Let’s Talk Memoir

Ren Cedar Fuller joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how when we love people we want their world to be bigger, raising a transgender child, having a disability, writing a lot of drafts for the right structure to snap into place, revising for months, not forcing an ending, writing about other people, including our children in our work, putting a collection together, finding themes in our work, entering contests, moving toward creativity and also toward organization, shaping a memoir-in-essays vs. an essay collection, and her award winning collection Bigger.

Also in this episode:

-using the Poets & Writers database to research contests and presses

-studying in an MFA program

-a close look at a hermit crab essay

Books mentioned in this episode:

-H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

-Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel

-In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Ren Cedar Fuller's debut book, Bigger, won the 2024 Autumn House Press Nonfiction Prize and was a finalist for the 2024 Iron Horse Prize and the Santa Fe Writers Project 2023 Literary Awards Program. Her creative nonfiction essays have won Under the Sun's Summer Writing Contest in 2022, been a finalist in the 2022 Terry Tempest Williams Prize for Creative Nonfiction at North American Review, and placed second in the 2022 Eunice Williams Nonfiction Prize. Ren’s essays have appeared in HerStry, Hippocampus, New England Review, North American Review, and Under the Sun, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays. 

Ren is a parent facilitator at TransFamilies, an online hub for families with gender diverse children. She taught public school in California, Oregon, and Washington before founding a nonprofit early learning center in the Seattle area, where she continues teaching parent education.Ren lives in Seattle with her husband, Jason, and loves to kayak on the Salish Sea. She is currently in the M.F.A. in Writing program at Pacific University. 

https://www.instagram.com/ren.cedar.fuller/

https://www.rencedarfuller.com/

Book purchase: https://bookshop.org/p/books/bigger-essays/f18b41d10d1216d8?ean=9781637681084&next=t&affiliate=21790

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Gina Tron joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about coming of age in the aftermath of the Columbine massacre, the myth of the bullied school shooter, revenge fantasies, her advocacy work, capturing the 1990s, connecting a personal story through journalism and interviews, being a suspected school shooter, when a publisher gets cold feet, leaning into shame, not wanting to be a problem author, confronting the dark and the embarrassing, giving ourselves grace, being as honest and vulnerable as possible, trying to paint the most accurate version of ourselves, and her new memoir Suspect.

Also in this episode:

-having multiple editors

-working with contracts

-keeping lots of journals

Books mentioned in this episode:

-On Writing by Stephen King

-The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

-It’s Kind of a Funny Story

-Books by Hunter S. Thompson

Gina Tron is the author of several memoirs and poetry books, including her debut 2014 memoir "You're Fine,” called "vibrant, darkly funny, and courageously candid,” by Interview Magazine. She wrote reported pieces for several outlets, including The Washington Post, VICE, Politico, and The Daily Beast. The Rumpus says her newest memoir-journalism hybrid "Suspect" captures the 1990s "without sentimentality, and with a very clear lens." Gina’s work advocating for rape victim-survivors has helped lead to several bills and the DOJ investigation into the NYPD’s Special Victims Department. She received her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts and is an adjunct professor at Norwich University in Vermont. 

Connect with Gina:

Website: www.ginatron.net

Instagram: instagram.com/ginatron

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gina.tron/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ttcm45uxu7xamlv7a6tq2tuv

X: https://x.com/_ginatron

Get the book: https://whiskeytit.com/product/suspect/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/suspect-gina-tron/1146576658?ean=9781952600586

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Jocelyn Jane Cox joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the challenges and guilt around caretaking, her childhood experience as a competitive figure skater, telling a story in the structure of a day, using the directed “you” in a book, writing about what has shaped us and played a role in the story we are trying to tell, using Post-It Notes, ordering our backstory, listmaking a low pressure way to get material on the page, as the process of adding and subtracting, exploring divisions within ourselves, developing and exploring metaphor in our narratives, and her new memoir Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice. 

Also in this episode:

-reducing page count

-relying on Beta readers

-the silver tsunami

Books mentioned in this episode:

-Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf

-On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

-The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr

-Fast Draft Your Memoir: Write Your Story in 45 Hours by Rachel Herron

Jocelyn Jane Cox joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice. 

