Let’s Talk Memoir

Ronit Plank
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Let’s Talk Memoir

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, editor, and teacher Ronit Plank, each episode highlights different aspects of the memoir-writing experience, and offers writing tips and inspiration. Ronit is the author of the award-winning story collection Home is a Made-Up Place and the memoir When She Comes Back about the loss of her mother to the guru at the center of Netflix’s docuseries Wild Wild Country and their eventual reconciliation. For more memoir advice, workshops, and encouragement find Let’s Talk Memoir and Ronit on Substack, Instagram, and at ronitplank.com

  1. 4 DAYS AGO

    151. Putting the Less Than Heroic Parts of Ourselves on the Page featuring Casey Mulligan Walsh

    Casey Mulligan Walsh joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the search for belonging in the wake of repeated loss, learning to live with grief alongside joy, finding a purpose for our story, homing in on the aboutness, patterns and themes in our memoir, managing flashbacks and whether or not to use them, setting up the essential question for your book, whether or not to have a prologue, landing on the structure, how our writing impacts others, tightening work, consolidating scenes, and cutting where necessary, embracing life in its messy complexity, and her new memoir The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared.   Ronit’s upcoming memoir course: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   Also in this episode: -building a book launch team -supporting other writers -the challenges and benefits of critique groups   Books mentioned in this episode: The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman Love in the Archives by Eileen Vorbach Collins Growth by Karen Debonis Wild by Cheryl Strayed Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody Seven Drafts by Allison K. Williams The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith    Casey Mulligan Walsh writes about life at the intersection of grief and joy, embracing uncertainty, and the nature of true belonging. She has written for The New York Times, HuffPost, Next Avenue, Modern Loss, Hippocampus, Barren Magazine, and numerous other literary journals and anthologies. Her essay, “Still,” published in Split Lip, was nominated for Best of the Net. Her memoir, The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared, is forthcoming from Motina Books on February 18, 2025. She is a founding editor of In a Flash literary magazine and serves as an ambassador and Board member for the Family Heart Foundation. Casey lives in upstate New York with her husband, Kevin and too many books to count. Find Casey at www.caseymulliganwalsh.com. Connect with Casey: Facebook @Casey Mulligan Walsh @Casey Mulligan Walsh, Author Instagram https://www.instagram.com/caseymulliganwalsh X: http://x.com/@CMulliganWalsh Threads @caseymulliganwalsh BlueSky @caseymulliganwalsh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-mulligan-walsh-522ba231/ Get her book on Amazon: https://a.co/d/4ZyHXNR Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-full-catastrophe-all-i-ever-wanted-everything-i-feared-casey-mulligan-walsh/21932235?ean=9798887840413 Also at your local independent bookstore and wherever books are sold.

    51 min

  2. FEB 13

    150. Writing a Memoir in Three Months featuring Barrie Miskin

    Barrie Miskin joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the rare dissociative disorder she experienced while pregnant and her experience navigating the maternal and mental health care system, the guilt and shame so often connected to motherhood and womanhood, the sweet spot of writing a year into her full recovery, balancing memoir writing with privacy and community, owning who we are and what we need to write, helping people feel seen, protection within the writing process, letting loved ones read our work before publication, writing a memoir in three months, and her new memoir Hell Gate Bridge.   Also in this episode: -maternal mental health crises -cognitive behavioral therapy -writing fast   Books mentioned in this episode  -Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho -Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan -After the Eclipse: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Search by Sarah Perry -Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad    Barrie Miskin's writing has appeared in Hobart, Narratively, Expat Press and elsewhere. Her interviews can be found in Write or Die magazine, where she is a regular contributor. Barrie is also a teacher in Astoria, New York, where she lives with her husband and daughter. Hell Gate Bridge is her first book. Connect with Barrie: Website: barriemiskin.com Instagram: @barrie_m X: @bmcintyre1000 – 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

    32 min

  3. FEB 11

    149. Writing Someone Else’s Story featuring Kanya D’Almeida

    Kanya D’Almeida joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how her life changed when a manuscript by Russell "Maroon" Shoatz, a former member of the Black Panther Party and soldier in the Black Liberation Army showed up in an envelope on her doorstep in 2011, the decades he spent in the Pennsylvania prison system, how their experiences with political violence and civil war intersected, becoming his biographer and building comradeship across the bars, Sri Lanka’s history of conflict, channeling complicated feelings into dedication for writing a book, violence as the only language America knows how to speak, and her new book I Am Maroon: The True Story of an American Political Prisoner.    Ronit’s upcoming memoir course: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story    Also in this episode: -being a diasporic writer  -being a multi-genre author -the role of self-criticism   Books mentioned in this episode: On a Move by Mike Africa Jr. Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur    Russell "Maroon" Shoatz was a dedicated community activist, founding member of the Black Unity Council, former member of the Black Panther Party, and soldier in the Black Liberation Army. Kanya D’Almeida won the 2021 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, becoming the first Sri Lankan and only the second Asian writer to hold the honor. She was awarded the Society of Authors’ annual short story award in 2022. Her journalism has appeared in Al Jazeera, TruthOut, and The Margins, and her fiction has appeared in Granta. She holds an MFA from Columbia University, where she studied under Victor LaValle.   Connect with Kanya: https://twitter.com/kanyadalmeida https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/russell-shoatz/i-am-maroon/9781645030492/?lens=bold-type-books   – 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

