Dina Gachman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about ambiguous loss, taking risks on the page, writing about family, connecting with and pursuing editors, her approach to building bylines and writing book proposals, pushing past our fear of judgment in service of our stories, and her new memoir So Sorry for Your Loss.

Also in this episode:

-her work as a ghostwriter

-narrative reporting in memoir

-pushing past fear

Books mentioned in this episode:

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan

Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough

I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

Here For It by R. Eric Thomas

Dina Gachman is a Pulitzer Center Grantee, an award winning journalist, and a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Vox, Texas Monthly, Teen Vogue and more. She also writes a monthly movie column for The New York Times. She’s a bestselling ghostwriter, and her first book, BROKENOMICS, was published by Hachette/Seal Press. Her new book of essays about grief, SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, was published April 2023 by Union Square & Co.

She spent three years as head copywriter on Clio award winning content for UPROXX Studios.

She has appeared on ABC's 20/20, CBS We are Austin, Chicago’s WGN and Texas Standard. She’s written two comic books for Bluewater Comics, about legendary superheroes Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. She lives near Austin, Texas, with her husband and son.

Connect with Dina:

Website: https://www.dinagachmanwrites.com/

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

X: https://twitter.com/dinagachman

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dina-gachman-10abb018/

Get SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS: https://www.unionsquareandco.com/9781454947608/so-sorry-for-your-loss-by-dina-gachman/

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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

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Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers