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 Feb 28, 2023
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023
Suzanne Roberts joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the difficulty of being in a human body - especially a woman’s, the male gaze, deciding how to approach our work, writing about loss, grief, death, and desire, reading widely and deeply, being an employee to our art, and Animal Bodies, her memoir made of lyrical essays, narrative pieces, and prose poems.
Also in this episode:
-when the body becomes political
-how poetry has informed her work
-a tool to get yourself to write even material that you most fear sharing
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith
Guidebook to Relative Strangers by Camille Dungy
Soil: A Black Mother’s Garden by Camille Dungy
What You Have Heard is True by Carolyn Forché
The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Lying by Lauren Slater
Constellations: Reflections from Life by Sinead Gleeson
Drawing Breath by Gayle Brandeis
Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire by Clare Frank
The Abacus of Loss by Sholeh Wolpé
Trespass by Amy Irvine
Trailed by Kathryn Miles
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Suzanne Roberts is the author of the award-winning essay collection Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties (March 2022), the award-winning travel memoir in essays Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel (2020), and the memoir Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award), as well as four books of poems. Named "The Next Great Travel Writer" by National Geographic's Traveler, Suzanne's work has been listed as notable in Best American Essays and included in The Best Women's Travel Writing. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, The Normal School, River Teeth, and elsewhere. She holds a doctorate in literature and the environment from the University of Nevada-Reno, teaches in the low residency MFA program in creative writing at UNR-Tahoe, and splits her time between South Lake Tahoe, California and an old green van named Shrek.
Connect with Suzanne:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzanneroberts28/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/suzanne.roberts.798
Website: https://www.suzanneroberts.net/
Animal Bodies: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496231024/#:~:text=About%20the%20Book&text=In%20Animal%20Bodies%20Suzanne%20Roberts,taboo%20desires%20and%20our%20grief.
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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 Feb 21, 2023
Tuesday Feb 21, 2023
Felicia Thai Heath joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up on the run to help keep her father, a notorious Vietnamese kingpin, safe from capture, the power of dialogue to tell our stories, beginning scenes in the middle, orienting the reader in time and space, and making the decision to share the family history she once tried to hide.
Also in this episode:
-Crafting interludes to give readers a break
-Writing the most emotional scenes first
-Depicting fraught relationships
Books mentioned in this episode:
On Writing by Stephen King
The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas
Felicia Heath is a triple-board-certified critical care anesthesiologist, blogger, and debut author. She spent a month alone in a studio in the heart of Philadelphia to write the original manuscript of Spirit of a Hummingbird: Memories from a Childhood on the Run, just seventy-two hours after delivering her third child. This left her husband with their two-year-old, one-year-old, and newborn as she drank pinot noir and wrote for days on end. All of it was his idea, which is exactly why she tattooed his name across her shoulder and eloped with him on a South African safari six years ago. Felicia now lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and four children. She practices medicine as she anticipates a shift in the universe with the release of her memoir.
Connect with Felicia:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/felicia.heath.161
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latinforhappiness_md/
Website: https://www.mixedfeelingsmama.com
Find Spirit of a Hummingbird on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Hummingbird-Memories-Childhood-Run/dp/1632995700
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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 Feb 14, 2023
Tuesday Feb 14, 2023
Happy Valentine’s Day! In honor of artistic partnership, Vincent Paterson and Amy Tofte join Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation on their experience collaborating on their new book Icons and Instincts, Vincent’s experience working with Madonna, Robin Williams, and other stars, the 6-step process Amy relied on during the writing process, the fight against artistic erasure, and allowing manuscripts to tell us what they need to be.
Also in this episode:
-How all of what we do as artists informs our creativity
-Why time alone is essential
-Separating artists from their behavior
Books mentioned in this episode:
On Writing by Stephen King
Vincent Paterson is a world-renowned director and choreographer in film, theatre, Broadway, concert tours, opera, television, music videos and commercials. His iconic works include Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal and the famous “lean” as well as Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour. He directed the opera Manon with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, Cirque de Soleil’s VIVA! ELVIS and Berlin's first original production of CABARET—the longest running play in Berlin's history. Film choreographies include The Birdcage, Dancer in the Dark, Evita and Hook. He resides in California with his husband, Rene Lamontagne.
