this episode:
What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young
Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Becoming by Michelle Obama
Patty Lin is a former TV writer and producer whose credits include "Freaks and Geeks," "Friends," "Desperate Housewives," and "Breaking Bad." She has also written pilots for Fox, CBS, and Nickelodeon. Her "Breaking Bad" episode was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Script of 2008. She is the author of END CREDITS: HOW I BROKE UP WITH HOLLYWOOD, a memoir about her television career. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband.
Connect with Patty:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virtualpattylin/
Website: www.pattylin.com
Get End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood: https://www.amazon.com/End-Credits-How-Broke-Hollywood/dp/B0BVDM5T4R/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?crid=17Q217DYJRSQ2&keywords=end+credits+patty+lin&qid=1681751036&sprefix=end+credits+patty+lin%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1-fkmr0
–
Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/
Connect with Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo: Canva
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
Tuesday Sep 19, 2023
Clare Frank joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about writing a female-career-centered memoir, letting structure dictate content, when an agent really loves your voice but doesn’t think they can sell your book, the lifelong relationship she’s had with fire, and her new memoir Burnt.
Also in this episode:
-using NaNoRiMo to draft your book
-embracing the suck
-when your sibling is also writing a memoir
Book mentioned in this episode:
Books by Caitlin Doughty
Ambulance Driver by Kevin Hazard
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett
Clare Frank served as the State of California’s first and only female Chief of Fire Protection. She began firefighting at age 17 and worked her way through the ranks, handling all types of fire and rescue emergencies and major disasters in both urban and rural settings. Along the way, she earned a bachelor’s in fire administration, a law degree and bar card, and a master’s in creative writing. Most recently, she is the author of BURNT: A Memoir of Fighting Fire. She lives near Lake Tahoe with her husband and always a dog or two
Connect with Clare:
Book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/burnt-a-memoir-of-fighting-fire-clare-frank/18699323?ean=9781419763908
Website: https://www.therealclarefrank.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firewriter1/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009533621822
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clare-frank-64a2a2236/
–
Ronit’s writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, 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 both the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards and 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 was named winner of Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and Finalist in the 2023 Page Turner Awards. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday Sep 12, 2023
Tuesday Sep 12, 2023
Dinty W. Moore joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about his 25 years as Editor-in-Chief of Brevity Magazine, elements that set submissions apart, landing on a writer’s voice, generating work in play mode yet being relentless in revision, resisting the urge to explain, allowing ourselves to be peculiar, and what rejection really means.
Also in this episode:
-the stories in our lives we keep coming back to.
-the gift of 750 words.
-giving readers room to interpret.
Authors mentioned in this episode:
James Baldwin
Joan Didian
Cheryl Strayed
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Maggie Nelson
Leslie Jamison
Dinty W. Moore worked as a journalist, a documentary filmmaker, a zookeeper, a modern dancer, and a Greenwich Village waiter before realizing he wanted to be a writer. He is author of the memoirs To Hell With It and Between Panic & Desire, winner of the Grub Street Nonfiction Book Prize, The Accidental Buddhist: Mindfulness, Enlightenment, and Sitting Still, the writing guide Crafting the Personal Essay, and is editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction, among many other books. He has published essays and stories in The Georgia Review, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. He is founding editor of Brevity, the journal of flash nonfiction, and teaches master classes and workshops across the United States as well as in Ireland, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, and Mexico. He is deathly afraid of polar bears.
Connect with Dinty:
Books: https://dintywmoore.com/category/books/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dintywmoore/
X: https://twitter.com/brevitymag
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dintyw/
--
Ronit’s writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, 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 both the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards and 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 was named winner of Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and Finalist in the 2023 Page Turner Awards. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Tuesday Sep 05, 2023
Abigail Thomas joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the importance of curiosity, honesty, and vulnerability in our work, making our own rules on the page, her approach to writing and revision, the story she wasn’t sure how she’d tell, and her newest memoir Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing.
Also in this episode:
-the magic of third person
-writing to see what we mean
-how our work changes over time
Books mentioned in this episode:
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell and other books in the trilogy
Abigail Thomas has 4 children, 12 grandchildren, 2 great grandchildren, 8 books, and a high school education. She has written three works of fiction, four memoirs, three children's books, a little book of poems, and a book about writing memoir. Her most recent book is the memoir Still Life At Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing. She lives in Woodstock with her two dogs.
Connect with Abigail Thomas:
Website: https://www.abigailthomas.net
Books: https://www.abigailthomas.net/books/
--
Care/of: Get 50% off your first order when you use promo code "Memoir50"
--
Ronit’s writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, 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 both the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards and 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 was named winner of Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and Finalist in the 2023 Page Turner Awards. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
Tuesday Aug 29, 2023
Season 3 is almost here with fresh interviews on voice, finding structures that work, revision tools, the ethics and legalities of writing about others, what it’s like to move from other creative disciplines to memoir, advocating for our work, and lots more. Season 3 of Let’s Talk Memoir will launch Tuesday, September 5th, and new episodes will come out weekly through Spring 2024.
You can find additional Let’s Talk Memoir resources @RonitPlank on Instagram, Threads, X, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
And if you know a writer or memoir aficionado who would appreciate this podcast, share away! You can also rate and review Let’s Talk Memoir on your favorite podcast so other memoir lovers can find the show. Thank you for being a listener!
--
Ronit’s writing has been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, 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 both the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards and 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 was named winner of Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and Finalist in the 2023 Page Turner Awards. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she is at work on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday May 30, 2023
Tuesday May 30, 2023
In this episode of Let’s Talk Memoir, reflections on a few most-asked memoir questions, information on Season 3, and where to find Let’s Talk Memoir writing resources and updates while the show is on Summer hiatus. Thank you to Season 2’s generous guests for your insight and clarity, and to the listeners who make this show so rewarding to make. Grateful for your incredible support!
Links to memoir-writing articles mentioned in this episode: https://ronitplank.com/published-works/
--
Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/
Connect with Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo: Canva
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Reed Harkness joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about a mother who goes missing, intergenerational trauma, moving into discomfort in service of truth-telling, what’s ours to tell, masculinity and brotherhood, the hero’s journey as a template for story arc, and what he’s learned about vulnerability from documenting 25 years of his family’s story in his new deeply personal film Sam Now.
Also in this episode:
-blended families
-sibling language
-when our work takes on a life of its own
Books mentioned in this episode:
An Abbreviated Life by Ariel Leve
Reed attended film school in his backyard and garage. At age 18, he began making a series of short films starring his younger brother Sam. This was the beginning of a project two decades in the making: Sam Now, a coming-of-age film that follows his brother from age 11 to 36. The film was selected by ITVS Open Call and is now in post-production. Reed previously directed the award-winning 30-minute documentary Forest on Fire about the 2017 wildfire in the Columbia River Gorge started by a teen who threw a lit firecracker off a hiking trail–stranding more than 150 hikers–and how, much like wildfire, a news story can spin out of control. He created House on Fire for Topic Studios, a series of short documentaries where people are given the spontaneous prompt that their house is on fire and told they have only two minutes to save just one thing. Reed recently participated in Gotham Week’s Project Market: Spotlight On Documentaries and was selected as a Film Independent Fellow. He was also awarded the Oregon Media Fellowship for 2021.
Connect with Sam:
Website: https://samnowmovie.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samnowmovie/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/samnowmovie
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SamNowMovie/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@samnowmovie
--
Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/
Connect with Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo: Canva
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday May 16, 2023
Tuesday May 16, 2023
Gayle Brandeis joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing her mother to suicide and finding a way to write about it, her work across genres, leaning into what makes us unique on the page, trusting ourselves to discover what our work wants to become, why there is no better time to write than now, editing for connection with readers, the importance of play in our work, and her new collection Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss.
Also in this episode:
-speculative nonfiction
-organizing principles in essays
-choosing the right container for our work
Books mentioned in this episode:
Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses
A Constellation of Ghosts by Laraine Herring
We Were Witches by Ariel Gore
Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham
Gayle Brandeis is the author, most recently, of the essay collection Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss (Overcup Press). Earlier books include the memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis (Beacon Press), the novel in poems, Many Restless Concerns (Black Lawrence Press), shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award, the poetry collection The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press), the craft book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne) and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won the PEN/Bellwether Prize, Self Storage (Ballantine), Delta Girls (Ballantine), and My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt BYR), chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin. Gayle's essays, poetry, and short fiction have been published in places such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, O (The Oprah Magazine), The Rumpus, Salon, and more, and have received numerous honors, including the Columbia Journal Nonfiction Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, Notable Essays in Best American Essays 2016, 2019, and 2020, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award and the 2018 Multi Genre Maverick Writer Award. She was named A Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine, and served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, with a focus on bringing writing workshops to underserved communities. She teaches in the MFA programs at Antioch University and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe.
Connect with Gayle:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gaylebrandeis
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gaylebrandeis/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gayle.brandeis
Website: www.gaylebrandeis.com
--
Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/
Connect with Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo: Canva
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Tuesday May 09, 2023
Tuesday May 09, 2023
Jennifer Lunden joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her experience with ME/CFS and her new braided memoir American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body's Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life, writing about trauma, the long-term effects of adverse childhood experiences on health, misogyny in medicine, using imagery to ground our readers, how she found the right publisher, and what it takes to be a working, published writer.
Also in this episode:
-capitalism and grind culture
-epigenetics
-destigmatizing ME/CFS and other autoimmune diseases
Books mentioned in this episode:
Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey
The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso
The Ladies Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramsey
Notes from No Man’s Land by Eula Biss
A Good Country: My LIfe in Twelve Towns and the Devastating Battle for a White America by Sofia Ali-Khan
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
Jennifer Lunden is the author of American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body's Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life. Her writing has been selected for a Pushcart Prize, listed as Notable in Best American Essays, and supported by grants from the Maine Arts Commission, the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her essays have been published in Creative Nonfiction, Orion, River Teeth, DIAGRAM, Longreads, and other journals. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hewnoaks Artist Residency, Hedgebrook, Monson Arts, and the Dora Maar House in the South of France, and was the 2016 recipient of the Bread Loaf - Rona Jaffe Foundation Scholarship in Nonfiction.
A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and former therapist, she provides individual and group supervision to other therapists and has also taught social work online for Simmons University and the University of New England. In 2012 she was named Maine’s Social Worker of the Year for her campaign to prevent cuts to Maine’s Medicaid program. She and her husband live in a little house in Portland, Maine, where they keep several backyard chickens, two cats, and some gloriously untamed gardens.
Connect with Jennifer:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.lunden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jleelunden/
Website: https://jenniferlunden.com/
Links for book purchase are on this page: https://jenniferlunden.com/american-breakdown/
--
Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer’s Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/
Connect with Ronit:
https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/
https://twitter.com/RonitPlank
https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank
Background photo: Canva
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers