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.

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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.

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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