Amy Tofte is an award-winning writer and storyteller. She won a prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2015. She has been a regular contributor to the award-winning LA STAGE Times and other online publications with more than 100 feature articles profiling Emmy winners, Oscar- and Pulitzer-nominated writers as well as nationally recognized theater artists. Tofte’s critically acclaimed stage plays have been produced throughout the U.S., the U.K., Australia and at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. She lives in Los Angeles.
Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Icons-Instincts-Choreographing-Directing-Entertainments/dp/1644282631/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1L41A3TOO0J68&keywords=Vincent+paterson&qid=1659550841&sprefix=vincent+paterson%2Caps%2C245&sr=8-1
Connect with Vincent:
Website: http://www.vincentpaterson.com/www.vincentpaterson.com/HOME.html
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vincent.paterson.5
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vlpla/
Connect with Amy:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-tofte-1712334/
--
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 Feb 07, 2023
Tuesday Feb 07, 2023
Maria Giura joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about which stories define us, avoiding the self-pity trap, the importance of allowing the reader to make decisions about the characters in our memoir for themselves, how we frame childhood and family dynamics, writing about the very early versions of ourselves after we’ve changed so much, and what challenges she faced writing Celibate in which she explores her relationship with the priest she fell in love with and how that experience helped her discover the life she wanted to live.
Also in this episode:
-shutting out the voices that tell you not to share your story
-gaining the perspective our narratives need
-how The Church and her faith guide her
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
Limbo by A. Manette Ansay
The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo
Maria Giura is the author of Celibate: A Memoir, which won a First Place Independent Press Award, and What My Father Taught Me, which was a Paterson Poetry Book Prize finalist. Her writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in several journals including New York Quarterly, Prime Number, Vita Poetica, Presence, Italian Americana, Lips, and Tiferet. An Academy of American Poets winner, Giura has taught writing at multiple universities including Binghamton University where she received her PhD in English. She currently teaches memoir workshops for Casa Belvedere Cultural Foundation. Follow her on Instagram @marigiurawrites, on Fb and at mariagiura.com
Connect with Maria:
Website: mariagiura.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariagiurawrites/
Facebook:: facebook.com/maria.giura.3975/
Courses:
casa-belvedere.org/product/virtual-writing-workshop-writing-your-memories-gifts-given-and-received/
Purchase Maria’s book, Celibate:
amazon.com/gp/product/1627202145?pf_rd_r=CQE6RA5DTDTWKAJ82YT9&pf_rd_p=edaba0ee-c2fe-4124-9f5d-b31d6b1bfbee
barnesandnoble.com/w/celibate-maria-giura/1131505200?ean=9781627202145
shop.aer.io/apprenticehouse/p/Celibate_A_Memoir/9781627202145-4208?collection=/0
bookshop.org/books/celibate-a-memoir/9781627202145
–
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
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE: 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 Jan 31, 2023
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
Buick Audra joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her new album and companion memoir in essays Conversations with My Other Voice, the importance of protecting our work from judgment, being an abuse survivor, how she views regret, and the tool she used when deciding which details to share about others and which to leave out.
Also in this episode:
-why writing about the abuse she suffered does not retraumatize her
-how misogyny has impacted her art and career
-a closer look at why sharing our voice matters
Books mentioned in this episode:
To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine
The Part That Burns by Jeannine Ouellette
What Do We Need Men For by E. Jean Carroll
I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron
I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
Buick Audra is a Grammy-award-winning musician and writer living in Nashville, TN. She is the guitarist and primary songwriter and vocalist in the melodic heavy duo, Friendship Commanders. Her new album, Conversations with My Other Voice, was released on September 23rd, 2022. The album is accompanied by a memoir in essays by the same name.
Connect with Buick:
Website: https://www.buickaudra.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buickaudra/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buickaudramusic
Twitter: https://twitter.com/buickaudra
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs25KbPeA2MD8z3sTUTCMRw
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@buickaudra
Listen to Buick:
https://buickaudra.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/349pAReW5Ad2bzV5nnGxjO?si=Cl-UJarYRV2lR-2F7AgbAQ
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62698973-conversations-with-my-other-voice
Buy the album & book together:
https://buickaudra.bandcamp.com/album/conversations-with-my-other-voice
Buy the book:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/conversations-with-my-other-voice-buick-audra/1142389645?ean=9798218066574
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Conversations-My-Other-Voice/Buick-Audra/9798218066574?id=8650666689319
https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-My-Other-Voice-Essays/dp/B0BGSNTQTB/ref=sr_1_23
--
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
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE: 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 Jan 24, 2023
Tuesday Jan 24, 2023
Beth Kephart joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the crucial differences between a book of essays and a memoir in essays, choosing what to keep and what to cut, the gifts of nonlinear storytelling, the ethics of telling other people’s stories, allowing ourselves to find beauty in the seemingly ordinary, and her new craft book We Are the Words.
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
Also in this episode:
-Privacy in memoir
-Remaining open and vulnerable as writers
-Making meaning with experimental forms
Books mentioned in this episode:
Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas
The Circus Train by Judith Kitchen
An Earlier LIfe by Brenda Miller
Headcase: My Father, Alzheimer’s & Other Brainstorms by Alexis Orgera
Beth Kephart is the award-winning author of three-dozen books in multiple genres, an award-winning teacher, co-founder of Juncture Workshops, and a book artist. Her new books are Wife|Daughter|Self: A Memoir in Essays, We are the Words: The Master Memoir Class, and A Room of Your Own: A Story Inspired by Virginia Woolf's Famous Essay (with Julia Breckenreid, illustrator). She can be reached through bethkephartbooks.com, junctureworkshops.com, and her Etsy book shop, https://www.etsy.com/shop/BINDbyBIND
Connect with Beth Kephart:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beth.kephart
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BethKephart
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bethkephartnow/
Website: bethkephartbooks.com
Juncture Workshops: junctureworkshops.com
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BINDbyBIND
Beth Kephart’s next series of workshops can be found here: https://junctureworkshops.com/shop-4/#shop
We Are the Words can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/WE-ARE-WORDS-master-memoir/dp/B098K2JSBN/
–-
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
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE: 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 Jan 17, 2023
Tuesday Jan 17, 2023
Lori L. Tharps joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about why memoirs are not an indulgence, the importance of finding your memoir’s theme, deciding where your book should begin, having a writing life that feeds you and also keeps you fed, and systemic racism in the U.S. and how her Black and Spanish children were the impetus for her to uncover Spain’s hidden Black history and write her memoir Kinky Gazpacho.
Also in this episode:
-the multiple memoirs we have within us
-how memoirs are healing medicine
-the many ways to live a creative writing life
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
The Color of Water by James McBride
Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernadine Evaristo
Will by Will Smith
From Scratch by Tembi Locke
Lori L. Tharps is a journalist and author whose work lands at the intersection of race and popular culture. She is the author of three critically acclaimed non-fiction books that deal with race, culture and identity; Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (St. Martin’s), Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain (Atria), and her most recent, Same Family Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America’s Diverse Families (Beacon). Lori is also the author of the novel, Substitute Me (Atria),
A former associate professor of journalism at Temple University, Lori has won awards and accolades for her teaching in both academic and creative workshop settings. In addition to teaching at Temple, Tharps has also taught at numerous writing festivals and writing centers across the United States, including, Blue Stoop Philly and Gotham Writer’s Workshop.
In addition to her books, Lori’s work can be read in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence, Glamour, and Entertainment Weekly magazines. Originally from Wisconsin, Lori now makes her home in the south of Spain.
Connect with Lori:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loriltharps/
Website: https://www.readwriteandcreate.com/
Link for Kinky Gazpacho, her memoir: https://amzn.to/3yKPvb9
--
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
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/
More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE: 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 Jan 10, 2023
Tuesday Jan 10, 2023
Literary Citizen of the Year Allison K Williams joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the importance of plot, structure, and dramatic arc in memoir, the elements that make a story a story, insuring your memoir has a reader takeaway, what being in the circus taught her about writing, why she calls herself the unkind editor, and how she really feels about memoir.
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
Also in this episode:
-Allison’s editor origin story
-what being a “real” writer actually means
-tips for working with an editor
Books mentioned in this episode:
Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
To Hell by Dinty W. Moore
Broken in the Best Possible Way by Jenny Lawson
The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova
Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book. She has edited and coached writers to deals with Penguin Random House, Knopf, Mantle, Spencer Hill, St. Martin’s and independent presses. She’s guided essayists to publication in the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney’s and TED Talks. As Social Media Editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with blogs on craft and the writing life.
A former circus performer, Allison has written for NPR, CBC, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Creative Nonfiction, McSweeney’s, Kenyon Review Online and Travelers’ Tales. Her plays, including Mark Twain Award winner Hamlette and London Fringe Best of Fringe Winner TRUE STORY, have been produced worldwide.
