Podcasts about ronit plank

Season 5 is coming to an end but season 6 is almost here, along with some more memoir resources and links.     Subscribe to Ronit's Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Follow Ronit: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com/   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 memoirist Ronit Plank, each episode of this limited series highlights different aspects of the memoir writing experience, writing tips, and inspiration. 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 lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches and edits memoir and is working on her next book. Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Leslie Danford, the founder and CEO of Vitaminis, has always been passionate about nutrition, but she is not a foodie. In 2020 she combined her personal interests with her formal business training to launch Vitaminis. Previously she worked in beverages and consumer products at large corporations. She earned her MBA from Harvard University and her BA from the University of Chicago. In this episode, we talk about networking, sharing your ideas, marketing market research, your first clients for your products, product roll out, rejection is a part of business but how do you deal with it?  Rejection is just a part of business, so if you are struggling with this as a business owner right now, this episode is for you.  Other episodes to listen to about rejection: Ronit Plank: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/employee-to-boss/id1598027167?i=1000570503326 Kelsey Formost: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/employee-to-boss/id1598027167?i=100057491829 Action Steps: Carve out some time for yourself away from the business.  Plan out your business, quarter by quarter with goals of milestones you want to reach.  Just take the risk! Connect with Leslie: Website: https://vitaminisbrand.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-danford/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vitaminisbrand/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@vitaminisbrand Connect with me, Hayleigh Hayhurst: Website: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EspressoPodcastProduction Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/espressopodcastproduction/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@espressopodproduction Music: John Kiernan. www.johnkiernanmusic.com Produced by Espresso Podcast Production: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com/

Today, Ronit plank is a successful writer of fiction and non-fiction, an editor, a podcast host of not 1 but 2 shows, and a teacher. But long before she became all those things, she was a young girl born on a Kibbutz in Israel, shuffled across the globe to Seattle by 2 unhappily married parents. Soon after, her father left to start a new family on the east coast. And then the following year, her mother dropped her and her younger sister on his doorstep - announcing she was headed to India. Her mother was sad and lost and was given cassette tapes by a guru called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh – the man we now know as the leader of the cult featured in the Netflix Documentary Series Wild Wild Country. But back then Ronit didn't know any of that, she just knew that she and her sister were abandoned repeatedly, leaving her with a deep well of grief that no one was naming as loss. In her extraordinary memoir, When She Comes Back, she explores the revelations, and she discovered writing her memoir. Insights about the nature of loss when the person is very much alive. In our conversation today, we're both deeply moved and reflective about the adultification that happens when we grow up in disorganized and chaotic households, and the importance of honoring with care the versions of us that never got what we deserved, a safe and loving home. I can't wait for you to spend time with Ronit today. I know for sure you will be both touched and inspired by her story. About the Guest & Resources Ronit Plank is an award-winning writer, teacher, and podcaster who hosts Let's Talk Memoir featuring interviews with memoir writers and teachers. Her writing has earned Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, and Best of the Net nominations and has appeared or is forthcoming in The Atlantic, Writer's Digest, The Washington Post, Hippocampus, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets and Writers, andelsewhere. WHEN SHE COMES BACK, her memoir about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation, was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic 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 2023Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she editsmemoir manuscripts and teaches workshops. You can learn more at RonitPlank.com, follow her on Instagram, and subscribe to her Memoir Moments newsletter here. Host Lisa Keefauver's forthcoming book Grief is a Sneaky Bitch: An Uncensored Guide to Navigating Loss IS NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble or Bookshop.org. Drop her a DM on Instagram @lisakeefauvermsw to let her know you did and she'll send you a party invite to her Book Launch Celebration Visit www.lisakeefauver.com to learn more about Lisa, sign up for her Not-So-Regular Newsletter, register for an upcoming online grief workshop or watch her TEDx talk, Why Knowing More About Grief Can Make it Suck Less. Oh, and this season, if you want to WATCH the show, you can now watch it on YouTube @lisakeefauvermsw Recorded April 5, 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ronit Plank is a Seattle-based Author, Podcaster, and Storyteller. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and more. Her podcast Let's Talk Memoir is available wherever you listen to podcasts. And her book When She Comes Back, about her mother abandoning her to follow a cult in India, is available on Amazon. She makes ser second appearance on The Only One In The Room for this week's show. Laura and Ronit talk a bit about meeting each other, Ronit's podcast, and niche podcast communities. Ronit then shares her childhood, growing up on a Kibbutz in Israel and working the fields alongside other children and adults. Ronit recalls her initial thoughts when the October 7th attack happened, and goes on to distinguish the difference between Hamas and Palestinians, as well as the misinformation that comes with labels. After questioning where the hatred of Jewish people come from, Ronit talks about the role that they, and her father, played in the civil rights movement. Ronit and Laura finish the show with a discussion about the possibility of a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as the oppressed vs oppressor narrative that drives many peoples opinions today.You can listen to Ronit's original appearance on the show from 2021 here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ronit-plank-is-the-only-one-whose-mother-left-her-for/id1457399201?i=1000549632557For more on Ronit:Email_ronit@ronitplank.comWebsite_www.ronitplank.com IG: @ronitplankFB: @ronitplankTwittwer/X: @ronitplankBOOK: When She Comes BackPODCAST: Let's Talk Memoir Visit our website: https://theonlyonepod.com/ for full interviews, videos, event dates, articles and more.Follow the show on all social media channels: @TheOnlyOneInTheRoom Become a Patreon member for exclusive content, including additional episodes every month, as well as behind the scenes podcast footage. https://www.patreon.com/theonlyonepodcast And send us your questions so we can answer them on the show: TheOnlyOnePod@Gmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-only-one-in-the-room--6052418/support.

