Steve Almond joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the ambivalence memoirists often experience when writing about others, the story underneath the story we are telling, disrupting the negative feedback loop of writer’s block, dialing the ego down, questions of inner life, his contribution to Dear Sugars podcast, generosity and mercy in our work, performing versus storytelling, how our failures are actually are teachers, and his new book on writing, Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow.

Also in this episode:

-the contract we make with the reader

-the surrender involved in writing

-holding other people in our stories 

Books mentioned in this episode:

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway

Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Truth and Beauty by Anne Patchett

We Learn Nothing by Tim Kreider

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley

Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff

Pieces of My Mother by Melissa Cistero

Work by Nora Ephron and Joan Didion

Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books, including the NYT Bestsellers “Candyfreak” and “Against Football.” His novel, “All the Secrets of the World” has been optioned for TV by 20th Century Fox. His new book, “Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow” and his stories and essays have appeared in venues ranging from the New York Times Magazine to Best American Short Stories, Best American Mysteries, and Best American Erotica. He teaches at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism and lives outside Boston with his family.

Connect with Steve:

Website: www.stevealmondjoy.org

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steve.almond.33

Steve’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Truth-Arrow-Mercy-Bow-Construction/dp/1638931305

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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