Connect with Allison:
Twitter: twitter.com/guerillamemoir
Instagram: instagram.com/guerillamemoir
Website: www.allisonkwilliams.com
Linktree: www.linktree.com/guerillamemoir
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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
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
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 Jan 03, 2023
Tuesday Jan 03, 2023
Kathy Curto joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about accepting imperfection in our writing, the effect of time and distance in our work, finding beauty even in the painful, what she’s learned through teaching writing to a broad range of students, and her memoir in micro essays Not for Nothing: Glimpse into a Jersey Girlhood.
Also in this episode:
-the importance of a writing community no matter how small
-the potency of the flash form
-how voice is always changing
Books mentioned in this episode:
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz
The memoirs and poetry of Mary Karr
Kathy Curto teaches at Sarah Lawrence College/The Writing Institute, Montclair State University and The Writers Circle as well as several nonprofit organizations and community centers in the metropolitan area. She is the author of Not for Nothing-Glimpses into a Jersey Girlhood. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, on NPR, in the anthology Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now, and in Oh, Reader, Barrelhouse, The Mom Egg Review, Drift and Talking Writing, among others. Kathy pens a Write or Die Tribe biweekly column, Words on the Street, Revisited, where she explores everyday language and the writing practice. Her micro-memoir, “Still Cooking Side by Side” considered a “Modern Love in miniature” by The New York Times, was included in The Best of Tiny Love Stories in August 2021. Kathy lives with her family in the Hudson Valley. Please visit: www.kathycurto.com.
Connect with Kathy Curto:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kathy.curto/
Facebook: Kathy Curto-Writer https://www.facebook.com/kathy.curto26
Website: https://www.kathycurto.com/
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Ronit is a teacher and speaker whose essays, creative nonfiction, and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 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 short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2023. 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
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
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 Dec 27, 2022
Tuesday Dec 27, 2022
Celebrated author and memoir teacher Laura Davis joins Let’sTalk Memoir for a special holiday episode for a conversation about writing her memoir The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Story and how she reconciled with the mother who betrayed her and came to care for her in her final days. In this episode Laura also shares her tips for writing about traumatic experiences, where the boundaries are when writing about family experiences, and what all memoir writing needs.
Laura Davis is the author of The Burning Light of Two Stars, the riveting memoir about her tumultuous yet loving relationship with her mother, and six other non-fiction books, including The Courage to Heal, Allies in Healing, I Thought We‘d Never Speak Again, and Becoming the Parent You Want to Be. Her groundbreaking books have been translated into 11 languages and sold 1.8 million copies. In addition to writing books that inspire and change people’s lives, the work of Laura’s heart is to teach. For more than twenty years, she’s helped people find their voices, tell their stories, and hone their craft. Laura loves creating supportive, intimate writing communities online, in person, and internationally. You can learn about Laura’s books and workshops, read the first five chapters of her memoir, and receive a free ebook: Writing Through Courage: A 30-Day Practice at www.lauradavis.net.
For Let’s Talk Memoir Listeners, you can also read the opening chapters for free here: http://www.lauradavis.net/chapters
Direct links to buy The Burning Light of Two Stars:
Audiobook version of The Burning Light of Two Stars (Laura is the narrator):
On Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Burning-Light-of-Two-Stars-Audiobook/B09G8WJQP7
And on Libro.fm for independent stores: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781950144471
Independent Bookstores:
Get Signed Copies Through Bookshop Santa Cruz: https://www.bookshopsantacruz.com/burning-light-two-stars-get-it-signed
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/books/the-burning-light-of-two-stars-a-mother-daughter-story-9781954854161/9781954854161
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1954854161
Want to Order Internationally with Free Worldwide Delivery?
https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Burning-Light-of-Two-Stars-Laura-Davis/9781954854161
Attention Writers:
If you’re a writer or want to use writing as a tool for healing or self-discovery, you can learn about Laura’s online writing workshops and in-person domestic and international retreats here: www.lauradavis.net
And if you want to go on a magical creative vacation to Tuscany with Laura in June of 2022, check out some serious eye candy here!
Connect with Laura Davis:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewritersjourney
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurasaridavis/
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Ronit is a teacher and speaker whose essays, creative nonfiction, and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 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 short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2023. 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
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
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