Ronit Plank is a Seattle-based Author, Podcaster, and Storyteller. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and more. Her podcast Let's Talk Memoir is available wherever you listen to podcasts. And her book When She Comes Back, about her mother abandoning her to follow a cult in India, is available on Amazon. She makes ser second appearance on The Only One In The Room for this week's show.Laura and Ronit talk a bit about meeting each other, Ronit's podcast, and niche podcast communities. Ronit then shares her childhood, growing up on a Kibbutz in Israel and working the fields alongside other children and adults.Ronit recalls her initial thoughts when the October 7th attack happened, and goes on to distinguish the difference between Hamas and Palestinians, as well as the misinformation that comes with labels. After questioning where the hatred of Jewish people come from, Ronit talks about the role that they, and her father, played in the civil rights movement.Ronit and Laura finish the show with a discussion about the possibility of a ceasefire in Gaza, as well as the oppressed vs oppressor narrative that drives many peoples opinions today.You can listen to Ronit's original appearance on the show from 2021 here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ronit-plank-is-the-only-one-whose-mother-left-her-for/id1457399201?i=1000549632557For more on Ronit:Email_ronit@ronitplank.comWebsite_www.ronitplank.comIG: @ronitplankFB: @ronitplankTwittwer/X: @ronitplankBOOK: When She Comes BackPODCAST: Let's Talk MemoirVisit our website: https://theonlyonepod.com/ for full interviews, videos, event dates, articles and more. Follow the show on all social media channels: @TheOnlyOneInTheRoomBecome a Patreon member for exclusive content, including additional episodes every month, as well as behind the scenes podcast footage. https://www.patreon.com/theonlyonepodcast And send us your questions so we can answer them on the show: TheOnlyOnePod@Gmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-only-one-in-the-room--6052418/support.

Dina Gachman joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about ambiguous loss, taking risks on the page, writing about family, connecting with and pursuing editors, her approach to building bylines and writing book proposals, pushing past our fear of judgment in service of our stories, and her new memoir So Sorry for Your Loss.   Also in this episode: -her work as a ghostwriter -narrative reporting in memoir -pushing past fear   Books mentioned in this episode: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron Here For It by R. Eric Thomas   Dina Gachman is a Pulitzer Center Grantee, an award winning journalist, and a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Vox, Texas Monthly, Teen Vogue and more. She also writes a monthly movie column for The New York Times. She's a bestselling ghostwriter, and her first book, BROKENOMICS, was published by Hachette/Seal Press. Her new book of essays about grief, SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, was published April 2023 by Union Square & Co. She spent three years as head copywriter on Clio award winning content for UPROXX Studios. She has appeared on ABC's 20/20, CBS We are Austin, Chicago's WGN and Texas Standard. She's written two comic books for Bluewater Comics, about legendary superheroes Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. She lives near Austin, Texas, with her husband and son.   Connect with Dina: Website: https://www.dinagachmanwrites.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dgachman/ X: https://twitter.com/dinagachman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dina-gachman-10abb018/ Get SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS: https://www.unionsquareandco.com/9781454947608/so-sorry-for-your-loss-by-dina-gachman/   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Pamela Petro joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about the stories landscapes hold, why she resisted memoir and how she ultimately put herself on the page despite trying hard not to, pushing ourselves to keep asking questions, writing a braided memoir and the responsibility of incorporating research, deep time, the presence of absence, and her newest book The Long Field.   Also in this episode: -the best way to learn writing -how language holds mysteries -revising for meaning   Books mentioned in this episode: The Architecture of Desire: Beauty and danger in the Stanford White Family by Suzannah Lessard   Pamela Petro is an author, artist, and educator living in Northampton, MA, with her partner, Marguerite, and Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Topaz. She has written four books of creative nonfiction including her latest, The Long Field – Wales and the Presence of Absence, a Memoir, as well as Travels in an Old Tongue, also about Wales; Sitting up with the Dead, about the American South; and The Slow Breath of Stone, about Southwest France. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, The Atlantic, Granta, Guernica, The Paris Review, and others. The Long Field was shortlisted for The Wales Book of the Year Award and was named to Top Ten Travel Book lists by The Financial Times and The Sunday Telegraph. Pamela teaches creative writing at Smith College and on Lesley University's MFA in Creative Writing Program, and is co-Director of the Dylan Thomas Summer School at the University of Wales, Trinity St Davids, where she is also a Fellow. She has widely exhibited her photography and has also created an artist book, AfterShadows - A Grand Canyon Narrative, and a graphic script, Under Paradise Valley.  