    39 min

  4. FEB 6

    148. Shedding False Identities and Being Our Own Best Champion featuring Sari Botton

    Sari Botton joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about editing the magazines Adventures in Journalism, Memoir Land, and Oldster, her experience publishing on Substack, editing vs. generating material, putting ourselves in our story, wrestling with what to share, creating safe boundaries, growing into the truest version of ourselves, vomit drafts, leaving the perfectionist out of the room, turning death on its head, shedding false identities, being our own best champion, and her mid-life coming of age memoir in episodes And You May Find Yourself...Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo.   Also in this episode:  -lowering standards for an early draft -finding time for our own writing -giving ourselves downtime to switch gears   Books mentioned in this episode: -Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott -Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott -Bodywork by Melissa Febos -The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr -All books by Abigail Thomas   Sari’s audibook is available here: https://www.audible.com/pd/And-You-May-Find-Yourself-Audiobook/B0DVMR3V2M   Sari Botton's memoir in essays, And You May Find Yourself...Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo, was chosen by Poets & Writers magazine for the 2022 edition of its annual "5 Over 50" feature. An essay from it received notable mention in The Best American Essays 2023, edited by Vivian Gornick. For five years, she was the Essays Editor at Longreads. She edited the bestselling anthologies Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NewYork and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York. She publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in Journalism. She was the Writer in Residence in the creative writing department at SUNY New Paltz for Spring, 2023.    Connect with Sari: http://saribotton.com https://www.facebook.com/sari.botton/ https://www.instagram.com/saribotton/ https://bsky.app/profile/saribotton.bsky.social http://oldster.substack.com http://memoirland.substack.com http://adventuresinjournalism.substack.com https://www.audible.com/pd/And-You-May-Find-Yourself-Audiobook/B0DVMR3V2M https://bookshop.org/p/books/and-you-may-find-yourself-sari-botton/18519104 https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/sari-botton/goodbye-to-all-that-revised-edition/9781541675681/?lens=seal-press https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Never-Can-Say-Goodbye/Sari-Botton/9781476784403 – 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

    36 min

  5. FEB 4

    147. Writing About Your Neurodiverse (ex)Partner featuring Eleanor Vincent

    Eleanor Vincent joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about trying to save her challenging high conflict marriage, autism in adults and Cassandra Syndrome, what to leave out of a book, self-revelation and honest grappling, the toll of masking autism, emotional abuse, careful framing of those we write about, using a sensitivity reader, support groups for neurodiverse spouses, our narrating personas, writing fearless first drafts, disguising identities and biographical details to protect those we write about, and her new memoir Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage.   Ronit’s upcoming memoir course: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   Also in this episode: -complex trauma -hyperfocus -reading unceasingly   Books mentioned in this episode: -The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick -Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello -You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith -This American Ex-Wife by Liz Lenz -Liars by Sarah Manguso -Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset  -22 Things a Woman Must Know If She Loves a Man with Asperger’s Syndrome by Rudy Simone  -Books by Anne Patchett   Eleanor Vincent’s new memoir Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage is forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press. It tells the story of her gradual discovery that her husband was on the autism spectrum, and of how she tried to save a challenging high-conflict marriage. Her previous memoir, Swimming with Maya: A Mother’s Story (Dream of Things, 2013) has twice been on the New York Times bestseller list and was nominated for the Independent Publisher of the Year award. Her essays have appeared in anthologies by Creative Nonfiction and This I Believe, the literary magazines 580 Split and Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, as well as shorter pieces in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sacramento Bee, and Generations Today. She has an MFA in creative writing from Mills College and is a member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto, Left Margin Lit, and the Author’s Guild. She has taught creative nonfiction seminars at Mills College as a visiting writer and been awarded residencies at Hedgebrook, the Vermont Studio Center, and Writing Between the Vines. She lives in Walnut Creek, California. Connect with Eleanor: Website: https://www.eleanorvincent.com/ Book: https://vineleavespress.myshopify.com/products/disconnected-portrait-of-a-neurodiverse-marriage-by-eleanor-vincent X: https://x.com/eleanorpvincent Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eleanor.vincent/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eleanor.vincent/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleanorpvincent/ Writing the real world Substack: https://eleanorvincent.substack.com/   – 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:

