Let’s Talk Memoir

Jane Friedman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the most common craft issues she sees in memoir manuscripts, what writers often misunderstand about the industry, The Big Five, how to write memoir query letters, ways the publishing landscape has changed for memoirs, and so much more in this do-not-miss episode.

-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir

Also in this episode:

-the lowdown on platform

-protecting identities in memoir

-Jane Friedman’s why

Books mentioned in this episode:

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand

Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

Swing by Ashleigh Renard

Links to articles mentioned in this episode:

How to Use Real People in Your Writing Without Ending Up in Court:

https://helensedwick.com/how-to-use-real-people-in-your-writing/

Law & Authors: a conversation with Jacqui Lipton

https://youtu.be/GDydK3Z4aOI

How to and (Especially) How Not to Write About Family

https://www.janefriedman.com/write-about-family-memoir/

A Big Shitty Party: Six Parables of Writing About Other People

Millions of Followers? For Book Sales, ‘It’s Unreliable.’

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/books/social-media-following-book-publishing.html

Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) has 20 years of experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in digital media strategy for authors and publishers. She is the publisher of The Hot Sheet, the essential newsletter on the publishing industry for authors, and was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World in 2019.

In addition to being a columnist for Publishers Weekly, Jane is a professor with The Great Courses, which released her 24-lecture series, How to Publish Your Book. Her book for creative writers, The Business of Being a Writer (University of Chicago Press), received a starred review from Library Journal.

Jane speaks regularly at conferences and industry events such as BookExpo America, Digital Book World, and the AWP Conference, and has served on panels with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Work Fund. Find out more.

www.janefriedman.com 

https://www.instagram.com/janefriedman/

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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 Finger

Melissa Gould joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how writing was a way back to herself after she became a widow unexpectedly and at a young age, making the jump from screenwriting to nonfiction, when she knew she had a memoir, and how she protected her daughter in her writing.

Also in this episode:

-Melissa’s experience leading workshops

-how writing helps transform grief

-what it’s like to have your book optioned for TV.

Memoirs mentioned in this episode:

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Educated by Tara Westover

Maid by Stephanie Land

Melissa Gould’s memoir, Widowish, is an Amazon best seller and Editor's Pick for best memoir, a Goodreads Top Book of 2021, and has been named one of BookAuthority's 100 Best Grief Books of All Time!  Her essays have been published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Hollywood Reporter, Buzzfeed and more. She is an award-winning screenwriter who has worked on shows such as Bill Nye the Science Guy, Beverly Hills 90210, Party of Five, and Lizzie McGuire. Widowish is available wherever books are sold. Find Melissa at www.widowish.com and on Instagram at MelissaGould_Author.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Widowish-Memoir-Melissa-Gould/dp/1542018781/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Website link: www.widowish.com

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

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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

Meg Weber joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about knowing when the right time is to tell your story, approaching loved ones about scenes in your memoir featuring graphic sex and kink, why compartmentalizing on the page doesn’t work, and writing with a broken heart.

Also in this episode: 

-real names and pen names

-asking your family’s permission 

-why there can never be enough memoirs

Memoirs mentioned in this episode:

The End of Eve by Ariel Gore

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williiams

Abandon Me by Melissa Febos

Whip Smart by Melissa Febos

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan

Group by Christie Tate

Bio: Meg Weber writes memoir about sex, grief, love, family, therapy, and tangled relationships. She is a queer writer and a mental health therapist who specializes in gender and sexuality. Her debut memoir, A Year of Mr. Lucky, launched in February of 2021, and she is at work on her second memoir. She lives in a suburb of Portland, Oregon with her wife, her teenager, a therapy labradoodle named Portland, and two cats. 

Connect with Meg:

https://www.megweberwriter.com/a-year-of-mr-lucky

Purchase A Year of Mr. Lucky from Bookshop

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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

Andrea Ross joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about battling memoir imposter syndrome, choosing scene over exposition, doing whatever it takes to get yourself to write, and how she used the wilderness to help tell her story and convey the particular brand of loneliness that adopted people experience.

Also in this episode:

-what new writers sometimes forget

-promoting your book 

-publishing with a small press

Memoirs in this episode:

Unnatural Selection by Andrea Ross

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden

The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes

Bio:

Andrea Ross's memoir, Unnatural Selection, about her years as a wilderness guide searching for her biological family, was published by CavanKerry Press in 2021. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Huffington Post, Terrain The Conversation,  Mountain Gazette, and many other outlets. During the 1980s and 1990s, Andrea worked throughout the American West as a wilderness guide, a National Park Service Ranger, and a backcountry Search and Rescue leader. She is a faculty member in the University Writing Program at UC Davis. 

Links:

website: andrearosswriter.com

link to buy book: https://www.cavankerrypress.org/product/unnatural-selection/

twitter: https://twitter.com/Andrea_M_Ross

insta: https://www.instagram.com/andrearosswriter/

facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/rossandream

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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

Ellen Blum Barish joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about becoming a memoirist after a career as a journalist and how that deepened her love of writing, the power of working on smaller pieces as we craft our memoir, and finding the themes and structure in our story.