Connect with Pamela: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petropamela www.pamelapetro.com Email: ppetro@smith.edu Course links:  Lesley MFA in Creative Writing Program: https://lesley.edu/academics/graduate/creative-writing/ Dylan Thomas Summer School in Creative Writing, University of Wales: https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/dylanthomas/summerschool/ Arcade Book: https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781956763676/the-long-field/   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Victoria Buitron joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about the power of flash and lyric creative nonfiction, when chronology doesn't work, accountability partners and writing mentors, the trauma of being a women in the world, knowing our writing will be there for us even when we stop for a while, and her memoir in essays A Body Across Two Hemispheres. Help shape upcoming Let's Talk Memoir content - a brief survey:  https://forms.gle/ueQVu8YyaHNKui2Z9   Also in this episode: -writer work-life balance -considering autofiction and fiction -lit mags like Brevity and The CItron Review   Books mentioned in this episode: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy My Mother's Funeral by Adriana Paramo Into Thin Air by John Krakauer  Victoria Buitron is an award-winning writer who hails from Ecuador and resides in Connecticut. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Normal School, SmokeLong en Español, Southwest Review, The Acentos Review, and other literary magazines. A VONA fellow, her work has been selected for 2022's Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf's Top 50. Her debut memoir-in-essays, A Body Across Two Hemispheres, is the 2021 Fairfield Book Prize winner and available wherever books are sold. Connect with Victoria:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vic_toriawrites/ Website: https://victoriabuitron.com – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Sherry Sidoti joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about memoir in present tense,  reckoning with the complexities of transgenerational trauma, dysfunctional families, the effect writing memoir can have on our significant others, mother-daughter-sister relationships, self-care practices and engaging with our bodies while working on charged material,  vulnerability hangovers, and her memoir A Smoke and a Song.   Also in this episode: -broken backstories  -making material digestible -reprocessing our lives through the act of writing   Books mentioned in this episode: Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T. Kira Madden All of This by Rebecca Woolf Clarity by DIana Estill When She Comes Back by Ronit Plank   Sherry Sidoti is an author and the founder and lead director of FLY Yoga School, a yoga teacher training program, and FLY Outreach, a not-for-profit that offers yoga and meditation for trauma recovery on Martha's Vineyard. A certified Labor Doula, Addiction Recovery Coach, and Somatic Attachment Therapy Program graduate, she leads spiritual courses, teacher training, and retreats globally. Her musings, infused by twenty years of practicing and teaching yoga, healing arts, and mysticism have been published by The Martha's Vineyard Times, Heart & Soul Magazine, Elephant Journal, and Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly. Her essay “Mosaics” is featured in the 2022 She Writes Anthology: Art in Times of Unbearable Crisis. Sherry is most devoted to her greatest teacher, her son Miles, whose love, sensitivity, humor, and wisdom illuminate her path. A Smoke and a Song is Sherry's first book. She currently resides on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.   Connect with Sherry: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sherry.sidoti/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sherrysidoti/ Website: https://www.sherrysidoti.com A Smoke and a Song: https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Song-Memoir-Sherry-Sidoti/dp/1647425093/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1691880496&sr=8-1 – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Estelle Erasmus brings her 30 years of experience to Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about what it takes to break through submission slushpiles, the key to exemplary essays, honing our writer's voice and giving editors what they need, pitching story vs. topic, the art of companion pieces, conveying our passion and investment, and her new book Writing That Gets Noticed.   Also in this episode: -podcasts as a way to reach readers -the pace of online outlets  -researching before you pitch   Books mentioned in this episode: On Writing Well by William Zinsser The Situation and the Story by VIvian Gornick  When She Comes Back by Ronit Plank   Estelle Erasmus, author of Writing That Gets Noticed: Find Your Voice, Become a Better Storyteller, Get Published (June 2023), is a professor of writing at New York University, the host of the Freelance Writing Direct podcast, and former “All About the Pitch” columnist for Writer's Digest where she also teaches classes on pitching, personal essay writing, and getting started in writing. She has written about a variety of subjects (health, beauty, fitness, publishing, business, travel) for numerous publications. Her articles for the New York Times and Washington Post have gone globally viral (with more than 500 comments on her New York Times piece, “How to Bullyproof Your Child”). She has appeared on Good Morning America and has had her articles discussed on The View. She has also taught, coached, and mentored many writers who have gone on to be widely published in top publications. She received the 2023 NYU School of Professional Studies Teaching Excellence Award, is an American Society of Journalists and Authors award winner, and was a cast member in the inaugural New York City production of the Listen to Your Mother storytelling show. Learn more at www.EstelleSErasmus.com and register for her latest classes. Also, follow Estelle on Instagram, TikTok, and X, and sign up for her Substack Connect with Estelle: Author of WRITING THAT GETS NOTICED  Available to order now. www.estelleserasmus.com (sign up for her newsletter) Sign up for her substack Adjunct Instructor, NYU (Sign up for my latest classes) Recipient 2023 NYU SPS Teaching Excellence Award Freelance Writing Direct Podcast (iTunes) (She speaks to Cheryl Strayed, Ann Hood, Noah Michelson, Alan Henry, and more) Freelance Writing Direct Podcast (YouTube) Follow me: Twitter, Instagram, TikTok Writer's Digest: What to Do to Maximize Your Launch Week And Get Your Book Noticed https://estelleserasmus.com   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Lena Lee joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about unresolved grief and permission to acknowledge our losses, sibling relationships over time, how memoir can bring us closer to loved ones, emotional distance in our narratives, taking care of ourselves when writing, and her memoir Girl Uprooted.   