Let’s Talk Memoir

Understanding How to Let Go featuring Ann Batchelder

Ann Batchelder joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about using myth as a jumping point for interpreting ourselves, trusting intuition, the idea of mother failure, regret and letting go, addiction and recovery in loved ones, mental health stigma, deciding when to show loved ones the manuscript, and her memoir Craving Spring: A Mother’s Quest, a Daughter’s Depression, and the Greek Myth that Brought Them Together.
 
Also in this episode:
-how stories save us
-Alanon
-mother guilt
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Eating in the Light of the Moon by Dr. Anita  Johnston
Work by Pema Chodron
Work by Tara Brach
 
Ann Batchelder is the author of Craving Spring: A Mother’s Quest, a Daughter’s Depression, and the Greek Myth that Brought Them Together. She served as Editor of FIBERARTS Magazine, was guest curator for the Asheville Art Museum where she designed and developed three major contemporary art exhibitions featuring artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Ann Hamilton, Sally Mann, Maya Lin, and Laurie Anderson, and was Director of Special Events for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ann earned an MSW in psychotherapy and is the mother of two adult children. 
Connect with Ann:
Website: https://www.annbatchelder.com
Facebook: https://facebook.com/ann.batchelder.9
Instagram: https://instagram.com/annbatchelder  
 
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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

The Very Good News About Publishing featuring Brooke Warner

Brooke Warner joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about nontraditional publishing, the massive sea change we’re seeing in memoir, how for authors visibility and marketing work is never done, protecting our memoir worlds, accountability groups, what all memoirs require, the genesis of She Writes Press, balancing her multiple roles, the project she is working on now and the many resources she offers memoirists.
 
Also in this episode:
-when creativity merges with our working life
-carving out time to write
-Substack and content-creation
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Heavy by Kiese Laymon
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith
 
Brooke Warner is publisher of She Writes Press and SparkPress, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and author of Write On, Sisters!, Green-light Your Book, What’s Your Book?, and three books on memoir. Brooke is a TEDx speaker and the former Executive Editor of Seal Press. She’s the current Board Chair of the Bay Area Book Festival, and sits on the Board of the National Association of Memoir Writers. She writes a weekly Substack newsletter @brookewarner, and a regular column for Publishers Weekly.
 
Connect with Brooke:
Website: www.brookewarner.com
She Writes Press: www.shewritespress.com
SparkPress: https://gosparkpress.com
 
Brooke’s memoir courses:
www.writeyourmemoirinsixmonths.com
www.magicofmemoir.com
 
About Ronit
Subscribe to Ronit's Memoir Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank?utm_source=profile-page
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

Following Creative Hunches and the Magic of Revision featuring Joni B. Cole

Joni B. Cole joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about following our creative hunches, what to look for in workshop groups and writing teachers, the power of positive reinforcement, the magic of revision, the right to tell our stories, her approach to teaching, the writer’s center she founded in White River Junction, Vermont and her new book of essays Party Like It’s 2044: Finding the Funny in Life and Death.
 
Also in this episode:
-connecting with other writers
-checking in on our expectations
-celebrating ourselves
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Growing Up by Russell Baker
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty 
Spare by Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
Shrill by Lindy West
 
Joni B. Cole is the author of seven books, including the new release "Party Like It’s 2044: Finding the Funny in Life and Death," and two acclaimed writing guides: "Good Naked: How to Write More, Write Better, and Be Happier" (listed as a “Best Books for Writers” by Poets & Writers magazine) and "Toxic Feedback: Helping Writers Survive and Thrive" ("I can't imagine a better guide to writing's rewards and perils than this fine book,” American Book Review). For over twenty-five years she has taught creative writing to adults through her own writer’s center in White River Junction, Vermont, through the Dartmouth Writer’s Society, and at a diversity of academic and nonprofit programs across the country. She is a contributor to The Writer magazine and Jane Friedman blog, and hosts the podcast “Author, Can I Ask You?” 
 
Connect with Joni:
Website: www.jonibcole.com
The Writer’s Center of WRJ: www.thewriterscenterwrj.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joni.b.colewriter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joni.cole.9
 
—
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

How to Capture a Feeling: the Specific and Particular featuring Jane Wong

Jane Wong joins Let’s Talk memoir for a conversation about the challenge of reflection in memoir, writing that teems with the specific and particular, capturing the experience of being a chinese american woman on the page, writing about exes and domestic violence, keeping ourselves safe while creating, constellations in our lives, avoiding sentimentality, and her new memoir which she calls a love song to her mother, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City.
Also in this episode:
-how she’s never funny in poems
-the super secret Jane Wong’s been keeping
-finding your people
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow
Tastes like War by Grace M. Cho
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
The Grave on the Wall by Brandon Shimoda 
Jane Wong is the author of the debut memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City, out now from Tin House (2023). She is also the author of two books of poetry: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything from Alice James (2021) and Overpour from Action Books (2016). 
 
She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Western Washington University. Her poems can be found in places such as Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, Best American Poetry 2015, The New York Times, American Poetry Review, POETRY, The Kenyon Review, New England Review, and others. Her essays have appeared in places such as McSweeney's, Black Warrior Review, Ecotone, The Common, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, and Want: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult).
 
A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from the U.S. Fulbright Program, Artist Trust, Harvard’s Woodberry Poetry Room, 4Culture, the Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Loaf, Hedgebrook, Willapa Bay, the Jentel Foundation, UCross, Mineral School, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Loghaven, and others. She grew up in a Chinese American restaurant on the Jersey shore and lives in Seattle.
 
Connect with Jane:
Website: https://janewongwriter.com/
Get Jane’s Book: https://tinhouse.com/book/meet-me-tonight-in-atlantic-city/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paradeofcats
 
—
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

Working with Developmental Editors and Book and Proposal Coaches featuring Lisa Niver

Lisa Niver joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about disagreeing and then agreeing with your agent, her career in travel, accountability groups, working with developmental editors and book and proposal coaches, divorce, all the non-writerly jobs being a published memoirist requires, and her new book Brave-ish: One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty.
 
Also in this episode:
-taking time to rest
-switching where our memoirs begin
-asking for help
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Getting Stones with the Savages by Maarten Troost
The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
Super Survivors by David B, Feldman and  Lee Daniel Kravetz
Group by Christie Tate
BFF by Christie Tate
Maybe You Should Talk With Someone by Lori Gottlieb
 
Lisa Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries on six continents. This University of Pennsylvania graduate sailed across the seas for seven years with Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Renaissance Cruises and spent three years backpacking across Asia. Discover her articles in publications from AARP: The Magazine and AAA Explorer to WIRED and Wharton Magazine, as well as her site WeSaidGoTravel.
 
On her award nominated global podcast, Make Your Own Map, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors, and as a journalist has been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty-two times.
 
Named a #3 travel influencer for 2023, Niver talks travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, her YouTube channel with over 2 million views, and in her memoir, Brave-ish, One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty.
 
Connect with Lisa:
Website: https://lisaniver.com/braveish/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lisaniver
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lisaniver
Twitter: https://twitter.com/lisaniver
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lisa.niver
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/wesaidgotravel/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaellenniver/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LisaNiver
We Said Go Travel: http://wesaidgotravel.com/
Lisa’s Series of articles:
Navigating Book Promotion: Expert Tips from PR Pros
https://www.wesaidgotravel.com/book-promotion/
Unlocking Book Promotion Success: Insider Strategies from PR Experts (Part 2)
https://www.wesaidgotravel.com/book-promotion-2/
Mastering Book Promotion Strategies: Proven Insights from PR Experts (Part 3)
https://www.wesaidgotravel.com/book-promotion-3/
 
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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

Depicting Complex Relationships and Calibrating Metaphor in Memoir featuring Rosa Lowinger

Rosa Lowinger joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up in Cuba, her storied career in art restoration, taking a closer look at the complicated and evolving relationship she’s had with her mother, sending manuscripts to family and exes before they go to press, protecting loved ones in our work, how much metaphor is too much, and her new memoir Dwell Time.
 
Also in this episode:
-finding community
-working with book coaches
-approaching writing like a job
Books mentioned in this episode:
Educated by Tara Westover
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangelo
Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart
The Year of Magical Thinking by Jon Didion
H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald
Liar by Rob Roberge
The Distance Between Us by Rayna Grande
Avid Reader by Robert Gottlieb
When She Comes Back by Ronit Plank
 
Rosa Lowinger is a Cuban-born American art conservator and founder of RLA Conservation of
Art + Architecture, LLC. (www.rlaconservation.com), the U.S.’s largest woman-owned materials
conservation practice. She is also a published author, most well-known for Tropicana Nights:
The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub (Harcourt, 2005), a book on Havana’s
pre-Castro nightclub era. Other fictional works by Rosa include The Encanto File, a play produced off-Broadway by the Women’s Project and Productions and published in Rowing to America and Sixteen Other Short Plays, edited by Julia Miles (Smith & Kraus, 2002), and The Empress of the Waves, a short story published in the anthology Island in the Light/Isla en la Luz (Trapublishing, 2019).
 
Rosa’s academic and professional distinctions include the 2008-09 Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, where she researched the history of vandalism, graffiti, and street art; and Fellow status in the American Institute for Conservation and the Association for Preservation Technology. She holds an M.A. in Art History and Conservation from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, lectures regularly at numerous universities around the country, and serves on the boards of the Amigos of the Cuban Heritage Collection at University of Miami, Florida Association of Museums, the Partnership for Sacred Places, and the Florida Association of Public Art Professionals. Rosa co-curated the exhibits Promising Paradise: Cuban Allure American Seduction (Wolfsonian Museum, 2016) and Concrete Paradise: Miami Marine Stadium (Coral Gables Museum, 2013). She writes regularly for academic and popular media about conservation, the arts, and Cuba. Her 1999 cover story on Havana for Preservation spawned a career in cultural travel that has taken her to Cuba over 100 times since 1992. She lives in Los Angeles and Miami and is married to Todd Kessler.
 
Connect with Rosa:
Rosa’s Website:www.rosalowinger.com
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/rosa_Lowinger
RLA Conservation’s Website: www.rlaconservation.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rlaconservation
Purchase Dwell Time: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dwell-time-rosa-lowinger/1143192800
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dwell-Time/Rosa-Lowinger/9781955905275
 
—
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

Putting Child Loss into Words featuring Eileen Vorbach Collins

Eileen Vorbach Collins joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing her young daughter to suicide and the essays she wrote as she contended with her loss, the role of reflection, change, and growth in memoir, calling yourself a writer, finding your people, choosing what stays in essay collections and what goes, and her memoir Love in the Archives.
 
Also in this episode:
-bad writing groups
-titling our work
-finding homes for our essays in literary magazines
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Broken in the Best Possible Way by Jenny Lawson
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
 
Eileen Vorbach Collins writes true stories she wishes were fiction and fairy tales she wishes were true. Her essays have been widely published and received several prestigious awards. Two have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Eileen's essay collection, Love in the Archives: A Patchwork of True Stories About Suicide Loss, is forthcoming with Apprentice House Press in October. 
 
Connect with Eileen:
Website: https://www.eileenvorbachcollins.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EileenVorbachCollins/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evorbachcollins/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/evorbachcollins
—
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

The Leaving Season featuring Kelly McMasters

Kelly McMasters joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the elusiveness of “home”, creating space for our children in our art, questions as writing tools, letting go of what we thought our lives would be, falling in love with narcissists, the critical distance necessary to our work, writing about exes, landscape as a foil, and her memoir in essays The Leaving Season.
 
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
-Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle/mctvsv9MGvzDRn8D6
 
Help shape upcoming Let’s Talk Memoir content - a brief survey:  https://forms.gle/ueQVu8YyaHNKui2Z9
Also in this episode:
-stealing with intention
-curiosity and self-reflection in memoir
-approaching an essay
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
Dakota: A Spiritual Geography by Kathleen Norris
The Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray
Soil:The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden by Camille Dungy
Omega Farm by Martha Mcphee
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order by Joan Wickersham
History of Suicide: My Sister's Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky
 
 
Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop owner. She is the author of the Zibby Book Club pick The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays (WW Norton, 2023) and co-editor of the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult, 2023). Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, was listed as one of Oprah's top 5 summer memoirs and is the basis for the documentary film ‘The Atomic States of America,’ a 2012 Sundance selection, and the anthology she co-edited with Margot Kahn, This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press, 2017), was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Her essays, reviews, and articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post Magazine, The Paris Review, The American Scholar, River Teeth: A Journal of Narrative Nonfiction, Tin House, Newsday, and Time Out New York, among others. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia's School of the Arts and is the recipient of a Pushcart nomination and an Orion Book Award nomination. Kelly has spoken about creative nonfiction at TEDx, authors@google, and more, and has taught at mediabistro.com, Franklin & Marshall College, and in the undergraduate writing program and Journalism Graduate School at Columbia University, among others. She is currently an Associate Professor of English and Director of Publishing Studies at Hofstra University in NY. 
 
Connect with Kelly:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelly_mc_masters
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelly.mcmasters.3/
Website: www.kellymcmasters.com
 
—
About Ronit
Subscribe to Ronit's Memoir Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank?utm_source=profile-page
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

Memoir on Stage featuring Jamie Brickhouse

Jamie Brickhouse joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about writing and teaching memoir, performing and telling stories, alcoholism and life as a sober artist, being a 5-time Moth StorySLAM winner, his Texas tornado of a mother, why we don't need good a memory to write a memoir, and his memoir Dangerous When Wet.
 