Also in this episode:

-Ellen’s Eight Essential Elements of Essay

-Writing about the people we love

-Knowing where to begin and where to end

Memoirs mentioned in this episode:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Inheritence by Dani Shapiro

What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas 

Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas

One Hundred Names for Love Diane Ackerman

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Greely

Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett

Ellen Blum Barish is the author of Seven Springs: A Memoir (Shanti Arts, 2021) and Views from the Home Office Window (Adams Street Publishing, 2007). You can find her work in Brevity’s Blog, Full Grown People, Literary Mama, Tablet and The Chicago Tribune. Many of her essays have aired on Chicago Public Radio and have been told on storytelling stages around Chicago. Ellen founded the literary publication Thread, which earned four notables in Best American Essays and has taught writing at Northwestern University where she earned a master’s in journalism. She works privately with writers and teaches writing workshops on essay collections and memoir.

Seven Springs: A Memoir: http://www.shantiarts.co/uploads/files/abc/BARISH_SEVEN.html

Seven Springs: A Memoir (audiobook on Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/Audible-Seven-Springs-A-Memoir/dp/B09BDBM1FD/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Website: https://ellenblumbarish.com

Coaching: https://ellenblumbarish.com/coaching/

Blog on Craft, Creativity & Commotion: https://ellenblumbarish.com/blog/

E-Guides “Writing Your Marker Story” & “Ellen’s Eight Essential Elements of Essay” https://ellenblumbarish.com/guides/

Upcoming Workshops: https://ellenblumbarish.com/workshops/

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

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

Twitter:

LinkedIn:

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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

Christie Tate joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the ethics of writing about groups therapy and ex-boyfriends, navigating writing anxiety, becoming a full-time writer, and why she never leaves a page blank.

Also in this episode:

-networking with other writers 

-sex scenes

-what it’s like to be picked for Reese Witherspoon’s book club

Memoirs mentioned in this episode:

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

Love and Trouble by Claire Dederer

Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood

BIOGRAPHY: Christie Tate is a writer and essayist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Carve Magazine, Cutbank, The New Ohio Review, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. Her debut memoir, Group-- How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life, was published in October 2020 and was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick.

Connect with Christie:

https://christietate.com/

https://www.instagram.com/christieotate/

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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

Jeannine Ouellette joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the power of literary constraints, why the how can be just as important as the what, writing about childhood sexual abuse, believing in your project when publishing gatekeepers don’t seem to, and why sad stories can make us happy, 

Also in this episode:

-poetic technique

-mother wounds

-finding your voice

Memoirs/Books mentioned in this episode:

We the Animals by Justin Torres

Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas

Heavy by Kiese Laymon

Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Alison

Jeannine Ouellette’s memoir, The Part That Burns, was a 2021 Kirkus Best 100 Indie Book and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award, with starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.  Her work appears widely in literary journals and anthologies, including Ms. Aligned: Women Writing About Men; Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives;  and Passed On: Daughters Write About Father Loss, Lack, and Legacy. She teaches through the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, The University of Minnesota, and Elephant Rock, a writing program she founded in 2012. She is working on her first novel.

Connect with Jeannine:

https://www.jeannineouellette.com

https://www.instagram.com/msjeannineouellette/

Essay on craft by Jeannine Ouellette in Cleaver:

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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

Debra Gwartney joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the difference between character and narrator in memoir, navigating writing about loved ones, why memoirists need to hold their own feet to the fire, and what question every memoir asks.

-Visit the Let's Talk Memoir Merch store: https://www.zazzle.com/store/letstalkmemoir

 Also in this episode: 

-memoir and essay recommendations

-craft book suggestions

-tips for avoiding common pitfalls when writing memoir

Memoirs/Work mentioned in this episode:

The Sisters Antipodes by Jane Alison

The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster

Borrowed Finery by Paula Fox

Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick

The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick

To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopate

"The Fourth State of Matter" by Jo Ann Beard

"Thanksgiving in Mongolia" by Ariel Levy

Authors mentioned:

Melissa Febos, Eula Biss, Ann Carson, Claire Vaye Watkins, Ander Monson

Debra Gwartney is the author of two book-length memoirs, Live Through This, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and I Am a Stranger Here Myself, winner of the RiverTeeth Nonfiction Prize and the Willa Award for Nonfiction. Debra has published in such journals as Granta, The Sun, Tin House, American Scholar, The Normal School, Creative Nonfiction, Prairie Schooner, and others. She’s the 2018 winner of the Real Simple essay contest. She’s also a contributing editor at Poets & Writers magazine and received a Pushcart Prize in 2021 for her essay “Suffer Me to Pass,” from VQR.

Debra is co-editor, along with her husband Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She lives in Western Oregon. 

Connect with Debra:

https://www.facebook.com/writerdebragwartney/

http://www.debragwartney.com

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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

Let’s Talk Memoir is a podcast for memoir lovers, readers and writers, featuring interviews with memoirists about their writing process, their challenges, and what they’ve learned about sharing the most personal of narratives. Hosted by writer, speaker, and memoirist Ronit Plank, each episode of this limited series highlights different aspects of the memoir writing experience, writing tips, and inspiration.

Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACKabout the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

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