Also in this episode:  -writing into vulnerability  -paternal estrangement  -connecting the dots in out stories   Books mentioned in this episode: Crying in the H Mart by Rachel Zauner Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu Born a Crime by Trevor Noah In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park A Dutiful Boy by Mohsin Zaidi   Lena Lee was born in South Korea but grew up moving countries every three years. As a Third Culture Kid, she has lived in Seoul, Paris, Oslo, Kuala Lumpur and New Jersey. After studying Human Sciences at Oxford University, Lena has been working in finance. Girl Uprooted is her first book. She lives in London, a place she now calls home(ish).   Connect with Lena Website: thelenalee.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelenalee LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelenalee Get Girl Uprooted: https://mybook.to/girluprooted – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Martina Clark joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her personal journey with HIV, the toll shame can take, the difference each of us can make, writing a braided memoir, staying a step ahead of the reader, keeping the material that matters, and her memoir My Unexpected Life.   Also in this episode: -getting everything onto the page  -surviving two dangerous viruses -living a life of service   Books mentioned in this episode: So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Iluo You Don't Look Like Anyone by Heather Sellers Madman in the Woods by Jamie Gehring Hell and Other Destinations by Madeline Albright Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams Martina Clark (mar-tee-nah clah-rk), she/her, is the author of My Unexpected Life: An International Memoir of Two Pandemics, HIV and COVID-19. She worked for more than 20 years for the United Nations system and now teaches writing and critical reading for CUNY. She's been living with HIV for more than half her life – 30 years and counting – and survived COVID-19 in 2020. Martina has traveled to more than 90 countries and conducted condom demonstrations in at least 50 of them. She's traveled by boat, bus, and plane, but never by elephant or camel. My Unexpected Life is her first book.   Connect with Martina: Website: martina-clark.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MartinaClarkWriter Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartinaClarkWriter YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@martinaclarkwriter Twitter: https://twitter.com/MartinaClarkPen LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martina-clark-2735719/   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Priscilla Gilman joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about parentification and hypervigilance in children, toggling between the child character and adult narrator, confronting and capturing the complexity of parents on the page, negotiating our inner critic, and her new memoir The Critic's Daughter.     Also in this episode: -writing about close family members -good writing is rewriting -negotiating feedback and reviews   Books mentioned in this episode: Faith, Sex, Mystery by Richard Gilman Heavy by Kiese Laymon The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion Blue Nights by Joan Didion The Measure of a Man by Sidney Poitier You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith   Priscilla Gilman is the author of two memoirs, The Anti-Romantic Child (Harper, 2011) and The Critic's Daughter(Norton, 2023) and a former professor of English literature at Yale University and Vassar College. The Anti-Romantic Child received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, was selected as one the Best Books of 2011 by the Leonard Lopate Show and The Chicago Tribune, and was one of five nominees for a Books for a Better Life Award for Best First Book. Nick Hornby called The Critic's Daughter “beautiful: honest, raw, careful, soulful, brave and incredibly readable," and Kiese Laymon declared: “The Critic's Daughter is an exquisite and rare example of how the memoir needs as much inventiveness in scope and form as our most lush fiction and poetry…I've read few books in my life as skillfully executed and willfully conceived as The Critic's Daughter.” Gilman's writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Slate, REAL SIMPLE, the Washington Post, O, the Oprah Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City.   Connect with Priscilla: Website: www.priscillagilman.com X: www.twitter.com/priscillagilman Facebook: www.facebook.com/priscillagilmanauthor Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/priscilla.gilman/   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Laura Carney joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about pluck, endurance, and being the biggest advocate for your book, writing about unresolved grief, what to do to reclaim memory, the truth about marketing your memoir including pitching early, befriending reporters, and building community, how to engage on social media, preparing for your book launch, and her new memoir My Father's List.  Also in this episode: -transforming trauma -making a person's death part of our story -letting go of the book   Books mentioned in this episode: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield Turning Pro by  Steven Pressfield Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum Wild by Cheryl Strayed Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates Running Home by Katie Arnold   Laura Carney is a writer and copy editor in New York. She's been published by the Washington Post, the Associated Press, The Hill, Runner's World, People magazine, Guideposts, Good Housekeeping, The Fix, Upworthy, Maria Shriver's Sunday Paper and other places, and her book My Father's List: How Living My Dad's Dreams Set Me Free is being published by Post Hill Press in June 2023. Her work as a copy editor has been primarily in magazines, for 20 years, including Good Housekeeping, People, Guideposts, Vanity Fair, and GQ.  My Father's List is Laura's story about completing the 54-item bucket list of her late father, who was killed in a car crash when she was 25, in six years. Connect with Laura: Website: bylauracarney.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/myfatherslist Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myfatherslist Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lac30 – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Leslie Ferguson joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about surviving childhood trauma and her mother's psychosis, approaching her manuscript through an editorial lens, the toll of insecure attachment, how writing the story that forged her helped her shed some of the pain she carried, and her approach to choosing scenes that stayed in her memoir When I Was Her Daughter.   Also in this episode: -the toll of abandonment  -EMDR therapy -Reparenting the self   Books mentioned in this episode: Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls Grand by Sarah Schaefer  Blackout by Sarah Hepola Love Sick  by Sue William Silverman Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert  Leslie Ferguson enjoyed a career as a high school English teacher and college writing instructor for two decades before relocating to San Diego to pursue work in the publishing industry. She holds an MFA in creative writing and an MA in English literature from Chapman University. Currently, Leslie sits on the Board of Directors of the International Memoir Writers Association, and she loves performing original stories and poems, which often center on hope and the consequences of trauma. As an editor and book doctor, one of Leslie's passions is helping other writers tell their own stories with courage and emotional honesty. Her multi-award-winning debut memoir, When I Was Her Daughter, tells her story of madness, loss, and survival as a foster kid in the 1980s.    Connect with Leslie: Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/leslie.ferguson.42/ Facebook Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/Lesliefergusonauthor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moreleslief/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-ferguson-221a1890/ Website: LeslieFergusonAuthor.com Buy When I Was Her Daughter: Amazon :https://amzn.to/3SphWmY https://www.amazon.com/When-I-Was-Her-Daughter/dp/195211277X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=when+i+was+her+daughter&qid=1638573773&sr=8-1 Barnes and noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/when-i-was-her-daughter-leslie-ferguson/1140422898?ean=9781952112775 Applebooks:  https://books.apple.com/us/book/when-i-was-her-daughter/id1592175515 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/when-i-was-her-daughter BOOKSHOP.ORG: https://bookshop.org/books/when-i-was-her-daughter/9781952112782 Warwick's: https://www.warwicks.com/book/9781952112775 Diesel books: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/book/9781952112775   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Adiba Nelson joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about putting humor in our work, the importance of voice, not worrying what people think, writing about mother-daughter relationships, raising teenagers, when you feel like you have nothing left, emotional labor and choosing when to educate others about her daughter's disability, being a multi-genre writer, MFA programs, and her memoir Ain't That a Mother.   Also in this episode: -Child loss -Imposter syndrome -Finding hope   Books mentioned in this episode: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey   Adiba Nelson is the author of Ain't That A Mother; the memoir that Essence, Bustle, Ms. magazine and Shondaland all hailed as a “must read”, and subject of the Emmy winning documentary, The Full Nelson. She is also a disability rights activist, Executive Producer and Creative Consultant on the tv series based on her memoir (currently in development), a freelance journalist, semi-retired burlesque performer and very tired mom! In 2013 she self-published her first children's book Meet ClaraBelle Blue after not being able to find a book that adequately and appropriately represented her daughter (disabled, Black). Since then Adiba has led numerous workshops and given keynote addresses around the country for parents and educators focusing on DEIA from a disability perspective.   In 2017 Adiba delivered her TEDx talk (Skating Downhill: The Art of Claiming Your Life) to a sold out crowd, and has since joined the NPR affiliate Arizona Public Media as a regular contributor on Arizona Spotlight, and was a featured speaker at the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her children's book, “Oshun & Me” (MacMillan/Feiwel & Friends) will be available Winter 2024, and her next book, “Hazel's Best Day!” will be available Winter 2026.   Connect with Adiba: Website: www.thefullnelson.net Instagram: www.instagram.com/adibanelson Twitter: www.twitter.com/adibanelson Facebook: www.facebook.com/AdibaNelsonWriter Ain't That A Mother: https://www.amazon.com/Aint-That-Mother-Postpartum-Everything/dp/B0BMKG3M9M/ref=zg_bsnr_271583011_sccl_5/135-8794494-4325615?psc=1   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Jennifer Lang joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about compressing prose and chopping manuscripts, leaning into the experimental, distilling material, staying nimble-minded, her husband and her becoming characters on the page, founding Israel Writers Studio, and her new memoir Places We Left Behind.  Also in this episode: -remembering to play on the page -the scarcity of poetry as guide -searching for home   Books mentioned in this episode: You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly Belonging by Nora Krug Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal Fun Home by Alison Bechdel Devotion by Dani Shapiro   Connect with Jennifer: Author website: https://israelwriterstudio.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/jennifer.f.lang.9/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/israelwriterstudio/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/jenlangwrites/ Good Reads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/142425302-places-we-left-behind Classes: https://israelwriterstudio.com/classes/   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

