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. -1 J

    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

  2. 28 JANV.

    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

  3. 21 JANV.

    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

  4. 14 JANV.

    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

  5. 13 JANV.

    Attention, Selectivity, and Deep Curiosity featuring Paula Whyman

    Paula Whyman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about getting out of our comfort zone,  her attempt to restore native meadows in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, becoming obsessed with subjects and deep diving, writing about science and nature, controlling and selecting details for impact, being attentive to what readers need, writing tangentially, the need for deadlines, when your editor calls you a meanderer, leaning into exploration and not shutting ourselves down, allowing our writing to reflect the way our minds work, and her new memoir Bad Naturalist.   Also in this episode: -jumping from fiction to nonfiction -talking with experts -reading work aloud   Books mentioned in this episode: The Leaving Season by Kelly McMasters H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl A Buzz in the Meadow by Dave Goulson The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy  Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy  Real Estate by Deborah Levy    Paula Whyman’s new book, Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop, is forthcoming from Timber Press/Hachette Book Group in January 2025. It’s a blend of memoir, natural history, and conservation science, a chronicle of her attempts to restore retired farmland to natural habitat and what she discovered along the way. Her first book, the linked short story collection You May See a Stranger, won praise from The New Yorker and a starred review in Publishers Weekly, and won the Towson Prize for Literature. Her stories have appeared in journals including McSweeney’s Quarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, The Hudson Review, and The Southampton Review. Her fiction was selected for the anthology Writes of Passage: Coming-of-Age Stories and Memoirs from The Hudson Review. Her nonfiction has been featured on NPR, and in the Washington Post, The American Scholar, and The Rumpus. She is co-founder and editor in chief of the literary journal Scoundrel Time.   Whyman has taught in writers-in-schools programs through the Pen/Faulkner Foundation in Washington, DC, and the Hudson Review in Harlem and the Bronx, New York. Her fiction is part of the curriculum at The Young Women’s Leadership School in Harlem.   Whyman’s work has been supported by fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, The Studios of Key West, and VCCA. She was a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction at the Sewanee Writers Conference. She served two terms as Vice President of the MacDowell Fellows Executive Committee.   Whyman is the recipient of grants from the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) and the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County. She was awarded an MSAC Creativity Grant and 2023 and 2024 Oak Spring Garden Foundation residencies and grants to support her work on Bad Naturalist.  Connect with Paula: Website: paulawhyman.com Instagram: @paulawhymanauthor Bluesky: @paulawhym  Mastodon: @paulawhyman@writing.exchange  – 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

    43 min

  6. 7 JANV.

    So Woven It’s Whole: Complexly Braiding Science and Memoir featuring Eiren Caffall

    Eiren Caffall joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her generational experience of loss, coming out of the shadows about having an ill body, how polycystic kidney disease (PKD) has shaped her and her family’s life, writing about the collapse of ecosystems in the Atlantic ocean, seamlessly weaving in narrative, historical, lyrical, scientific, and metaphorical threads, allowing our children to weigh in on stories that involve them, feeling all the places we’re still wounded, depicting mother-daughter relationships with complexity, the umpteenth draft, form as key, holding two things in mind at once, reframing and understanding family dynamics, and her new memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary.   Also in this episode: -remembering wonder and beauty in the face of destruction  -idosyncratic craft structures  -where we are in our stories   Books mentioned in this episode: -Shapes of Native Nonfiction Edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warbuton -Meander Spiral Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Allison -Landmarks by Robert Mcfarlane   Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her award-winning memoir, The Mourner’s Bestiary, will be published by Row House Publishing in October 2024. Her novel, All the Water in the World will be published by Saint Martin’s Press in 2025. An excerpt of her memoir will appear in Elementals: Volume IV. Fire forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. Her work on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and three record albums. She received a Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant in 2023 for The Mourner’s Bestiary, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship in environmental journalism at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and a Frontline: Environmental Reportage residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She has been awarded residencies at Millay Colony for the Arts, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. She has guest lectured at UCLA, University of Chicago, and other universities across America, taught creative writing for The Chicago Humanities Festival, taught a memoir body and place week-long masterclass for Story Studio in Chicago, and mentored graduate students at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been adapted into the award-winning short film Becoming Ocean, which screened at film festivals across the United States and in Amsterdam and Morocco.   Connect with Eiren: Website: www.eirencaffall.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eirencaffall/ X: www.x.com/eirencaffall Substack: https://eirencaffall.substack.com Ronit’s Upcoming Online 10-week Memoir Course with the University of Washington: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   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/RonitPlan

