Babes in Bookland

What if laughing at the funeral is the most honest thing you can do?

This week we sit down with Angela Nissel, the television writer behind Scrubs, The Boondocks and Mixed-ish, and author of The Broke Diaries, Mixed and her new memoir, Good Grief, Pass the Bread, Mom Is Dead. When her mother told her plainly that she had two months to live, Angela moved her to Los Angeles, secretly broke and between jobs, convinced a Hollywood doctor might have a secret cure. What followed was a crash course in mothering her mother, from changing diapers to finally asking her what would make her happy.

Angela tells us why she won't use the word "biracial," what a psychology study she took for $150 at Penn revealed about her depression, and how her mom's surprise romance with a "cartoon villain" made everything harder. We talk about canceling a dead parent's credit card with a chatbot, the expired orange juice that broke her, and the brother she fought and then found her way back to. She also shares the Christmas dinner that gave her book its title, why it took her fifteen years to write it, and the gratitude habit that changed her life.

Content note: this episode includes discussion of depression, suicidal thoughts and psychiatric hospitalization. If you're struggling, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the U.S.

Share this conversation with someone who's learning that grief can be funny too.

Books referenced:

Good Grief, Pass the Bread, Mom is Dead by Angela Nissel

The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel

Mixed by Angela Nissel

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Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What are you really hungry for?

This week we sit down with food writer Tarajia Morrell, author of Desire Feeds the Feast. Raised in a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment by a domestic goddess of a mother and a wine-store visionary father, Tarajia learned early that a meal is a chance for pleasure, whether it's a perfect bagel with whitefish salad or a slow-cooked cassoulet. She tells us how she found her way from struggling actress to food writer, why she never writes about a restaurant she doesn't love, and how co-writing with Top Chef's Fatima Ali in the last weeks of Fatima's life taught her to be braver and "take a bigger bite."

We also talk about writing a memoir in the very apartment she grew up in, now with her own daughter asleep in her childhood bedroom, and why her mother read every draft. Tarajia opens up about heartbreak, about chasing the wrong things, and about the moment she realized the one constant in all of it was herself. Plus, she gives us her current favorite New York restaurants, and we commiserate about raising picky eaters.

You can find Tarajia at tarajiamorrell.com and on Instagram at @tarajiamorrell, with a Substack coming soon.

"My failure to launch had held me back and eroded my self-esteem, but did being a grown-up mean shedding the assumption that we all cling to, in our privileged cities and first world countries, that life itself is more assured than not?" - "Desire Feeds the Feast" by Tarajia Morrell

Share this conversation with the friend you'd most want to split a bottle of wine with.

Books referenced:

Desire Feeds the Feast by Tarajia Morrell

Savor: A Chef's Hunger for More by Fatima Ali and Tarajia Morrell

Support the show:

Buy us a book

Buy cute merch

on Patreon

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on Substack

Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What really happens behind the closed doors of a secret society, and what would you risk to find out?

This Friday Fiction, we sit down with Michelle Maryk, author of The Found Object Society, and Karen Winn, author of The Society. They wrote two very different thrillers about secret societies before they had ever met, and their covers even match. Michelle tells us how an Etsy ad for a 1920s etched martini glass sparked the idea for a society where the ultrarich relive the final moments of the dead, and why she wrote a book called I Hate Tuna at eight years old. Karen shares how a docent's passing comment at the Boston Athenaeum sent her down a rabbit hole into the opium fortunes of Beacon Hill's Brahmin families, and how her years as an ICU nurse shaped Taylor, the ER nurse at the heart of her story.

We get into plotters versus pantsers (or "plantsers"), why Karen rewrote Taylor's ending after the book was already done, and why Michelle refuses to call Greta Davenport unlikable when a man with the same traits would simply be called complex. Karen tells us about the night a house fire pushed her to finally take time off nursing and write her debut, and both authors share the best writing advice they've ever received.

Share this conversation with the friend who would absolutely say yes to the Found Object Society.

Connect with Michelle:

https://www.michellemaryk.com

Instagram: michellemmaryk

Connect with Karen:

https://www.karenwinnauthor.com

Instagram: karenwinnauthor

Tik Tok: TheKnoxSociety

Books referenced:

The Found Object Society by Michelle Maryk

The Society by Karen Winn

Our Little World by Karen Winn

Not Mother by Michelle Maryk (coming soon!)

Support the show:

Buy us a book

Buy cute merch

on Patreon

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on Substack

This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.

Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the magic you were waiting for was inside you all along?

This week we sit down with Barbara Latinka, author of the three-part memoir Spells for Surviving a Haunted Childhood. What began as journaling in trauma therapy became a trilogy of eerie, atmospheric novellas, with every chapter followed by a spell built from the sights, smells, and feelings of the story you just read. Barbara tells us why she left her narrator unnamed, how she wrote the entire manuscript through tears, and why she split her story into three parts to make it more accessible for trauma survivors.