The Witches of Pitches are Aileen Weintraub and Megan Margulies here to share their advice about slowing scenes down, remembering that dialogue gives your memoir depth and flavor, finding the other story in your story, creative querying, what building a platform can mean, the power in companion pieces, honing your pitch, and stalking editors. Also in this episode: -kvetch sessions -writing as a business -being patient   Books mentioned in this episode: The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr Bomb Shelter by Mary Laura Philpott You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Magie Smith   Aileen Weintraub and Megan Margulies have formed a partnership from the modern love story playbook of online writing sessions. They have workshopped numerous articles, essays, and book proposals, helping writers produce top-notch material and are the Witches of Pitches. Aileen Weintraub is an award-winning author, journalist, and editor. She began her career as a copy editor and then as a developmental editor working for both children's and adult publishing companies. As a freelance editor she has worked with clients to help develop their books, proposals, pitches, articles, and essays. She has written for The Washington Post, BBC, Oprah Daily, Parents, NBC, Al Jazeera, AARP, Glamour, InStyle, and other publications. Aileen is also the author of over fifty children's books including the middle-grade social justice book WE GOT GAME! 35 Female Athletes Who Changed the World, which was honored as A Mighty Girl's Best Book of the Year, and the best-selling Never Too Young: 50 Unstoppable Kids Who Made a Difference, a Parents' Choice Award recipient. Her latest book Knocked Down: A High-Risk Memoir, is about marriage, motherhood, and the risks we take. The Erma Bombeck Workshop named Aileen Humor Writer of the Month for Knocked Down and Publishers Weekly says, “…there's beauty on every page.” Aileen has also created a series on marketing and platform building in collaboration with Writers' Digest. She lives in New York but her heart is in Seville. You can learn more at www.aileenweintraub.com.   Megan Margulies is an MFA recipient, memoirist, journalist, and a 2021 Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist for her book, My Captain America. Her essays and reported articles focus on motherhood and navigating life and healthcare as a woman. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Vogue Magazine, The Cut, Good Housekeeping, Elle Magazine, Parent's Magazine, Oprah Daily, and more. Before entering the world of journalism, Megan worked for almost ten years as an editorial assistant at Harvard University where she edited countless articles, profiles, and promotional materials for various departments and professors. It's where she first fell in love with the Chicago Manual of Style. She's a native New Yorker, but splits her time between Boston and Vermont with her husband and two daughters. You can learn more at www.meganmargulies.com. – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Jill Christman joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about how our deepest stories can save our lives, approaching trauma-writing as a process of discovery, practical tips for working on difficult material, allowing ourselves as much time as our essays need, finding the truest truth in our work, her role as senior editor at River Teeth, and her new memoir in essays If This Were Fiction.   Also in this episode: -how writing and publishing are not the same thing -when authors flinch -going really deep   Essay Daily article by Jill Christman http://www.essaydaily.org/2017/12/dec-22-jill-christman-on-essays-to-pry.html   Books mentioned in this episode: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes Childhood by Natalie Sarraute All Over But the Shouting by Rick Bragg The Liar's Club by Mary Karr Cherry by Mary Karr Somebody's Daughter by Ashley C. Ford A Fish Growing Lungs  Alysia Sawchyn  Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways by Brittany Means In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado Men We Reaped Jesmyn Ward The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken Owner of a Lonely Heart by Beth Nguyen Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Beth Nguyen   Jill Christman is the author of If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays (University of Nebraska Press, 2022) and two memoirs, Darkroom: A Family Exposure (winner of AWP Prize for CNF) and Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood. A 2020 NEA Literature Fellow and winner of the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize, she is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Ball State University, senior editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, and executive producer of the podcast Indelible: Campus Sexual Violence.    Connect with Jill: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jill_christman Website:  jillchristman.com Writing sexual trauma: http://www.essaydaily.org/2018/12/dec-13-jill-christman-on-writing-sexual.html Essays to pry open doors: http://www.essaydaily.org/2017/12/dec-22-jill-christman-on-essays-to-pry.html   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Kate Evans joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about being a bit of a wandering writer yet finding the patterns that can emerge from chaos, leaning into momentum while generating work, having her life partner as first reader, her traveling life, the writing retreat she is hosting in April 2024, and her new book Wanderland.   Also in this episode: -incorporating spiritual teachings in our work -using books as writing teachers -having your partner as your first reader   Books mentioned in this episode: My Life in France by Julia Child Memoirs by Maya Angelou The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave by Frederick Douglas The Land of Lost Borders by Kate Harris Kate Evans is the author of eight books, including Call It Wonder: An Odyssey of Love, Sex, Spirit & Travel, winner of the Bisexual Book Award for Best Memoir, which is the prequel to Wanderland: Living the Traveling Life. Her essays, stories, and poems have appeared widely in such publications as HuffPost, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, Zyzzyva, and Santa Monica Review. A recipient of a PhD in Education from the University of Washington, she also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Jose State University, where she is Emeritus Faculty. She lives half the year in Mexico and the other half she travels.  