More to the Story Podcast with Janna Maron

In this episode, I talk with writer James M. Chesbro. James is the author of A Lion in the Snow: Essays on a Father’s Journey Home. His work has appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle, America, The Washington Post, The Millions, Essay Daily, and The Huffington Post. Essays from A Lion in the Snow were chosen as notable selections in The Best American Essays series 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2018, as well as The Best American Sports Writing 2014.

In the episode we talk about: 

• Making sense of things in a private journal
• Mourning the loss of a parent while trying to keep children alive at the same time
• The confluence of the role of son and father, feeling like a kid forever
• How becoming a father allowed him to learn about and understand his own father who passed away before he had kids
• How the memories that we  attach to objects allow them to take on a life of their own
• Jamie's book, A Lion in the Snow, Essays on a Father’s Journey Home compiling an essay collection
• Finishing a project, even when it takes almost a decade, has to be an obsession
• The importance of books about men for men and exploring emotions as men
• jamesmchesbro.com / jamie_chesbro on Twitter & Instagram

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

If you're looking for a place to find more support with writing your true personal story, join the More To The Story community!

In this episode I talk with Tori Weston, creative writer and visual artist. Tori received a BFA in Writing and Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. While working for the Professional Studies department and finishing her last semester of graduate school, she wrote a proposal for a creative writing high school program. Fifteen years later, she is now the Assistant Director of Pre-College Programs at Emerson College. When not running the pre-college program, she balances her professional life with her creative life as both a writer and artist. Her writing has appeared in What's Up Magazine, Providence Journal-Bulletin, Sleet Magazine, and Under the Gum Tree. She has also been a featured storyteller in the Risk! Live show, podcast, and book. Her artwork has been shown at the Somerville Museum, Diesel Cafe, and Bloc 11 Cafe. 

In the episode we talk about: 

• Her 6th grad teacher’s quirky essay assignments
• Tori's love of grammar & being rewarded for memorizing poems with parties
• The 1991 Doors movie inspiring a generation of creatives writing bad poetry
• The recurring theme of teachers taking interest, encouraging her to pursue writing
• Moving to nonfiction as a result of telling personal stories
• Themes unifying multiple short-short pieces
• The richness of growing up in a cultural diverse neighborhood
• Tori’s memoir-in-progress about her whopping 38 roommate situations
• Check out her work at: ToriWestonWriterArtist.com 

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. 

If you're looking for a place to find more support with writing your true personal story, join the More To The Story community!

In this episode I talk with Rebekah Taussig, one of Under the Gum Tree’s previous contributors. Rebekah is a writer and teacher with her PhD in creative nonfiction and disability studies from the University of Kansas. She is interested in the powerful connection between the stories we tell and the tangible world we live in. You can find her essays in Under the Gum Tree and The Florida Review and can follow her flash-memoirs on her Instagram @sitting_pretty. Her essay “Reupholstered” appears in the October 2016 issue of Under the Gum Tree.

In this episode we talk about:

• Wanting to make sense of the world through words


• Disability stories in nineteenth century literature


• The Moonstone and Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins


• Responses of Rebekah's students in her high school disability and literature class


• The challenge and discomfort engaging with "others," people who are different from we are


• Rebekah's experience of transitioning to using a wheelchair as a child


• Writing life stories that are shaped by Rebekah's experience with her body


• Rebekah's memoir Do You Feel This: The Story of a Voice Lost and Reclaimed


• Writing flash-flash memoir on Instagram


• Visit Rebekah online at rebekahtaussig.com and follow her on Instagram @sitting_pretty

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. Find out about my 6-week email audio course at jannamarlies.com/cnf101course.

In this episode I talk with Liz Stephens, one of Under the Gum Tree's previous contributors. Liz is currently growing the Mojave Desert Arts project, a residency and workshop space outside Joshua Tree, California. Recent work can be found in the anthologies Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction and Dirt: A Love Story. Other work can be found in Fourth Genre and Terrain.org, among others. She has served as managing editor of Brevity, and teaches nonfiction with the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program and through private workshops and retreats. Liz’s essay “Because Faint Glitter Came Off Everything” appears in the April 2017 issue of Under the Gum Tree.