    43 min

  6. JAN 28

    146. Permission to Be Ourselves featuring Minelle Mahtani

    Minelle Mahtani joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the grief, love, loss, and repair in losing her mother while finding her voice, noncolonial ways of thinking about stories, writing about her Indian, Iranian, and Canadian identities, what the sound of our voice is worth, paying attention to what we pay attention to, permission to be ourselves, having fun while trying to write precisely about grief, emotional trauma commonalities, her Canadian radio show Sense of Place, how kind we can bear to be to ourselves, listening as a political act, and her new memoir May it Have a Happy Ending.    Ronit’s upcoming 10-week online memoir course: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   Also in this episode: -sibling approaches to grief and losing parents -cocooning -feminist geography   Books mentioned in this episode: Code Noir by Canisia Lubrin  The Story Game by Shze-Hui Tjoa Books by Julietta Singh   Minelle Mahtani is a Muslim Iranian/Indian/Canadian writer, former TV producer and radio host who teaches at University of British Columbia. Her memoir, “May It Have a Happy Ending” has been called a “magnificent and stunning debut…a gorgeous prism of stories.” She has been nominated for two national magazine awards and won a gold medal for best personal essay in th Digital Publishing Awards. She is the author of the book “Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality.” Her work has appeared in Geist, Maisonneuve and is forthcoming in Southeast Review.    Connect with Minelle: Website: www.minellemahtani.com X: https://x.com/mminelle Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minellewrites Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/minelle.mahtani/ – 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

    42 min

  7. JAN 21

    145. Limitation as an Engine for Creativity featuring Jarod K. Anderson

    Jarod K. Anderson joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about changing our definition of what victory is based on what we can and can’t control, understanding our own minds and contextualizing ourselves in the world, his experience with chronic major depression, the stigma around mental illness, the pain of abstraction and the concrete world, his podcast The Cryptonaturalist, privileging enthusiasm over fact, internal landscapes, the paradox of choice, large social media followings, the magic of the natural world around us, limitation as the engine for creativity, and his new memoir Something in the Woods Loves You.   Also in this episode: -fantastical nature -toxic masculinity -a sense of service   More about Ronit’s UW Writing Class, MEMOIR WRITING: FINDING YOUR STORY: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   Books mentioned in this episode: On Writing by Stephen King Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Area X by Jeff VanderMeer   JAROD K. ANDERSON is a writer, poet, and creator of The CryptoNaturalist podcast -a scripted show about real adoration for fictional wildlife. HIs new book is: SOMETHING IN THE WOODS LOVES YOU. He has built a large audience of social media followers and podcast listeners with his vibrant appreciations of nature. His previous 3 books are all best-sellers: Field Guide to the Haunted Forest, Love Notes from the Hollow Tree, and Leaf Litter. He lives in Ohio between a forest and a cemetery.  Connect with Jarod: https://www.jarodkanderson.com/ https://www.instagram.com/cryptonaturalist/ https://x.com/CryptoNature https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBXHP2Yy5cJwg0tR9VfP8Xw https://www.facebook.com/JarodKAnderson/   – 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

    39 min

  8. JAN 14

    144. Theme as Blueprint for Structure featuring Sarah Gormley

    Sarah Gormley joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about unpacking the baggage of self-doubt and imposter syndrome and moving toward self-love, shaping our memoirs into answers to the questions we have about our life, prioritizing pieces and elements of our story that help show readers transformation, the messiness of mother-daughter relationships, including partners and family in our memoir narratives, cutting big chunks of our manuscripts out, themes as blueprints for our structure, trusting our body when we land somewhere right, realizing what our book is actually about, and her new memoir The Order of Things.   Also in this episode: -enjoying the magic of the written word  -writing as a reader -including scenes from therapy in our memoirs   Books mentioned in this episode:  While You Were Out by Meg Kissinger Group by Christie Tate A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer   Sarah Gormley is a writer and art gallery owner living in Columbus, Ohio. Her undergraduate degree from DePauw University reinforced an early love for literature and writing, while the heavy sprinkling of liberal-arts fairy dust taught her how to analyze and articulate a clear point of view. She rounded out this foundation with concentrations in marketing and operations from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. Her marketing career included work with several global brands, including IMAX, Martha Stewart, Girl Scouts of the USA, and Adobe. Gormley was honored as one of 2015’s Forty Women to Watch over 40, and she has been featured in Forbes and the CMO Club. In June 2019, she was invited to deliver the class address at her DePauw University class reunion and regrets not having her hair blown out. Today, Gormley owns a contemporary art gallery, Sarah Gormley Gallery (SGG), in downtown Columbus, Ohio.    Connect with Sarah: Website: www.sarahgormley.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scgormley/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarah.gormley.3726/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gormleysarah/ – 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

    33 min
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About

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, editor, and teacher Ronit Plank, each episode highlights different aspects of the memoir-writing experience, and offers writing tips and inspiration. Ronit is the author of the award-winning story collection Home is a Made-Up Place and the memoir When She Comes Back about the loss of her mother to the guru at the center of Netflix’s docuseries Wild Wild Country and their eventual reconciliation. For more memoir advice, workshops, and encouragement find Let’s Talk Memoir and Ronit on Substack, Instagram, and at ronitplank.com

Information

  • Creator
    Ronit Plank
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodes
    156
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Let’s Talk Memoir

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