Jocelyn Jane Cox holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Sarah Lawrence College. She competed in the United States Figure Skating Championships with her older brother Brad four times (twice in pair skating and twice in ice dance). She has been coaching kids, teenagers, and adults in both skating and writing for over 25 years. Her creative nonfiction was included in the anthology Awakenings: Stories of Body Consciousness, edited by Diane Gottlieb (2023). Among other publications, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Newsweek, Good Men Project, WIRED, Belladonna Comedy, The Offing, HAD, Cleaver, Litro Magazine, Literal Latte, and Colorado Review. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives with her son and husband in the Hudson Valley of New York.

Connect with Jocelyn:

Website: https://www.jocelynjanecox.com

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

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

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jocelynjanecox.bsky.social

–

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Gaar Adams joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about living amongst and depicting queer and migrant communities in the Gulf states, falling in love with Arabic literature and translation, the undeniable parallels between queerness and migration, exploring subversive acts, capturing ourselves in less than flattering ways, combating self-censorship, concern with how loved ones might perceive us, protecting our memory, calibrating interiority, writing into periods of discomfort, the importance of chosen families, transcribing and organizing vast amounts of material and interviews, allowing for a multiplicity of voices, intentional interrogation of stories that aren’t being told, and his new book Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East.

Also in this episode:

-the fallacy of the solo artist

-knowing when to let go

-protecting our memory

Books mentioned in this episode:

Notes on a Foreign Country by Suzy Hansen 

Sea State: A Memoir by Tabitha Lasley

Maximum City by Suketu Mehta

The Pink Line by Mark Gevisser

Gaar Adams is the author of Guest Privileges: Queer Lives and Finding Home in the Middle East, longlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. His reporting from the Middle East and South Asia has been featured in The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Rolling Stone, Bloomberg, VICE, Slate, and elsewhere. He received his Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of Glasgow and currently teaches on the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Hull. He lives in London, UK.

Connect with Gaar:

Website: https://gaaradams.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gaar.adams/

X: https://x.com/gaaradams

–

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Bridey Thelen-Heidel joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up with a mom who was addicted to everything including dangerous men, revisiting and writing about a traumatic childhood forty plus decades later, when you have to let go to protect yourself, choosing to balance the heaviness and dysfunction in a story with pop culture and lightness, writing creatively with an audience in mind, speaking for the child you once were, being true to your past experience, learning to let go and trust editorial feedback, knowing the ending of your book as you live it, literary devices and motifs, being a hybrid author and her 3 Cs for rocking book promotion, grieving the mother she never had, and her award-winning memoir Bright Eyes.

Also in this episode: 

-trauma bonding with music

-enmeshed relationships

-investing in yourself

-Some Bright Morning I’ll Fly Away by Alice Anderson

-The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

-The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr

-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

-Fearless Writing by William Kenower 

-Fast-Draft Your Memoir: Write Your Life Story in 45 Hours

by Rachael Herron

-Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

-The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

Bridey Thelen-Heidel is a teacher, TEDx speaker, and cast member of Listen To Your Mother NYC. Her memoir, Bright Eyes, earned a Zibby Award “Best Story of Overcoming,” New York City Big Book Award “Distinguished Favorite,” and Runner-up from the San Francisco Writers’ Festival. A fierce LGBT+ youth advocate, Bridey has been celebrated by the California Teachers' Association. She’s also partnered with NAMI and numerous domestic violence and child abuse resource agencies, speaking about defeating our monsters but also learning to live without them. 

Connect with Bridey:

Website: bridey-thelenheidel.com

FB: https://www.facebook.com/brighteyesthememoir/

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/brighteyesauthor/

TikTok: @brighteyes_author

TEDx Talk: ROB the Trauma: Steal Back Your Life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT6rvXyjsZU&t=152s

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Sarah Boon joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about allowing elements of a memoir to reveal themselves, radical acceptance of what we need as a writer and what we can feasibly accomplish with the resources we have, getting to know who we are as creatives, publishing with an academic press and the peer review process, navigating refusals, struggling with narrative arc, her experience as a woman and a scientist doing research in remote locations, breaking away from science writing to write a science memoir, living with bipolar II and anxiety, the effect of mental illness on creative process, being gentler with ourselves, pivoting from working alone to sharing a personal story, and her new memoir Meltdown: The Making and Breaking of a Field Scientist.

Also in this episode:

-writing groups

-living with an invisible illness

-discovering the trajectory for your book

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Solitude of Open Spaces by Gretel Ehrlich

The Only Woman in the Room  Eileen Pollack 

Mean and Lowly Things: Survival: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo by Kate Jackson

Sarah Boon, PhD, has published essays, book reviews, and author interviews for the LA Review of Books, Hippocampus, The Rumpus, Brevity Blog, Science, Nature and other outlets. Her first book, Meltdown: The Making and Breaking of a Field Scientist, came out with University of Alberta Press in June of 2025. She lives on southern Vancouver Island with her husband and dog, and is working on her next book.

Connect with Sarah:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHjQHnRpPTG/

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/snowhydro.bsky.social

FB: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.boon.31

www.melt-down.ca

www.watershednotes.ca

Get the book: 

For Canadians: https://www.indiebookstores.ca/book/9781772127911/

For Americans: https://bookshop.org/p/books/meltdown-the-making-and-breaking-of-a-field-scientist-sarah-boon/21630061?ean=9781772127911

–

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Michael Jamin joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about his career as a TV writer, moving from mimicking to discovering and trusting our own voice, allowing our style to evolve,

making sense of ourselves through art, imposter syndrome and feeling displeased with our work, comedy writing, performing staged readings to test out material, building a bridge between separate sections of our story, infusing comedy with drama, asking permission from children before we write about them, breathing life into relationships on the page for readers to witness, showing up generously for newer writers, getting a moment to land, and his memoir A Paper Orchestra.

Also in this episode:

-doing stand up

-debunking writing myths

-having a spouse as trusted reader

Books mentioned in this episode

-Books by David Sedaris

-David Bowie making art video YouTube

Michael Jamin is a TV writer/author. His many television credits include King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head, Just Shoot Me, Wilfred, Maron, Rules of Engagement, Brickleberry, and Tacoma FD. His debut collection of personal essays (a cross between David Sedaris and Neil Simon) was just named one of Vulture’s “Best Comedy Books of 2024.” 

Connect with Michael: 

Website: michaeljamin.com

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

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

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

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/MichaelJaminWriter

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

A Paper Orchestra: michaeljamin.com/book

Catch Michael Jamin on tour: michaeljamin.com/upcoming

Mining Your Life for Stories: (memoir writing course) https://michaeljamin.com/sp/mining-sales/

–

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Melissa Fraterrigo joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the personal and emotional toll of being female, becoming a mother and watching her daughters navigate culture, making sense of our world through memoir and essay, discovering a softness for the younger versions of ourselves, when the fictional world doesn’t hold our attention, processing different time periods, making sure there are universal truths in memoir as well as our own story, not inviting people others into the space while we’re drafting, memoir as permission to explore our own life, taking the time to get to know ourselves and our process, how are we changed by writing, and her new memoir The Perils of Girlhood.

Also in this episode:

-Lafayette Writers Studio

-sharing of ourselves

-keeping our channels open

Books mentioned in this episode:

-Writing Past Dark by Bonnie Friedman

-The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard

-How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

-Spilt Milk by Courtney Zoffness

-Books by Melissa Febos

-Negative Space by Lilly Dancyger

Melissa Fraterrigo’s new memoir is The Perils of Girlhood published by the University of Nebraska Press. She is also the author of the novel Glory Days (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), which was named one of “The Best Fiction Books of 2017” by the Chicago Review of Books as well as the short story collection The Longest Pregnancy (Livingston Press, 2006). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies from storySouth and Shenandoah to Notre Dame Review, Sou’wester and The Millions. A graduate of the University of Iowa (BA) and Bowling Green State University (MFA), she teaches creative writing at Purdue University, and is also the founder and executive director of the Lafayette Writers’ Studio in Lafayette, Indiana, where she offers classes on the art and craft of writing. She lives with her husband and two daughters in West Lafayette, Indiana. 

