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 Mar 22, 2022
Tuesday Mar 22, 2022
Christie Tate joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the ethics of writing about groups therapy and ex-boyfriends, navigating writing anxiety, becoming a full-time writer, and why she never leaves a page blank.
Also in this episode:
-networking with other writers
-sex scenes
-what it’s like to be picked for Reese Witherspoon’s book club
Memoirs mentioned in this episode:
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch
Love and Trouble by Claire Dederer
Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
BIOGRAPHY: Christie Tate is a writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Carve Magazine, Cutbank, The New Ohio Review, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Her debut memoir, Group-- How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life, was published in October 2020 and was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.
Connect with Christie:
https://christietate.com/
https://www.instagram.com/christieotate/
Ronit’s essays 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 Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
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 Mar 15, 2022
Tuesday Mar 15, 2022
Jeannine Ouellette joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the power of literary constraints, why the how can be just as important as the what, writing about childhood sexual abuse, believing in your project when publishing gatekeepers don’t seem to, and why sad stories can make us happy,
Also in this episode:
-poetic technique
-mother wounds
-finding your voice
Memoirs/Books mentioned in this episode:
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Alison
Jeannine Ouellette’s memoir, The Part That Burns, was a 2021 Kirkus Best 100 Indie Book and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award, with starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. Her work appears widely in literary journals and anthologies, including Ms. Aligned: Women Writing About Men; Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives; and Passed On: Daughters Write About Father Loss, Lack, and Legacy. She teaches through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, The University of Minnesota, and Elephant Rock, a writing program she founded in 2012. She is working on her first novel.
Connect with Jeannine:
https://www.jeannineouellette.com
https://www.instagram.com/msjeannineouellette/
Essay on craft by Jeannine Ouellette in Cleaver:
Ronit’s essays 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 Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
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 Mar 15, 2022
Tuesday Mar 15, 2022
Debra Gwartney joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the difference between character and narrator in memoir, navigating writing about loved ones, why memoirists need to hold their own feet to the fire, and what question every memoir asks.
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
Also in this episode:
-memoir and essay recommendations
-craft book suggestions
-tips for avoiding common pitfalls when writing memoir
Memoirs/Work mentioned in this episode:
The Sisters Antipodes by Jane Alison
The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster
Borrowed Finery by Paula Fox
Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick
To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopate
"The Fourth State of Matter" by Jo Ann Beard
"Thanksgiving in Mongolia" by Ariel Levy
Authors mentioned:
Melissa Febos, Eula Biss, Ann Carson, Claire Vaye Watkins, Ander Monson
Debra Gwartney is the author of two book-length memoirs, Live Through This, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and I Am a Stranger Here Myself, winner of the RiverTeeth Nonfiction Prize and the Willa Award for Nonfiction. Debra has published in such journals as Granta, The Sun, Tin House, American Scholar, The Normal School, Creative Nonfiction, Prairie Schooner, and others. She’s the 2018 winner of the Real Simple essay contest. She’s also a contributing editor at Poets & Writers magazine and received a Pushcart Prize in 2021 for her essay “Suffer Me to Pass,” from VQR.
Debra is co-editor, along with her husband Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She lives in Western Oregon.
Connect with Debra:
https://www.facebook.com/writerdebragwartney/
http://www.debragwartney.com
Ronit’s essays 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 Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
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 Mar 01, 2022
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
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, speaker, and memoirist Ronit Plank, each episode of this limited series highlights different aspects of the memoir writing experience, writing tips, and inspiration.
Ronit’s essays 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 BACKabout the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.
More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com
More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/
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