Gayle Brandeis joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing her mother to suicide and finding a way to write about it, her work across genres, leaning into what makes us unique on the page, trusting ourselves to discover what our work wants to become, why there is no better time to write than now, editing for connection with readers, the importance of play in our work, and her new collection Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss.

Also in this episode:

-speculative nonfiction 

-organizing principles in essays

-choosing the right container for our work

Books mentioned in this episode:

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

A Constellation of Ghosts by Laraine Herring

We Were Witches by Ariel Gore

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham

Gayle Brandeis is the author, most recently, of the essay collection Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss (Overcup Press). Earlier books include the memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis (Beacon Press), the novel in poems, Many Restless Concerns (Black Lawrence Press), shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award, the poetry collection The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press), the craft book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne) and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won the PEN/Bellwether Prize, Self Storage (Ballantine), Delta Girls (Ballantine), and My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt BYR), chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin. Gayle's essays, poetry, and short fiction have been published in places such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, O (The Oprah Magazine), The Rumpus, Salon, and more, and have received numerous honors, including the Columbia Journal Nonfiction Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, Notable Essays in Best American Essays 2016, 2019, and 2020, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award and the 2018 Multi Genre Maverick Writer Award. She was named A Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine, and served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, with a focus on bringing writing workshops to underserved communities. She teaches in the MFA programs at Antioch University and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe.

Connect with Gayle:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gaylebrandeis

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gaylebrandeis/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gayle.brandeis

Website: www.gaylebrandeis.com

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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

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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