Connect with Melissa: 

Website: melissafraterrigo.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melissa.fraterrigo

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

Lafayette Writers’ Studio: lafayettewritersstudio.com

Get her book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-perils-of-girlhood-a-memoir-in-essays/6da6408eda085813

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1496242203?ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cp_ud_dp_XZ0VSR4RDAFX5FBRZYB6

https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496242204/the-perils-of-girlhood/

–

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Gail Eisnitz joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about structuring her memoir around her pursuit of answers to a lifelong medical mystery, coming to terms with her own humanness, writing about her career in animal advocacy, exposing the underbelly of the meat industry and effecting change for millions of animals, working on difficult and hard-to-sell material, not sharing a book project with friends and loved ones until it’s complete, weathering a difficult submission process, allowing herself to soften emotionally, becoming more in touch with self-compassion, and her new memoir Out of Sight: An Undercover Investigator’s Fight for Animal Rights and Her Own Survival.

-factory farms

-writing what feels right

-discovering what holds the book together

Books mentioned in this episode: 

The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku

The Choice by Dr. Eva Edith Eger

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

Gail A. Eisnitz, winner of the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Medal for outstanding achievement in animal welfare, has been working for decades to document and expose the shocking underbelly of the U.S. meat industry. She is chief investigator for the Humane Farming Association and author of the forthcoming memoir, Out of Sight: An Undercover Investigator’s Fight for Animal Rights and Her Own Survival. Eisnitz and her first book, Slaughterhouse: The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment inside the U.S. Meat Industry, were the driving force behind a front-page exposé in the Washington Post that resulted in an annual multimillion dollar Congressional appropriation for enforcement of the Humane Slaughter Act – the first funding ever allocated for a law that had been on the books for more than forty years. Eisnitz’s work has resulted in exposés by ABC’s Good Morning America, PrimeTime Live, and Dateline NBC, has been featured in such newspapers as the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, Detroit Free Press, Texas Monthly, Denver Business Journal, Los Angeles Times, and U.S. News & World Report, and her interviews have been heard on more than 1,000 radio stations. In her new memoir, Eisnitz takes readers on a journey of self-discovery as she fights to document and expose scandalous animal abuse, all in the face of a rare visual processing disorder that she has grappled with since childhood. The disease, which was only identified in the scientific literature a mere ten years ago – was diagnosed after she began writing her memoir – and is revealed at the book’s climax. 

Connect with Gail:

Website: www.GailEisnitz.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gail.eisnitz

Humane Farming Association: www.hfa.org

–

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Alex DiFrancesco joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about using rituals and tarot as a framework in a manuscript, Italian folk tradition as a spiritual outlet, the sometimes difficult path to publishing, being sued for defamation, finding a publisher brave enough to publish our work, writing about sexual assault, thinking in sections, using books as inspiration, complex PTSD, hiding who we are, alters, saints, and card divination, taking it slow, keeping our body in working order, making our own magic, and their new memoir Breaking the Curse.

Also in this episode:

-anti-SLAPP laws

-seeking protection

-multi-tonal books

-Snakes and Acey’s Print Shop: https://www.snakesandaceys.com/

Books mentioned in this episode:

78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack 

The Part That Burns by Jeannine Ouellette

Aura by Hillary Leftwich

Saint Dymphna’s Playbook by Hillary Leftwich 

Glory Guitars by Gogo Germaine

I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well by James Allen Hall

Alex DiFrancesco is the author of ALL CITY, PSYCHOPOMPS, TRANSMUTATION, and BREAKING THE CURSE. Their work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Tim House, and more. They are a 2022 recipient of the Ohio Atts Council's individual excellence awards, as well as the first transgender awards finalist in over 80 years of the Ohioana Book Awards. 

Connect with Alex:

Website: www.alexdifrancesco.com

Get the book: https://www.sevenstories.com/authors/453-alex-difrancesco?srsltid=AfmBOor0TGaH2gWxGoaqEPlv2rNOrjiALa2iEha3b-z1m0s6mFIosnja

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers