Marty Ross-Dolen’s memoir Always There, Always Gone, winner of the 2026 Ohio Book Awards Readers’ Choice Award, carries the subtitle “A daughter’s search for truth.” Marty Ross-Dolen is the daughter. What she searches for is a fuller knowing of her grandmother, her mother’s mother, about whom her mother will talk but can’t seem to do so without looking pained or breaking into tears. What Marty knows are the bare facts: Her grandmother and grandfather were killed in an airliner disaster over NYC in December, 1960, when a United flight from Chicago ran into a TWA flight from Columbus, Ohio. Everyone on both planes and six people on the ground were killed. Marty’s grandparents were executives in the family business, Highlights for Children. Marty’s mother was 14 at the time, and she and her four siblings were moved from Ohio to Texas to live with their uncle and aunt. So Marty constructs a portrait of her grandmother—the warmth, the wit, the vitality and charm—a portrait she drew from poring over correspondence, photos, records, family memorabilia. Along the way, she asks, “When do humans stop defining ourselves by tragedies?” When will we stop using words like survivor, hero, warrior to describe ourselves? Her answer: Possibly never again. What emerges is a memoir that bends the form memoirs usually take, that informs readers of the life of a woman who comes of age in the 1940s and becomes a mother working in a singular business during the 1950s, and then looks at the layering of lives and the impact of protracted mourning, and of healing through love. Marty Ross-Dolen is a graduate of Wellesley College and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is a retired child and adolescent psychiatrist. She also earned an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Earlier, she worked in graduate-level workshops at the Ohio State University. Her essays have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, Redivider, Lilith, Willow Review and the Brevity Blog, among others. Her essay “Diphtheria” was a notable essay in The Best American Essays series. She writes, teaches writing, and lives in Columbus, Ohio. In this episode of Upstart Crow, Marty Ross-Dolen discusses Always There, Always Gone, her memoir about family, grief, memory, tragedy and healing. She talks about her grandmother, the 1960 New York City plane crash that changed her family, her connection to Highlights for Children, and the process of reconstructing a life through photographs, letters, correspondence and family records. Key TakeawaysHow Marty Ross-Dolen used hundreds of letters and thousands of pages of family correspondence to reconstruct the life and personality of a grandmother she never knew.Why her memoir focuses on her grandmother’s life rather than allowing the tragedy of her death to define her.How the sudden loss of her grandparents shaped three generations of women in her family and became an exploration of multigenerational trauma.Why absence can have just as profound an impact on a family as the people who are actually present.The surprising role that Highlights for Children played in Marty’s family history and how her grandparents helped build the iconic children’s magazine.How seemingly small decisions can affect generations of people in ways we could never predict.Why memoir doesn't always have to follow a traditional chronological structure.How Marty used creative techniques, including erasure poetry and a game-show-style section, to tell a deeply personal family story.Why writers need to learn how to use feedback without necessarily following every piece of advice they receive.How writing a memoir can change the way we understand our own family history, grief, identity, and the stories that have been passed down to us. Hosted by William Miller Find out more about Marty and the book, on her website. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram You can also watch the full interview on our YouTube channel. Be sure to visit our website Thank you for listening to the Upstart Crow Podcast, a part of Watershed Lit Radio Produced by Upstart Crow Podcast Recording and Audio Production by Jon D PodCom Copyright © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast - All Rights Reserved
