Mimi Zieman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about thinking of ourselves as characters, hooking readers from the beginning, playing with structure, balancing our reflective narrator, trusting your reader and not overexplaining, the true self and the invisible self, when to listen to others and when to listen to ourselves, being the only woman on a historic climbing expedition, and her memoir Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure.

Also in this episode:

-growing up a child of Holocaust survivors

-pitching at live conferences

-having patience with ourselves

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick

Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Make a Scene by Jordan E. Rosenfeld

To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopate

Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book  by Allison K. Williams

Bird by Bird by Anne Lammot

Books by John Krakauer

Books by Joan Didion

Mimi Zieman MD is the author of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure, and The Post-Roe Monologues, a play that has been performed in multiple cities. A board-certified OB/GYN specialized in Complex Family Planning, she has also co-authored sixteen editions of Managing Contraception. Her writing has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Newsweek, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, NBC News THINK, The Forward, and other publications. She’s spoken nationally and internationally and has been interviewed by major media outlets. Ranking high on her list of favorite things are a good adventure, dancing, and a rich cup of coffee. 

Connect with Mimi:

Website: www.mimiziemanmd.com

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mimiziemanmd

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mimi-zieman-md-44ba68b/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mimiziemanmd 

Get Mimi’s Book:

Amazon: https://amzn.to/41sFEnB

Bookshop: https://bit.ly/3Rjk9kk

About Ronit

Subscribe to Ronit's Memoir Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank?utm_source=profile-page

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