Let’s Talk Memoir

62. When Memoir Brings Loved Ones Closer featuring Lena Lee

Lena Lee joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about unresolved grief and permission to acknowledge our losses, sibling relationships over time, how memoir can bring us closer to loved ones, emotional distance in our narratives, taking care of ourselves when writing, and her memoir Girl Uprooted.
 
Also in this episode: 
-writing into vulnerability 
-paternal estrangement 
-connecting the dots in out stories
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Crying in the H Mart by Rachel Zauner
Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park
A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi
 
Lena Lee was born in South Korea but grew up moving countries every three years. As a Third Culture Kid, she has lived in Seoul, Paris, Oslo, Kuala Lumpur and New Jersey. After studying Human Sciences at Oxford University, Lena has been working in finance. Girl Uprooted is her first book. She lives in London, a place she now calls home(ish).
 
Connect with Lena
Website: thelenalee.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelenalee
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelenalee
Get Girl Uprooted: https://mybook.to/girluprooted
–
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

61. A Diagnosis, the Toll of Shame, and a Life of Service featuring Martina Clark

Martina Clark joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her personal journey with HIV, the toll shame can take, the difference each of us can make, writing a braided memoir, staying a step ahead of the reader, keeping the material that matters, and her memoir My Unexpected Life.
 
Also in this episode:
-getting everything onto the page 
-surviving two dangerous viruses
-living a life of service
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Iluo
You Don’t Look Like Anyone by Heather Sellers
Madman in the Woods by Jamie Gehring
Hell and Other Destinations by Madeline Albright
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall
Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams
Martina Clark (mar-tee-nah clah-rk), she/her, is the author of My Unexpected Life: An International Memoir of Two Pandemics, HIV and COVID-19. She worked for more than 20 years for the United Nations system and now teaches writing and critical reading for CUNY. She’s been living with HIV for more than half her life – 30 years and counting – and survived COVID-19 in 2020. Martina has traveled to more than 90 countries and conducted condom demonstrations in at least 50 of them. She's traveled by boat, bus, and plane, but never by elephant or camel. My Unexpected Life is her first book.
 
Connect with Martina:
Website: martina-clark.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MartinaClarkWriter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartinaClarkWriter
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@martinaclarkwriter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartinaClarkPen
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martina-clark-2735719/
 
–
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

60. Confronting and Capturing the Complexity of Our Parents on the Page featuring Priscilla Gilman

Priscilla Gilman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about parentification and hypervigilance in children, toggling between the child character and adult narrator, confronting and capturing the complexity of parents on the page, negotiating our inner critic, and her new memoir The Critic’s Daughter.  
 
Also in this episode:
-writing about close family members
-good writing is rewriting
-negotiating feedback and reviews
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Faith, Sex, Mystery by Richard Gilman
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
 
Priscilla Gilman is the author of two memoirs, The Anti-Romantic Child (Harper, 2011) and The Critic’s Daughter(Norton, 2023) and a former professor of English literature at Yale University and Vassar College. The Anti-Romantic Child received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, was selected as one the Best Books of 2011 by the Leonard Lopate Show and The Chicago Tribune, and was one of five nominees for a Books for a Better Life Award for Best First Book. Nick Hornby called The Critic’s Daughter “beautiful: honest, raw, careful, soulful, brave and incredibly readable," and Kiese Laymon declared: “The Critic’s Daughter is an exquisite and rare example of how the memoir needs as much inventiveness in scope and form as our most lush fiction and poetry…I’ve read few books in my life as skillfully executed and willfully conceived as The Critic’s Daughter.” Gilman’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Slate, REAL SIMPLE, the Washington Post, O, the Oprah Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City.
 
Connect with Priscilla:
Website: www.priscillagilman.com
X: www.twitter.com/priscillagilman
Facebook: www.facebook.com/priscillagilmanauthor
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/priscilla.gilman/
 
–
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

59. Marketing Your Memoir, Preparing for Book Launch, & Going Viral featuring Laura Carney

Laura Carney joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about pluck, endurance, and being the biggest advocate for your book, writing about unresolved grief, what to do to reclaim memory, the truth about marketing your memoir including pitching early, befriending reporters, and building community, how to engage on social media, preparing for your book launch, and her new memoir My Father’s List. 
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
 
Also in this episode:
-transforming trauma
-making a person’s death part of our story
-letting go of the book
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Turning Pro by  Steven Pressfield
Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates
Running Home by Katie Arnold
 
Laura Carney is a writer and copy editor in New York. She's been published by the Washington Post, the Associated Press, The Hill, Runner's World, People magazine, Guideposts, Good Housekeeping, The Fix, Upworthy, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper and other places, and her book My Father’s List: How Living My Dad’s Dreams Set Me Free is being published by Post Hill Press in June 2023. Her work as a copy editor has been primarily in magazines, for 20 years, including Good Housekeeping, People, Guideposts, Vanity Fair, and GQ.  My Father's List is Laura's story about completing the 54-item bucket list of her late father, who was killed in a car crash when she was 25, in six years.
Connect with Laura:
Website: bylauracarney.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myfatherslist
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myfatherslist
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lac30
–
Ronit’s writing has appeared 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 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 lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches memoir workshops and 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 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
 

58. Choosing The Scenes That Stay featuring Leslie Ferguson

Leslie Ferguson joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about surviving childhood trauma and her mother’s psychosis, approaching her manuscript through an editorial lens, the toll of insecure attachment, how writing the story that forged her helped her shed some of the pain she carried, and her approach to choosing scenes that stayed in her memoir When I Was Her Daughter.
 
Also in this episode:
-the toll of abandonment 
-EMDR therapy
-Reparenting the self
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Grand by Sarah Schaefer 
Blackout by Sarah Hepola
Love Sick  by Sue William Silverman
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert 
Leslie Ferguson enjoyed a career as a high school English teacher and college writing instructor for two decades before relocating to San Diego to pursue work in the publishing industry. She holds an MFA in creative writing and an MA in English literature from Chapman University. Currently, Leslie sits on the Board of Directors of the International Memoir Writers Association, and she loves performing original stories and poems, which often center on hope and the consequences of trauma. As an editor and book doctor, one of Leslie’s passions is helping other writers tell their own stories with courage and emotional honesty. Her multi-award-winning debut memoir, When I Was Her Daughter, tells her story of madness, loss, and survival as a foster kid in the 1980s. 
 
Connect with Leslie:
Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/leslie.ferguson.42/
Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Lesliefergusonauthor/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moreleslief/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-ferguson-221a1890/
Website: LeslieFergusonAuthor.com
Buy When I Was Her Daughter:
Amazon :https://amzn.to/3SphWmY
https://www.amazon.com/When-I-Was-Her-Daughter/dp/195211277X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=when+i+was+her+daughter&qid=1638573773&sr=8-1
Barnes and noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-i-was-her-daughter-leslie-ferguson/1140422898?ean=9781952112775
Applebooks: 
https://books.apple.com/us/book/when-i-was-her-daughter/id1592175515
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/when-i-was-her-daughter
BOOKSHOP.ORG: https://bookshop.org/books/when-i-was-her-daughter/9781952112782
Warwick’s: https://www.warwicks.com/book/9781952112775
Diesel books: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/book/9781952112775
 
–
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

57. Writing About Mother-Daughter Relationships featuring Adiba Nelson

Adiba Nelson joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about putting humor in our work, the importance of voice, not worrying what people think, writing about mother-daughter relationships, raising teenagers, when you feel like you have nothing left, emotional labor and choosing when to educate others about her daughter’s disability, being a multi-genre writer, MFA programs, and her memoir Ain't That a Mother.
 
Also in this episode:
-Child loss
-Imposter syndrome
-Finding hope
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
 
Adiba Nelson is the author of Ain’t That A Mother; the memoir that Essence, Bustle, Ms. magazine and Shondaland all hailed as a “must read”, and subject of the Emmy winning documentary, The Full Nelson. She is also a disability rights activist, Executive Producer and Creative Consultant on the tv series based on her memoir (currently in development), a freelance journalist, semi-retired burlesque performer and very tired mom!
In 2013 she self-published her first children’s book Meet ClaraBelle Blue after not being able to find a book that adequately and appropriately represented her daughter (disabled, Black). Since then Adiba has led numerous workshops and given keynote addresses around the country for parents and educators focusing on DEIA from a disability perspective.
 
In 2017 Adiba delivered her TEDx talk (Skating Downhill: The Art of Claiming Your Life) to a sold out crowd, and has since joined the NPR affiliate Arizona Public Media as a regular contributor on Arizona Spotlight, and was a featured speaker at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her children’s book, “Oshun & Me” (MacMillan/Feiwel & Friends) will be available Winter 2024, and her next book, “Hazel’s Best Day!” will be available Winter 2026.
 
Connect with Adiba:
Website: www.thefullnelson.net
Instagram: www.instagram.com/adibanelson
Twitter: www.twitter.com/adibanelson
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AdibaNelsonWriter
Ain't That A Mother: https://www.amazon.com/Aint-That-Mother-Postpartum-Everything/dp/B0BMKG3M9M/ref=zg_bsnr_271583011_sccl_5/135-8794494-4325615?psc=1
 
–
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

56. Memoir in Miniature featuring Jennifer Lang

Jennifer Lang joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about compressing prose and chopping manuscripts, leaning into the experimental, distilling material, staying nimble-minded, her husband and her becoming characters on the page, founding Israel Writers Studio, and her new memoir Places We Left Behind. 
Also in this episode:
-remembering to play on the page
-the scarcity of poetry as guide
-searching for home
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly
Belonging by Nora Krug
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Devotion by Dani Shapiro
 
Connect with Jennifer:
Author website: https://israelwriterstudio.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/jennifer.f.lang.9/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/israelwriterstudio/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/jenlangwrites/
Good Reads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/142425302-places-we-left-behind
Classes: https://israelwriterstudio.com/classes/
 
–
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

55. The Witches of Pitches on Building Platform, Creative Querying, and Stalking Editors featuring Aileen Weintraub and Megan Margulies

The Witches of Pitches are Aileen Weintraub and Megan Margulies here to share their advice about slowing scenes down, remembering that dialogue gives your memoir depth and flavor, finding the other story in your story, creative querying, what building a platform can mean, the power in companion pieces, honing your pitch, and stalking editors.
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
Also in this episode:
-kvetch sessions
-writing as a business
-being patient
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
Bomb Shelter by Mary Laura Philpott
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Magie Smith
 
Aileen Weintraub and Megan Margulies have formed a partnership from the modern love story playbook of online writing sessions. They have workshopped numerous articles, essays, and book proposals, helping writers produce top-notch material and are the Witches of Pitches.
Aileen Weintraub is an award-winning author, journalist, and editor. She began her career as a copy editor and then as a developmental editor working for both children’s and adult publishing companies. As a freelance editor she has worked with clients to help develop their books, proposals, pitches, articles, and essays.
She has written for The Washington Post, BBC, Oprah Daily, Parents, NBC, Al Jazeera, AARP, Glamour, InStyle, and other publications.
Aileen is also the author of over fifty children’s books including the middle-grade social justice book WE GOT GAME! 35 Female Athletes Who Changed the World, which was honored as A Mighty Girl’s Best Book of the Year, and the best-selling Never Too Young: 50 Unstoppable Kids Who Made a Difference, a Parents’ Choice Award recipient.
Her latest book Knocked Down: A High-Risk Memoir, is about marriage, motherhood, and the risks we take. The Erma Bombeck Workshop named Aileen Humor Writer of the Month for Knocked Down and Publishers Weekly says, “…there’s beauty on every page.”
Aileen has also created a series on marketing and platform building in collaboration with Writers’ Digest. She lives in New York but her heart is in Seville. You can learn more at www.aileenweintraub.com.
 
Megan Margulies is an MFA recipient, memoirist, journalist, and a 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist for her book, My Captain America. Her essays and reported articles focus on motherhood and navigating life and healthcare as a woman. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Vogue Magazine, The Cut, Good Housekeeping, Elle Magazine, Parent’s Magazine, Oprah Daily, and more.
Before entering the world of journalism, Megan worked for almost ten years as an editorial assistant at Harvard University where she edited countless articles, profiles, and promotional materials for various departments and professors. It’s where she first fell in love with the Chicago Manual of Style.
She’s a native New Yorker, but splits her time between Boston and Vermont with her husband and two daughters. You can learn more at www.meganmargulies.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

54. The Truest Story You Can Tell featuring Jill Christman

Jill Christman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how our deepest stories can save our lives, approaching trauma-writing as a process of discovery, practical tips for working on difficult material, allowing ourselves as much time as our essays need, finding the truest truth in our work, her role as senior editor at River Teeth, and her new memoir in essays If This Were Fiction.
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
Also in this episode:
-how writing and publishing are not the same thing
-when authors flinch
-going really deep
 
Essay Daily article by Jill Christman http://www.essaydaily.org/2017/12/dec-22-jill-christman-on-essays-to-pry.html
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes
Childhood by Natalie Sarraute
All Over But the Shouting by Rick Bragg
The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
Cherry by Mary Karr
Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford
A Fish Growing Lungs  Alysia Sawchyn 
Hell If We Don’t Change Our Ways by Brittany Means
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward
The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken
Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen
Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Beth Nguyen
 
Jill Christman is the author of If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays (University of Nebraska Press, 2022) and two memoirs, Darkroom: A Family Exposure (winner of AWP Prize for CNF) and Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood. A 2020 NEA Literature Fellow and winner of the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize, she is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Ball State University, senior editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, and executive producer of the podcast Indelible: Campus Sexual Violence. 
 
Connect with Jill:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jill_christman
Website:  jillchristman.com
Writing sexual trauma: http://www.essaydaily.org/2018/12/dec-13-jill-christman-on-writing-sexual.html
Essays to pry open doors: http://www.essaydaily.org/2017/12/dec-22-jill-christman-on-essays-to-pry.html
 
–
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

53. Trusting Patterns Will Emerge featuring Kate Evans

Kate Evans joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being a bit of a wandering writer yet finding the patterns that can emerge from chaos, leaning into momentum while generating work, having her life partner as first reader, her traveling life, the writing retreat she is hosting in April 2024, and her new book Wanderland.
 
Also in this episode:
-incorporating spiritual teachings in our work
-using books as writing teachers
-having your partner as your first reader
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
My Life in France by Julia Child
Memoirs by Maya Angelou
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave by Frederick Douglas
The Land of Lost Borders by Kate Harris
Kate Evans is the author of eight books, including Call It Wonder: An Odyssey of Love, Sex, Spirit & Travel, winner of the Bisexual Book Award for Best Memoir, which is the prequel to Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life. Her essays, stories, and poems have appeared widely in such publications as HuffPost, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, Zyzzyva, and Santa Monica Review. A recipient of a PhD in Education from the University of Washington, she also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Jose State University, where she is Emeritus Faculty. She lives half the year in Mexico and the other half she travels.  www.kateevanswriter.com 
 
Connect with Kate:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateEvansWriter
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katenomadicwriter/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateevansauthor/
Website:  www.kateevanswriter.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