Let’s Talk Memoir

Vickie Rubin joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about raising a child with medical complexities and intellectual disabilities, submicroscopic chromosomal deletions, incorporating clippings, news articles, and photographs in memoir, when you feel something is wrong with your child, her career in the helping field, overcoming marriage struggles while raising children with disabilities, advocating for other families and for herself, the gift of a late diagnosis, the decision to move her daughter to a group home, and her memoir Raising Jess: A Story of Hope.

Also in this episode:

-when pediatricians don’t listen

-journal entries as resources

-raising children of siblings with disabilities

Books mentioned in this episode:

Left on Tenth Delia Ephron

The Shape of Normal by Catherine Shields

The Color of Love by Marra Gad

Vickie Schlanger Rubin, M.S Ed. is a three-time award-winning author of the inspiring memoir, Raising Jess: A Story of Hope. She is an experienced public speaker and passionate advocate for families of children with disabilities. Vickie's essays are published in Newsweek (My Turn), Buffalo News Opinion (My View), and guest blogs worldwide. She is a frequent Podcast guest sharing information about raising a child with a disability, inspiring hope, family dynamics, education, and advocacy. Her blog, Vickie's Views (www.vickierubin.com), gives a heartwarming and humorous view of everyday life.

Before writing her book, Vickie was the director of the Early Childhood Direction Center (ECDC) for Oishei Children's Hospital, Kaleida Health, a New York State Education Department grant-funded program. During her career, Vickie was a frequent guest speaker at local colleges and universities and was an adjunct teacher in the Exceptional Education Department at Buffalo State College.

Vickie holds a master's degree in Exceptional Education from SUNY Buffalo State College and resides in Western New York. She and her husband Mitch celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary, and they have three children, three grandchildren, and two very active dogs. 

Connect with Vickie:

Vickie’s Views- https://vickierubin.com/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RaisingJessStory

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/raisingjessstory.vickierubin/

X ( Twitter)- https://twitter.com/vickierubin

LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickie-rubin-aa1a09177/

Threads- https://www.threads.net/@vickierubin.author

Get Raising Jess: https://www.amazon.com/Raising-Jess-Story-Vickie-Rubin/dp/1662407416

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/raising-jess-vickie-rubin/1139804006

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Raising-Jess-A-Story-of-Hope-Paperback-9781662407413/443928331

—

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

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

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

—

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

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Acclaimed memoirist and teacher Vivian Gornick joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the origins of her approach to memoir, the crucial difference between situations and stories, why implicating ourselves in our work makes us trustworthy to our reader, clarifying our narratives, how she discovered what her story was truly about, why some writing questions are unanswerable, and her well-loved and oft-repeated advice: “In order for the drama to deepen we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

Also in this episode:

-Autofiction

-the importance of trusted readers and editors

-seeing ourselves clearly

Books mentioned in this episode:

-Autofiction by Annie Ernaux

-The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick

-Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick

-The Odd Woman and the City by Vivian Gornick

Vivian Gornick is a feminist critic, journalist, essayist, and memoirist who was born in the Bronx and grew up in a family of working-class immigrants.  Meghan O’Rourke of The Yale Review describes her as having written some of the most remarkable journalism of our time. “Her career got its start in the heady days of second-wave feminism, which she wrote about for the alternative weekly The Village Voice. In her work, she cultivated a fierce and unapologetic intellectual voice that could also be intensely personal. Another way to put it: she made powerful, no-holds-barred arguments, but she was also a gifted storyteller.”

She is the recipient of a Ford Foundation grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship and her essays and articles have appeared in Bookforum, the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, the New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, Threepenny Review, and the Women's Review of Books. She taught for many years in MFA programs all over the country, including those at the University of Houston, the University of Arizona, Sarah Lawrence College, and the New School in New York City, and in 2015 she served as the Bedell Distinguished Visiting Professor in the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program.