In this episode we talk about:

• The difference between journaling and crafting true stories for an audience


• How writing creative nonfiction has taught Liz the craft and structure needed for returning to writing ficton


• Being in transition as an adult and part of the artistic class


• How places are created, whether people create it or whether place shapes and forms people


• Living in the desert and choosing to stay in a place that's more difficult to live


• The inconvenience of wanting something that isn't easy


• Paying attention to surroundings as a way to occupy an over-thinking mind


• An artist residency that Liz is working on starting called the Mojave Desert Arts


• Visit Liz online at thedaysaregods.com follow Liz on Instagram at @doc_stephens

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com. Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram. Find out about my 6-week email audio course at jannamarlies.com/cnf101course.

In this episode I talk with one of Under the Gum Tree's previous contributors, Dorian Fox. Dorian essays, articles and stories have appeared in december, Gastronomica, Alimentum, Monkeybicycle, National Parks Magazine, and elsewhere. His work has also been shortlisted for awards by Ploughshares, Phoebe and The Bellingham Review. He received his MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Emerson College and teaches writing at Grub Street in Boston. His essay "The Other First," appears in the January 2016 issue of Under the Gum Tree.

In this episode we talk about:

• The nakedness that comes with writing nonfiction and claiming your personal experience


• How to not get tripped up by facts when writing nonfiction


• Embracing and honoring your own subjective version of truth when writing


• Anxieties and concerns that develop when we age, and when we age in a relationship


• How we revise, recast, or recalibrate our personal life stories and see it with fresh perspective


• Dorian's work teaching at Grub Street in Boston


• Teaching writing and how it influences Dorian's own creative work as a writer


• The craft books *The Art of Memoir*, by Mary Karr; *The Situation and the Story*, by Vivian Gornick; and
  
  *On Writing*, by Stephen King


• The cult-classic films Motorphsyco! and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!


• Visit Dorian online at dorianfox.com

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com.

Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram.

Find out about my 6-week email audio course at jannamarlies.com/cnf101course.

In this episode I talk with Yahdon Israel, one of Under the Gum Tree's previous contributors. Yahdon is 27-year-old writer from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, who has written for Avidly, The New Inquiry, Brooklyn Magazine, LitHub, and Poets and Writers. He graduated from the MFA Creative Non-Fiction Writing program at the New School. He is the Awards and Membership VP of the National Book Critics Circle. Run a popular Instagram page which promotes literature and fashion under the hashtag Literaryswag, and host a web show for writers called LIT.

In this episode we talk about:

• Writing as a means to confronting the world


• Telling lies to find your voice, and writing as a way to be heard


• Getting to the truth of feelings through false constructs like memory and objectivity


• How James Baldwin has influenced Yahdon as a writer


• White editors and their expectation that black writers should answer their questions


• Complexity of asking questions that reveal assumptions and lies we tell ourselves


• The essay as a form of asking questions that may never be answered


• What the literary market wants and expects from writers of color


• The Women, by Hilton Als


• The importance of literary citizenship and contributing to community beyond writing


• Yahdon's interview with Pulitzer Prizewinning poet Tyehimba Jess


• Yahdon's popular Instagram hashtag #literaryswag and his new web show for writers called LIT.


• Visit Yahdon online at yahdonisrael.com. Follow him on Instagram @yahdon and on Twitter @yahdonisrael.


• Follow Yahdon's projects on Instagram @litplatform and @literaryswagbookclub.

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com.

Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram.

Find out about my 6-week email audio course at jannamarlies.com/cnf101course.

In this episode I talk with Stephen Gutierrez, one of Under the Gum Tree's previous contributors. Stephen has published three books of stories and essays. Live from Fresno y Los won an American Book Award, and The Mexican Man in His Backyard is his most recent. He has published widely in magazines and anthologies, including nonfiction in Fourth Genre, River Teeth, Under the Sun, Alaska Quarterly Review, Third Coast, ZYZZYVA and Cleaver Magazine. He is working on a collection of essays and hybrid nonfiction. He teaches at California State University East Bay. His essay "Spiritual Direction" appears in the October 2016 issue of Under the Gum Tree.

In this episode we talk about:

• Writing both fiction and nonfiction, and discovering a new voice in nonfiction


• Taking a stand for writing a positive tribute of a family member


• What we learn about ourselves and others close to use when we write about family


• How writing can help us learn sympathy for others by being willing to challenge our own beliefs


• Stephen's three-volume box set: Elements, Live from Fresno y Los, The Mexican Man in his Backyard


• Visit Stephen online at stephendgutierrez.com

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com.

Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram [@undergumtree][4]. Follow me on Twitter [@justjanna][5] and [@jannamarlies][6] on Instagram.

Find out about my 6-week email audio course at [jannamarlies.com/cnf101course][7].

In this episode I talk with author and Under the Gum Tree contributor Carol Marsh. Carol's essay, “Pictures in Leaves,” won the 2016 New Millennium Writings Nonfiction Prize. Her essay "Highest and Best" received an honorable mention in Under the Gum Tree's inaugural essay contest and appears in the January 2017 issue of the magazine. It is an excerpt from her memoir Nowhere Else I Want to Be. Additional excerpts of her book have appeared in Soundings Review , bioStories, and Jenny magazine.

In this episode we talk about:

• Processing grief and experience through writing creative nonfiction


• Why Carol started Miriam's House, a nonprofit shelter for women in Washington, D.C. living with aids


• How writing played a role in maintaining emotional and spiritual health during her time at Miriam's House


• The importance of self-care when having others to take care and creating physical and emotional boundaries


• Why structure is a bitch and how to create it a memoir with multiple storylines


• Carol's memoir Nowhere Else I Want to Be


• The online school for people in public service that Carol started, Forum for Growth in Service


• Visit Carol online at caroldmarsh.com

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com.

Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram [@undergumtree][4]. Follow me on Twitter [@justjanna][5] and [@jannamarlies][6] on Instagram.

Find out about my 6-week email audio course at [jannamarlies.com/cnf101course][7].

In this episode I talk with Ira Sukrungruang, one of Under the Gum Tree's previous contributors. Ira is the author of The Melting Season, Southside Buddhist, Talk Thai, and In Thailand It Is Night. He teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida. His essay "The Animatronic Dog" appears in the April 2016 issue of Under the Gum Tree.

• The pen name that Ira used when he used to submit stories to the New Yorker as a teenager


• How Ira shifts between writing in all three genres of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction


• The difference between writing personal stories as nonfiction versus autobiographical fiction


• Exploring the meaning of the word "monster," where monsters come from and what we are really afraid of


• Crafting segmented essays, determining the sequence and what to include or leave out


• What to do with material that doesn't end up in an essay


• The role of being an editor and how it affects Ira's work as a writer


• The online literary magazine Sweet, where Ira is a founding editor


• Ira's new memoir Buddah's Dog, coming out in spring 2018


• Visit Ira online at buddistboy.com, follow him on Twitter at @sukrungruang

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com.

Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram [@undergumtree][4]. Follow me on Twitter [@justjanna][5] and [@jannamarlies][6] on Instagram.

Find out about my 6-week email audio course at [jannamarlies.com/cnf101course][7].

In this episode I talk with Matt Young, one of Under the Gum Tree's previous contributors. Matt is a marine veteran, writer, and teacher. He lives in Olympia, Washington where he teaches at Central College. He holds an MA in creative writing from Miami University. His work can be found in Yemassee, Word Riot, Tin House, River Teeth, and others. His essay "Equal and Opposite" appears in the July 2016 issue of Under the Gum Tree. His memoir Eat the Apple comes out in February 2018.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Matt came to writing after his military career


• Navigating the often conflicting identities of being both a war veteran and a writer


• Dealing with re-traumatization when writing memoir


• Different types of reactions Matt experiences to his military stories


• Matt's new memoir Eat the Apple, which will be published February 2018 and available for preorder now


• Visit Matt online at http://mattyoungauthor.com/ or on Twitter at @young_em_see

Visit us online at moretothestorypodcast.com and visit Under the Gum Tree at underthegumtree.com.

Follow Under the Gum Tree Twitter and Instagram @undergumtree. Follow me on Twitter @justjanna and @jannamarlies on Instagram.

Find out about my 6-week email audio course at jannamarlies.com/cnf101course.