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/

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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

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