Some of her books include The Men In My Life, The End of the Novel of Love, Approaching Eye Level, Essays in Feminism, The Odd Woman and the City, Fierce Attachments, and The Situation and the Story.

—

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

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Cait West joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up in and leaving Christian patriarchy, indoctrination, identifying and writing about the rifts she felt in herself and her family, gender oppression, using geology as a metaphor, moving from memoir in essays to a more linear form, ethical and legal concerns when writing about others, coming to grips with abuse, purity culture, and her memoir Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy.

Also in this episode:

-protecting anonymity in those we write about

-trauma therapy

-protecting ourselves by taking breaks when writing 

Books mentioned in this episode: 

-Mothers of Sparta by Dawn Davies

-Flesh and Blood by N. West Moss

-Wiving by Caityln Myer

Cait West is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her work has been published in The Revealer, Religion Dispatches, Fourth Genre, and Hawai`i Pacific Review, among others. As an advocate and a survivor of the Christian patriarchy movement, she serves on the editorial board for Tears of Eden, a nonprofit providing resources for survivors of spiritual abuse, and cohosts the podcast Survivors Discuss. Her debut memoir, Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy, releases on April 30, 2024.

Connect with Cait:

Website: https://www.caitwest.com/

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

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

Substack: https://caitwest.substack.com/

Get Cait’s Book: https://www.caitwest.com/book

—

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

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Sue William Silverman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about claiming our stories, creative nonfiction as an act of affirmation and courage, tapping into artistic masks, discovering answers along the way, the aware and the unaware voice, writing metaphorically and sensorily, the arc of reflection and the arc of action, her decades of teaching at the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program and her newest book Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul.

Also mentioned in this episode: 

-the revision long-haul

-our many writerly voices

-Sue’s complete reading list

Books mentioned in this episode:

-I wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl by Kelle Groom

-Sue's Reading List: https://www.suewilliamsilverman.com/click_here_to_see_sue_william_silverman_s_contemporary_creative_nonfiction_readin_71566.htm

Sue William Silverman is an award-winning author of eight works of nonfiction and poetry. Her most recent book is "Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul." Her previous book, "How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences," won the gold star in Foreword Reviews Indie Book of the Year Award and the Clara Johnson Award for Women’s Literature. Other works include "Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction," made into a Lifetime TV movie; "Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You," which won the AWP Award; and "The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew." She is faculty co-chair in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. 

Connect with Sue:

Website: www.SueWilliamSilverman.com

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

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

Get Sue’s Books: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=sue+william+silverman&crid=3L3XIG0XVQ21Z&sprefix=%2Caps%2C123&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_1_0_recent

—

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

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about listening to and putting our younger selves on the page, recognizing family codes we can no longer adhere to, place as a character in memoir, writing like nobody will ever see our work, how shame and pain can manifest as silence, sharing with readers what we may not be able to reveal to loved ones, the contracts we enter as writers of memoir, creating intimacy on the page, and her new memoir Loose of Earth.

Also mentioned in this episode: 

-the toll of forever chemicals on our bodies and homes

-incorporating environmental elements

-managing our grief

Books mentioned in this episode:

-Mill Town by Kerrie Arsenault

-Full Body Burden by Kristen Iverson

-The Yellow House by Sarah Broom

-Ground Glass by Karen Savage

Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn teaches in the University of Chicago Creative Writing Program. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in Colorado Review, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Pleiades, and swamp pink, and was listed as notable in Best American Essays.

Connect with Kathleen:

Website: https://www.kdblackburn.com/

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

Get her book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/loose-of-earth-a-memoir-kathleen-dorothy-blackburn/20690152

—

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

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Kate Manne joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about coming of age in fatphobic culture, disentangling the threads of weight, health, and diet culture, the racism at the root of anti-fatness, writing ourselves out and then back into our work, the psycho-social consequences of fatphobia on our bodies, the shame around shame, organizing our time, writing while mothering a young child, gathering and incorporating research in our work, and her new book Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia.

Also in this episode:

-the rhetoric around dieting

-becoming self-compassionate through writing

-why we might not trust pleasure 

Books mentioned in this episode:

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun L. Harrison

Hunger by Roxanne Gay

You Just Need to Lose Weight by Aubrey Gordon

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

Fat Talk by Virginia Sole Smith

Kate Manne is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, where she’s been teaching since 2013. Before that, she was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Manne did her graduate work in philosophy at MIT, and works in moral, social, and feminist philosophy. She is the author of three books, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, and Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, which came out in January. You can subscribe to her substack newsletter, More to Hate, for musings on misogyny, fatphobia, their intersection, and more. 

Connect with Kate:

Website: http://www.katemanne.net/

Substack: https://katemanne.substack.com/

X: https://twitter.com/kate_manne,

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

Get “Unshrinking” here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/722318/unshrinking-by-kate-manne/

Kate Manne's first interview with Ronit on The Body Myth: https://ronitplank.com/2024/03/04/the-body-myth-misogyny-fatphobia-and-the-morality-of-size-ft-dr-

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

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Jo

Suzette Mullen joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about digging to find a deeper story and the question we need to ask in memoir, discovering where to begin by getting to the end of our manuscripts, the revision process as revelatory, the effect our memoirs have on loved ones, leaning on trusted readers and writers, her work as a nonfiction book coach, and her coming of age and coming out memoir The Only Way Through is Out.

Also in this episode: 

-the querying process

-working with a book coach

-finding professional purpose

Books mentioned in this episode:

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

Suzette Mullen (she/her) is a memoir and nonfiction book coach, retreat leader, and the author of the memoir The Only Way Through Is Out, published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, today.com, and Brevity among other outlets. As a book coach, Suzette guides writers to find their deeper stories and define their big ideas. A graduate of Harvard Law School and Wellesley College, and the mother of two young adult sons, Suzette made a big leap professionally and personally at midlife and now lives in Pennsylvania with her wife and their rescue pup.

Connect with Suzette:

Website: https://www.yourstoryfinder.com/

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzette-mullen-lgbtq-book-coach/

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Suzette-Mullen-Author/100063523689955/

For info about the memoir: https://www.yourstoryfinder.com/books

My free e-book: "Behind the Scenes: An Insider’s Guide to THE ONLY WAY THROUGH IS OUT https://www.yourstoryfinder.com/behindthescenes

—

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

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Jo

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

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Lisa Cooper Ellison joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about therapy vs. memoir, taking care of our nervous systems while working on charged material, writing about trauma without retraumatizing ourselves, developing a robust self-care practice, how to avoid creating victim narratives in our memoirs, what to do with gaps in our memory, putting more of ourselves on the page, and her new podcast Writing Your Resilience.

Also in this episode:

-signs of a trauma response

-learning how to be present

-neuroplasticity 

Book mentioned in this episode:

Writing to Heal by James Pennebaker

Healing Trauma: Restoring the Wisdom of the Body by Peter A. Levine

Trauma and Memory by Peter A. Levine

Becoming the Love You Seek by Dr. Nicole Lepera

Stash by Laura Cathcart Robbins

Acetylene Torch Songs by Sue William Silverman

What Happened to You by Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey

Hunger by Roxanne Gay

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn

Lisa Cooper Ellison is an author, speaker, and trauma-informed writing coach with an Ed.S in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and a background in mindfulness. She regularly presents and teaches courses on the use of mindfulness in writing, writing about trauma, the book proposal, and all things memoir. A regular contributor to the Jane Friedman blog, her essays and short stories have appeared in HuffPost, Hippocampus Literary Magazine, the New Guard Review, Kenyon Review Online, and Brevity, among others.

Connect with Lisa:

Website: https://lisacooperellison.com/

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

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

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@lisacooperellison

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-ellison-b5483840/

—

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

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers