Sarah Birnbach joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about grief and the wished-for mother, how Jewish prayer anchored her as she mourned the father she adored, birth order and responsibility, how spirituality has shaped her, deciding how much to share about her painful relationship with her mother, and publishing her memoir A Daughter’s Kaddish later in life.

Also in this episode:

-not throwing those we have conflict with under the bus

-feminism in Judaism

-community as a balm for grief

Memoirs mentioned in this episode:

The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl

The Tender Bar by J. R. Moehringer

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

Sarah Birnbach spent 35 years as a human resource management consultant helping organizations to achieve peak performance, and was a sought-after speaker at conferences across multiple industries. As a licensed clinical social worker, she worked as a family therapist in a juvenile and domestic relations court, and became a certified journal facilitator in 2010.

In her “encore career” as a writer and author, Sarah is a six-time award winner in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition, and her articles have appeared in numerous literary magazines and journals, as well as the Washington Jewish Week and the Jerusalem Post. Her memoir, A Daughter’s Kaddish, follows her journey through the year after her father’s death.

She lives outside Washington, D.C. with her husband and enjoys traveling and being Grandma to her seven grandchildren.  

Connect with Sarah:

Website: www.sarahbirnbach.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarah_birnbach

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SarahBirnbachWriterAuthor/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahsheilabirnbach/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarah.birnbach/

–

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