    43 min

  7. 31/12/2024

    Tapping Into Our Bodies and Our Subconscious featuring Nadia Colburn

    Nadia Colburn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about tuning into our bodies to discover what we need to say, creating different cultural conversations about surviving trauma, tapping into our subconscious, coming out of secrets, how poetry can help us access material, not needing to share work until we’re ready, what we learn from being in community with other writers, and her signature online course Align Your Story for Women.   Also in this episode: -mitigating shame  -how our bodies remember -meditation and dreamwork    Books mentioned in this episode: -The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank -The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk  -Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman -Educated by Tara Westover -Nothing Holds Back the Night by Delphine de Vigan  -The work of Annie Ernaux   Nadia Colburn is the author of the poetry books "I Say the Sky" and "The High Shelf", and her poetry and prose have appeared in more than eighty publications, including The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Spirituality & Health, Lion's Roar, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Yale Review. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University, is a yoga teacher and serious student of Thich Nhat Hanh and is the founder of Align Your Story Writing School, which brings traditional literary and creative writing studies together with mindfulness, embodied practices, and social and environmental engagement. The school has a community of over 30,000 mindful writers. Nadia is passionate about helping her students reclaim their stories, come out of secrets, listen to their bodies, and embrace and step into their full creative voices, on and off the page. Nadia lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children. She is currently at work on a full-length memoir on pregnancy and early motherhood. Find her at nadiacolburn.com, where she offers meditations and free resources for writers. Connect with Nadia: Website: https://nadiacolburn.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alignyourstory Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nadia.colburn/ Free 5-Day Meditation & Writing Challenge: https://nadiacolburn.com/free-mindful-writing-challenge/ Free Resource Library for Writers: https://nadiacolburn.com/free-resources/ "I Say the Sky" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Say-Sky-Poems-Contemporary-Poetry/dp/081319864X "I Say the Sky" from Kentucky Press: https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813198637/i-say-the-sky/ 7-Day "I Say the Sky" Companion Meditation and Writing Challenge (free with book order -- just input book order number): https://nadiacolburn.com/7-day-new-year-practice/ Align Your Story for Women (Nadia's signature online course): https://nadiacolburn.com/align-your-story/   – 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

    33 min

  8. 24/12/2024

    A Love-Hate Social Media and Publishing Relationship featuring Kristen Van Nest

    Kristen Van Nest joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how discovered who she was on a global stage and her addiction to travel, loving the growth phase of new projects, how improv and stand up improves our writing, writing funny and the architecture of a joke, having a love-hate relationship with social media and publishing, keeping your ideal reader in mind, marketing our work ourselves and hustling to get our book in front of people, hammering in the theme in our manuscripts, publishing in literary reviews, establishing publishing proofpoints, cold pitching 150 agents, selling on proposal, and her memoir Where to Nest: A Global Search for Love, Cheap Wine and a Place to Belong.    Also mentioned in this episode: -ghost cities -bad roommates -feeling culturally confused   Books mentioned in this episode: What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristen Newman Wild by Cheryl Strayed Books by David Sedaris   In her debut travel memoir Where to Nest (April 2, 2024, Rising Action Publishing Co.) Kristen Van Nest weaves an entertaining story for anyone who needs a good laugh, travel ideas, and inspiration for ways to add more joy into their lives.   After college getting her dream job in New York City, Kristen thought she had everything a modern Millennial was supposed to want: a sexy zip code, a boyfriend, and a corporate job.    But instead of feeling content, she soon realized she had no idea who she was and what made her happy. Naturally, she did what any sane person would do: hopped on a plane and spent the rest of her twenties living abroad and traveling the world in search of love, adventure, and new and exciting places to eat bread.   By stripping away the cultural norms and expectations she grew up with in the US, she rebuilt from scratch a new identity, sense of self, and life purpose that ultimately led her to move to Los Angeles to pursue comedy. Through living in Luxembourg on a Fulbright Scholarship and then in China for three years working for a wine importer, Where to Nest takes us across the globe–including nearly being murdered by a lover while skiing in Switzerland, navigating Greece during a banking crisis, and visiting Thailand during a government coup–as a woman struggles to find belonging.    Connect with Kristen: Website: www.kristenvannest.com On all channels @KristenVanNest Link Order: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1990253571 YouTube channel on how to work smarter to live better: https://www.youtube.com/c/KristenVanNest   – 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

    44 min
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À propos

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

Informations

  • Création
    Ronit Plank
  • Années d’activité
    2022 - 2025
  • Épisodes
    152
  • Classification
    Tous publics
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2022 All rights reserved.
  • Site web de l’émission
    Let’s Talk Memoir

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