We get into the difference between reacting and responding, what it means to stop letting the eight-year-old drive the car, and how Barbara holds forgiveness and firm boundaries at the same time. She shares the ripple effect her books have already had, including a childhood friend who went back to therapy after reading them, and the lifelong friendship with Raven that saw her through it all. She also gave us one of the funniest lines we've ever had on the show.

Barbara's series has been recognized by the AAMFT as a mental health resource for trauma survivors, therapists, and educators. A combined single-volume edition is also available, along with an audiobook narrated by Barbara herself.

Share this conversation with someone who is learning that healing doesn't mean forgetting.

"I will not be small. I will not be silent. I have survived before. I will do it again." - Spells for Surviving a Haunted Childhood, Barbara Latinka

Books referenced:

Spells for a Haunted Childhood Part One by Barbara Latinka

Spells for a Haunted Childhood Part Two by Barbara Latinka

Spells for a Haunted Childhood Part Three by Barbara Latinka

Connect with Barbara:

Instagram: @hauntedchildhoodspells

Support the show:

Buy us a book

Buy cute merch

on Patreon

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on Substack

Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Does a celebrity memoir owe us its vulnerability, or can it simply be a pleasant afternoon with a funny friend?

In this bonus episode, we finally tackle Amy Poehler’s Yes Please, the book that was almost the very first episode of Babes in Bookland. Colleen joins me to talk about why the audiobook won her over on a second listen, the behind-the-scenes SNL stories that sent us straight back to our childhood living rooms, and the title line we want on a poster in every daughter’s room. We dig into Plain Girl Versus the Demon, Amy’s mantra of good for you, not for me, and why we loved that she named and thanked the nannies who helped raise her kids.

We also get candid about what fell flat for us, from a divorce chapter that never quite goes there to an apology chapter that felt more about Amy than the person she was apologizing to, and we ask whether funny women carry an extra burden to stay likable on the page. Plus, Colleen shares how she has navigated thirty years as a businesswoman in a male-dominated industry.

Share this conversation with the friend who always says yes, please.

"Saying 'yes' doesn’t mean I don’t know how to say no and saying 'please' doesn’t mean I’m waiting for permission." -- Amy Poehler's "Yes Please"

Thank you for supporting Babes in Bookland!

xx, Alex

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if every relapse was also a moment of hope?

In this episode, we sit down with Jowita Bydlowska, author of the groundbreaking memoir Drunk Mom and her new hybrid memoir, Unshaming. Jowita takes us into the part of the recovery story most books skip: what happens after the happy ending, when relapse returns and shame becomes its own addiction. We talk about why women authors are always asked if their fiction is secretly true, how Drunk Mom began as a novel until an agent asked how much of it was real, and why rigorous honesty gave her more freedom than any secret ever could. Jowita opens up about the lie behind the bike accident that opens Unshaming, rereading her own story through the lens of postpartum, and the ongoing conversations with her teenage son about what she shares. She also reflects on Clifford, the little chihuahua who saw her without judgment, and why recovery is so much more than a medallion. Darkly funny, deeply generous and radically honest, this conversation is a reminder that shame gets smaller the moment we say it out loud.

Share this conversation with someone who has ever confused silence with strength.

"Maybe I’ll leave myself alone now that I’ve given addiction the last thing I valued. Now that I’m free. Would freedom mean I’d stop or I’d just get worse because there was nothing left to lose" - Unshaming, Jowita Bydlowska

Books referenced:

Unshaming by Jowita Bydlowska

Possessed by Jowita Bydlowska

Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska

Connect with Jowita:

Instagram: @jowitabot

Substack: Unshame

Support the show:

Buy us a book

Buy cute merch

on Patreon

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on Substack

Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when the moments you've spent years avoiding are the very ones you need to face?

This week, my friend Nadia returns to discuss Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory, Sarah Polley's 2022 essay collection about the transformative power of returning to the past. We start with Sarah at fifteen, playing Alice on stage with a curving spine, a newly broken heart over her mother's death, and a father whose fascination with Lewis Carroll shaped far more of her childhood than it should have.

Nadia shares her own experience losing her mother to ovarian cancer and the unexpected gift her mother gave the family by facing her death head on. We talk about why we can hold compassion for Sarah's father and still call his parenting a failure, how lawyers can believe women and still warn them not to come forward, and why a NICU nurse's line about martyrs and mothers stopped us both in our tracks.

Then we get to the essay that gives the book its name: a concussion, three lost years, and a doctor who told Sarah to do the opposite of everything she'd been taught. Together we wrestle with the line between knowing your limits and setting them too soon, and why growth almost always lives on the other side of the thing that scares us.

Share this conversation with the friend who has been listening to her body a little too closely and is ready to run towards something.

"So much of coming to terms with hard things from the past seems to be about believing our own accounts, having our memories confirmed by those who were there and honoured by those who weren’t. Why is it so hard for us to believe our own stories or begin to process them without corroborating witnesses appearing from the shadows of the past, or without people stepping forward with open arms when echoes of those stories present themselves again in the present?" - Sarah Polley | Run Towards the Danger

Books referenced:

Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley

Support the show:

Buy us a book

Buy cute merch

on Patreon

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on Substack

Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it take to climb back into the cockpit after one of the most traumatic days in our nation's history?

This week we sit down with airline captain Nia Gilliam, author of CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF On September 11th, 2001, Nia was a first officer on the runway at Newark when the South Tower was hit, and her plane became the last to take off from that airport. Her memoir braids that morning with the story of a little girl near O'Hare who watched airplanes and wondered where they were going.

We talk about how a writing class, a documentary interview, and a 2022 breast cancer diagnosis finally pushed her to tell this story, and why she says writing was harder than flying a plane. Nia takes us to space camp in Huntsville, to the funeral she skipped school to attend for pioneering aviator Janet Harmon Bragg, and to the moment she met Stacey Harris, the first living Black woman pilot she had ever seen. We get into the pressure of being the only woman and the only Black person in the room, the marriage and motherhood she stepped into while she was still grieving, and the line from her mom that changed everything: safe can be a place to heal, but it's nowhere to live.

We also talk about Sisters of the Skies, the nonprofit Nia co-founded to increase the number of Black women pilots in professional flight decks, and the joy of being called Captain Mom by her son, who is now a pilot too.

Share this conversation with the friend who put a dream on hold and needs a reminder that she's still cleared for takeoff.

"I wasn't the only one who didn't have tidy solutions for what haunted her.” - Captain Nia Gilliam (excerpt from her memoir, Cleared for Takeoff)

Books referenced:

Cleared for Takeoff by Captain Nia Gilliam

The Body Keeps the Score

Connect with Nia:

https://sistersoftheskies.org

Linked in

@pilotniagilliam

@mypilotsonandfun

Support the show:

Buy us a book

Buy cute merch

on Patreon

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on Substack

Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens if we pay attention to our darkest fantasies?

This week Ashley and I sit down with Jessica Knoll, author of Luckiest Girl Alive and Bright Young Women, to talk about Helpless, her newest novel and a sexy, uncomfortable, deeply intelligent erotic thriller. Jessica takes us from the lifeguard chair where she snuck pages of The Hours on rainy afternoons, to the Cosmopolitan offices that taught her to pull stories from the headlines, to the screenwriting professor whose stranger than fiction death became the opening of Helpless. We talk about why she named her daughter after a Final Girl, why she can't stand the do-gooder heroine, how motherhood has made her more private, and how her horny reading era led her to write the book she couldn't find on any shelf.

"That was the first time I realized that not only will wealthy people pay to live like they’re poor, but they’ll call it a vacation too.”

-excerpt from HELPLESS by Jessica Knoll

Connect with Jessica Knoll

@jessicaknollauthor

Books Referenced:

Helpless by Jessica Knoll

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief by Pauline Boss

Support the show:

Buy us a book

Buy cute merch

on Patreon

Subscribe on Apple

Subscribe on Substack

This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me.

Xx, Alex

Connect with us and suggest a great memoir!

Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is reality TV ever really real, and what do  the women who star in it owe us?

This week, Brett joins me for a bonus episode on Lisa Rinna's memoir, You Better Believe I'm Gonna Talk About It, a quick, entertaining listen that we both enjoyed without ever feeling blown away by it. We talk about why this book landed as more filtered than the Lisa Rinna we know from television, and what that says about why she wrote it now.

From there we get into the parts that stuck with us. Lisa's advocacy for older women not stepping aside for the next generation, her honesty about nearly going broke while living a very public Hollywood life, and the story of her father's death by assisted suicide and her mother's survival of a violent kidnapping decades earlier, a story Lisa doesn't fully connect back to her own parenting. We spend real time on the Kathy Hilton drama, the question of whether Bravo protected Kathy at Lisa's expense, and why Lisa stops short of saying outright what she says she witnessed. We also talk about her conflicting statements around disordered eating, her daughter's eating disorder, and what it means to take real accountability in a memoir versus performing it.

We close out asking the bigger question this book keeps raising for us: when a memoir reads like a comeback attempt versus one written by someone who's truly done with Hollywood's opinion of them, and why that difference matters so much for how honest the book ends up being. Please note that this conversation includes discussion of disordered eating, assisted suicide, and a serious violent crime.

Share this conversation with the friend who knows all about Puppygate. Subscribe on Patreon or Apple Podcasts to access the full episode.

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