This week’s Memoir Nation is an onstage interview with Brooke and guest Susan Orlean, author of the new memoir, Joyride. This interview was a LitQuake event that happened in late October in Oakland, California. Susan is a delightful storyteller on the page and on the stage. There are some not-to-be-missed stories about working for Robert Gottlieb and Tina Brown at The New Yorker; what it felt like to have Meryl Streep play her in the movie, Adaptation; and insights about whether or not she could have the career she’s had if she were starting today. Thank you to LitQuake and Susan for allowing us to repurpose this interview—and Happy Thanksgiving week to all.

Susan Orlean is the bestselling author of The Orchid Thief, The Library Book, and eight other works of nonfiction. A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, she’s known for her vivid storytelling, deep curiosity, and ability to illuminate the extraordinary in the ordinary. Her work has been widely anthologized and adapted for film, including the Oscar-winning Adaptation. She is one of the most influential nonfiction storytellers of our time.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Memoir Nation guest Beth Macy’s new memoir, Paper Girl, offers us the opportunity to dive into a social-cultural discussion this week as we explore the forces that seek to divide us, and also that seek to prevent pathways out of poverty. This is an important if hard conversation about subjects close to Beth’s book and her life—about the safety nets that are no longer there for the poor; about the legs up people are no longer getting; and about the resentment that’s been sowed as a result. Today’s show reminds us that memoir is many things, and that what we choose to write about can both get us into trouble and set us free.

Beth Macy reported and wrote for The Roanoke Times for a quarter-century before leaving in 2014 to focus on book writing. She’s the author of Dopesick, which was made into a Peabody Award-winning series for Hulu. She’s also the author of Raising Lazarus and Factory Man. Her books examine the forces eroding American society, such as addiction, offshoring, and economic inequality. Paper Girl is her first memoir.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we delve into all the ways memoir can be transformative. In framing her own memoir as an act of service, Julie Lythcott-Haims helps us to contextualize what your memoir is for, who it’s for, and whether you’re ready to write it for others, or if it needs to stay with just you, at least for a while. This is a powerful and impassioned conversation about memoir, why we write, and what we write for. Julie also shares about how prescient her memoir, Real American, was—as she was writing it in 2016 with the rise of Trumpism, and what it meant to be part of a chorus of voices writing about experiences of race and racial identity in America.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we have a historically important memoirist on the show. E. Jean Carroll risked her privacy and her reputation to charge President Trump with sexual assault. He was convicted for those crimes. E. Jean Carroll is a writer and an author who penned a memoir about being on trial—and how when women are victimized and assaulted, they’re slut-shamed, discredited, and scrutinized. In this interview, E. Jean tells us about her writing choices, why she opted for a breezier and often-times funny tone on such a serious topic, and why she’s not afraid. In the book trend, we talk about preorders: why and how they matter and why Amazon has such a corner on them.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, Memoir Nation connects with comedian Roy Wood Jr. on the serious topic of legacy—what we inherit and what we pass on. Wood’s new memoir, The Man of Many Fathers, explores the many influences in his life, and how a complicated relationship with his own father, including losing him when Wood was just sixteen, informs how he parents his son. This is a touching and heartfelt interview about life, loss, and the hope we all have for our children, or the children in our lives. For the Book Trend, we tap into a bit of darkness in honor of Halloween, and offer up a few forthcoming true crime memoirs that are getting some early buzz.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Memoir Nation is celebrating imperfection, unresolved storylines, and the art of positive obsession this week with guest Mallary Tenore Tarpley, author of the new memoir, Slip. This week’s episode has so much good stuff for memoirists—including Mallary’s story of tenacity (she was rejected many many times on her first time out the gate with this book); her pivot to memoir-plus, and her insights on writing a memoir with an unusual structure. This is fuel any memoirist needs to stay the course and believe in the project you’re being called to write. Also, over at Memoir Nation, we’ve formally launched our community, and we hope you’ll come and check it out under the “Community” menu tab at MemoirNation.com.

Mallary Tenore Tarpley is a journalism and writing professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Moody College of Communication and McCombs School of Business. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Dallas Morning News, and The Tampa Bay Times, among other publications. She is the recipient of a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant, which has helped support her research and writing. Mallary holds bachelor’s degrees from Providence College, as well as a master’s of fine arts in nonfiction writing from Goucher College. She lives outside of Austin, Texas, with her husband and two children. Slip is her first book.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we’re treated to the deep expertise, wisdom, and compassion of agent Regina Brooks. Regina has lots of experience shaping and selling memoirs to publishers. In this week’s show, we talk about what makes a memoir saleable, but also about what Regina looks for when memoir projects cross her desk. We cover author platform, celebrity memoir, and advice for memoirists looking to get published. Regina even invites our listeners (when they’re ready) to send her their proposals. A great and much-needed publishing interview, memoir-style. Also, in today’s Book Trend Brooke and Grant take the space to apologize for a recent ad spot run on Memoir Nation that they did not and do not endorse.

Regina Brooks is the founder and CEO of Serendipity Literary Agency in New York, the largest African American–owned agency in the US. She is the president of the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) and coproducer of the People of Publishing Conference and a founding member of Literary Agents of Change (LAOC) and the Black Book Accelerator. Brooks is the author of Writing Great Books for Young Adults and You Should Really Write a Book: How to Write, Sell, and Market Your Memoir. Brooks is a copublisher with Open Lens, an imprint of Akashic Books. Brooks has been highlighted in The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. When she’s not agenting, she’s gardening, fishing, and flying her own plane (always in a dress).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week’s episode is one that’s full of joy and inspiration and the payoffs of believing in yourself. Guest Kwame Alexander is one of the most upbeat, persistent, and tenacious people in book publishing, and we’re honored that he SAID YES to coming back to Memoir Nation seven years after his first appearance. This week’s show is about the power of yes and where yes can lead you—and we touch upon when and how to cultivate no, since sometimes you simply have to. Kwame shares stories from his past and how he became a 26-year overnight success story, and Grant and Brooke weigh in on how they balance (mostly) yes and (sometimes) no. Listen in!

Also, for those interested in learning more about the Anthropic case that’s this week’s Book Trend, we encourage you to visit Brooke’s Substack, Writerly Things, for this week’s update.

Kwame Alexander is an Emmy® Award-winning producer of The Crossover, his Newbery Medal-winning novel turned Disney+ TV series, the creator of the new animated PBS special Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Band, and the host of America’s Next Great Author, the first reality television show for writers which will premiere in 2026. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 46 books, including his memoir, Why Fathers Cry at Night. A recipient of the 2025 NAACP Image Award, Kwame regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world, including Ghana, West Africa, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic. His mission is to change the world—one word at a time.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we welcome Melissa Febos back to Memoir Nation to discuss her latest book, The Dry Season. Melissa is a fountain of inspiration and information and this episode covers topics as diverse as how to cultivate discernment in our reading to why memoir is the opposite of self-indulgent. We drill down into solitude as a creatively regenerative space, and get into some memoir craft, too. Hard to resist when we have a writing professor on the show. Melissa never disappoints, and this interview is one you’ll come back to when you need to fill your creative well.

Melissa Febos is the author of five books, including the national bestselling essay collection, Girlhood; the craft book, Body Work (2022), which was also a national bestseller and an LA Times bestseller. Her new memoir, The Dry Season, was published in June 2025. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is the Roy J. Carver Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week we have a fun episode that examines point of view in memoir. We’re talking about personal narrative that falls outside of first person, which means points of view that are second, third, and plural. We consider this style, which used to be far less common in memoir than it is now, with author Elizabeth Crane, whose memoir, This Story Will Change, implements all the points of view to great effect. We had fun with this one and we hope our writer-listeners will have fun experimenting with point of view, too.

Don’t miss Brooke’s underrated Substack post on 5 Ways to Use “You” in Memoir. And especially don’t miss this incredible list of publishers that are accepting unsolicited manuscripts for memoir. Thank you, Becker!

Elizabeth Crane is the author of four collections of short stories,  two novels, and one memoir. Her work has been translated into several languages and has been featured in numerous publications including Other Voices, Nerve, Ecotone, Swink, Guernica, and many other outlets. She’s a recipient of the Chicago Public Library 21st Century Award, and her work has been adapted for the stage by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theater company, and has also been adapted for film. She teaches in the UCR-Palm Desert low-residency MFA program.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.