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
-Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle/mctvsv9MGvzDRn8D6
Help shape upcoming Let’s Talk Memoir content - a brief survey:  https://forms.gle/ueQVu8YyaHNKui2Z9
 
Also in this episode: 
-why we share stories
-the generosity of wondering
-what all memoirs are ultimately about
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr
Cherry by Mary Karr
Lit by Mary Karr
Before Night Falls by Reinaldo Arenas
The Night of the Gun by David Carr
The Situation and the Story by VIvian Gornick
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing About Grief and Loss  by Jessica Handler
 
Called a natural raconteur by the Washington Post, Jamie Brickhouse is a writer, comedic storyteller, TikTok sensation, podcast host, and public speaker. He’s the author of the critically acclaimed Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze Sex and My Mother (St. Martin's Press). It’s “Required Reading” in Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir; an Amazon Editors’ Pick (Biographies & Memoirs), an Amazon “Best Book of May 2015,” and a Book Chase “2015 Nonfiction Top 10.” His essays and articles have been published in the New York Times (multiple times), International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Salon, Interview, Out, Huffington Post, POZ, Amtrak’s Arrive, Lambda Literary Review, Publishers Weekly, and Shelf Awareness. His recent HuffPost Personal essay, adapted from his memoir in progress, I Favor My Daddy: A Tale of Two Sissies, has over 500,000 views, and Merriam-Webster featured a sentence from the piece in its “Word of the Day” as a perfect usage example of the word effulgence. 
Brickhouse’s daily TikTok #storiesinheels videos in which he tells a true story have over 5 million views, nearly a million likes, and over 75,000 followers. He is the host of the weekly podcast, Sober Podcast, part of Sober Network, and is an award-winning storyteller who tours two solo shows based on his memoirs, Dangerous When Wet and I Favor My Daddy.
Brickhouse has taught memoir, personal essay, creativity, and book marketing at the Columbia Publishing Course (17 years), San Miguel Writers’ Conference (San Miguel de Allende, Mexico), HippoCamp: A Conference for Creative Nonfiction, Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference, the Northern California Writers’ StoryTellers Conference & Expo, and Cape Cod Writers’ Conference. 
Connect with Jamie:
Website: https://www.jamiebrickhouse.com/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jamie_brickhouse 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamiebrickhouse
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JamieBrickhouseRedBrickAgency
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jamiebrickhouse
Dangerous When Wet: A Memoir of Booze, Sex, and My Mother Ebook & audiobook read by the author: https://amzn.to/2YxvMNl 
 
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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

Saying Goodbye and Why We Write About the Hard Things featuring Morgan Baker

Morgan Baker joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about motherhood and identity, giving back to ourselves and creating boundaries, confronting depression, worrying about our memoir’s structure later, juggling our jobs as writers, why we write about hard things, and her new memoir Emptying the Nest.
-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir
-Take the Let's Talk Memoir survey: https://forms.gle/mctvsv9MGvzDRn8D6
Help shape upcoming Let’s Talk Memoir content - a brief survey:  https://forms.gle/ueQVu8YyaHNKui2Z9
 
Also in this episode:
-perceiving ourselves in new ways
-the gifts of teaching 
-letting go
 
Books mentioned in this episode:
A Three Dog Life by Abigail Thomas
Growing Up by Russell Baker
By the Iowa Sea by Joe Blair
In Love by Amy Bloom
The Suicide Index byJoan Wickersham
How to Make a Slave by Jerald Walker
Surviving the White Gaze by Rebecca Carroll
 
Morgan Baker is an award-winning writer and professor at Emerson College. Her work is featured in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The Brevity Blog, Talking Writing, The Boston Parents’ Paper, The Martha’s Vineyard Times, The Bark, Modern Dog, Cognoscenti, and Hippocampus, among many regional and national publications. She is managing editor of The Bucket. She is the mother of two adult daughters and lives with her husband and two dogs in Cambridge, where she also quilts and bakes. Visit her at bymorganbaker.com.
 
Connect with Morgan:
Website: https://www.bymorganbaker.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mmorgbb
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/morgan.baker.737/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-baker-01446aa/
Get her book here: https://www.ten16press.com/shop 
Write Your Way with Morgan will be starting two 8-week workshops
 
—
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