www.kateevanswriter.com    Connect with Kate: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateEvansWriter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katenomadicwriter/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateevansauthor/ Website:  www.kateevanswriter.com   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Approaching Traumatic Material with Complexity and Compassion featuring Brittany Means Brittany Means joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up vagrant, writing about child sexual abuse, how she started with the scenes that haunted her, depicting traumatic material with complexity and compassion, leaning into her narrative voice, when she felt like a writer with a capital “W”, and her new memoir Hell If We Don't Change Our Ways.  Also in this episode: -reconnecting with your body when writing traumatic material -asking yourself really hard questions -why our stories matter Memoirs mentioned in this episode: Darkroom by Jill Christman Heavy by Kiese Laymon In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado   Brittany Means is a Chicana writer and editor living in Albuquerque, NM. A graduate of Iowa's MFA Nonfiction Writing Program, Means has worked with Inara Verzemnieks and Kiese Laymon. She has received several awards for her work, including the Magdalena Award, Geneva Fellowship, and Grace Paley Fellowship at Under the Volcano.   Connect with Brittany Means: Website: www.brittanymeans.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/BrittanyMeansIt/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/BrittanyMeansIt/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/BrittanyMeansIt/ Get Brittany's book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/hell-if-we-don-t-change-our-ways-a-memoir-brittany-means/19712130?ean=9798985282894   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

LL Kirchner joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about compressing material and managing timelines, writing about addiction and recovery, radical compassion, polyamory, yoga scandals and sex cults, and her new memoir Blissful Thinking.  Also in this episode: -The toll of internalized misogyny  -Finding teachers who energize you -Writing groups   Books mentioned in this episode:  Cultish Amanda Montei Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls Blackout Sarah Hepola Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert Wild Cheryl Strayed The Liars Club by Mary Karr Lit by Mary Karr The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr  memoirs by Alexandra Fuller  When She Comes Back by Ronit Plank   L.L. Kirchner is an award-winning screenwriter and author. Her second memoir, Blissful Thinking: A Memoir of Overcoming the Wellness Revolution (Motina Books, 9/26/23), reveals how the chase for 'wellness' made her sicker until she discovered she'd been asking the wrong questions. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, BOMB Magazine, and The Rumpus. She's currently working on her first novel, Florida Girls. Find her on socials @LLKirchner_ or her website, llkirchner.com. There you can sign up for her monthly newsletter, Notable—inspiration from the creative front line—and get a sneak peek at her new book.    Connect with LL: Website: https://llkirchner.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/llkirchner_ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/llkirchner_/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@llkirchner Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LLKirchner/ Free Course: Unlock Your Story, A 5-Day Challenge: https://llkirchner.podia.com/5-days-to-get-to-the-heart-of-your-story/buy New book to pre-order: https://www.amazon.com/Blissful-Thinking-Overcoming-Wellness-Revolution-ebook/dp/B0BZTDCPT3 Free workshop for pre-orders: https://llkirchner.involve.me/pre-order-workshop   –  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Heather Lanier joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about finding the psychic distance and narrative voice your memoir needs, writing about our children, defying the tyranny of normal, personal narratives for social change, excavating our own ableism, blogs vs. literary essays, avoiding self-pity, and Raising a Rare Girl, her memoir of parenting a child with a rare syndrome.   Also in this episode: -Revealing the ‘ugly' side of ourselves on the page -The right we have to tell our stories -How narratives begin with voice   Books mentioned in this episode: Stranger Care by Sarah Sentilles Heavy by Kiese Laymon   Heather Lanier is the author of the poetry collection, Psalms of Unknowing (Monkfish Publishing 2023) as well as the memoir, Raising a Rare Girl (Penguin Press 2020), a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Her work has appeared in Salon, The Sun, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Longreads, McSweeney's, TIME, and elsewhere. She works as an assistant professor of creative writing at Rowan University, and her TED talk has been viewed three million times and translated into 18 languages.   Connect with Heather: Twitter: twitter.com/heatherklanier Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherklanier/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heatherkirnlanier Website: https://heatherlanierwriter.com Heather's new poetry book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/psalms-of-unknowing-poems/19664834?ean=9781958972069 Heather's Memoir: https://bookshop.org/p/books/raising-a-rare-girl-heather-lanier/13330911?ean=9780525559658 "Rules for Writing about Fiona." https://starinhereye.wordpress.com/2016/08/12/rules-for-writing-about-fiona/ –  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Patty Lin joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her former career in television and how she knew she was done with show business, naming names in memoir manuscripts and legal reviews, mother-daughter narratives, sensory details that put the reader in the room, and her new memoir End Credits: How I Broke Up With Hollywood. Also in this episode: -trusting our instincts -protecting our creative life  -putting it all out there Books mentioned in this episode: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Becoming by Michelle Obama   Patty Lin is a former TV writer and producer whose credits include "Freaks and Geeks," "Friends," "Desperate Housewives," and "Breaking Bad." She has also written pilots for Fox, CBS, and Nickelodeon. Her "Breaking Bad" episode was nominated for a Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Script of 2008. She is the author of END CREDITS: HOW I BROKE UP WITH HOLLYWOOD, a memoir about her television career. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Connect with Patty: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virtualpattylin/ Website: www.pattylin.com Get End Credits: How I Broke Up with Hollywood: https://www.amazon.com/End-Credits-How-Broke-Hollywood/dp/B0BVDM5T4R/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?crid=17Q217DYJRSQ2&keywords=end+credits+patty+lin&qid=1681751036&sprefix=end+credits+patty+lin%2Caps%2C210&sr=8-1-fkmr0 –  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

In this episode of Let's Talk Memoir, reflections on a few most-asked memoir questions, information on Season 3, and where to find Let's Talk Memoir writing resources and updates while the show is on Summer hiatus. Thank you to Season 2's generous guests for your insight and clarity, and to the listeners who make this show so rewarding to make. Grateful for your incredible support!   Links to memoir-writing articles mentioned in this episode: https://ronitplank.com/published-works/ -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Reed Harkness joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about a mother who goes missing, intergenerational trauma, moving into discomfort in service of truth-telling, what's ours to tell, masculinity and brotherhood, the hero's journey as a template for story arc, and what he's  learned about vulnerability from documenting 25 years of his family's story in his new deeply personal film Sam Now.    Also in this episode: -blended families -sibling language -when our work takes on a life of its own   Books mentioned in this episode:  An Abbreviated Life by Ariel Leve   Reed attended film school in his backyard and garage. At age 18, he began making a series of short films starring his younger brother Sam. This was the beginning of a project two decades in the making: Sam Now, a coming-of-age film that follows his brother from age 11 to 36. The film was selected by ITVS Open Call and is now in post-production. Reed previously directed the award-winning 30-minute documentary Forest on Fire about the 2017 wildfire in the Columbia River Gorge started by a teen who threw a lit firecracker off a hiking trail–stranding more than 150 hikers–and how, much like wildfire, a news story can spin out of control. He created House on Fire for Topic Studios, a series of short documentaries where people are given the spontaneous prompt that their house is on fire and told they have only two minutes to save just one thing. Reed recently participated in Gotham Week's Project Market: Spotlight On Documentaries and was selected as a Film Independent Fellow. He was also awarded the Oregon Media Fellowship for 2021.   Connect with Sam: Website: https://samnowmovie.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samnowmovie/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/samnowmovie Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SamNowMovie/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@samnowmovie   -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Gayle Brandeis joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing her mother to suicide and finding a way to write about it, her work across genres, leaning into what makes us unique on the page, trusting ourselves to discover what our work wants to become, why there is no better time to write than now, editing for connection with readers, the importance of play in our work, and her new collection Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss.   Also in this episode: -speculative nonfiction  -organizing principles in essays -choosing the right container for our work   Books mentioned in this episode: Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses A Constellation of Ghosts by Laraine Herring We Were Witches by Ariel Gore Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde The Suicide Index by Joan Wickersham   Gayle Brandeis is the author, most recently, of the essay collection Drawing Breath: Essays on Writing, the Body, and Loss (Overcup Press). Earlier books include the memoir The Art of Misdiagnosis (Beacon Press), the novel in poems, Many Restless Concerns (Black Lawrence Press), shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award, the poetry collection The Selfless Bliss of the Body (Finishing Line Press), the craft book Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperOne) and the novels The Book of Dead Birds (HarperCollins), which won the PEN/Bellwether Prize, Self Storage (Ballantine), Delta Girls (Ballantine), and My Life with the Lincolns (Henry Holt BYR), chosen as a state-wide read in Wisconsin. Gayle's essays, poetry, and short fiction have been published in places such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Washington Post, O (The Oprah Magazine), The Rumpus, Salon, and more, and have received numerous honors, including the Columbia Journal Nonfiction Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Award, Notable Essays in Best American Essays 2016, 2019, and 2020, the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story Award and the 2018 Multi Genre Maverick Writer Award. She was named A Writer Who Makes a Difference by The Writer Magazine, and served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012-2014, with a focus on bringing writing workshops to underserved communities. She teaches in the MFA programs at Antioch University and University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe.   Connect with Gayle: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gaylebrandeis Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gaylebrandeis/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gayle.brandeis Website: www.gaylebrandeis.com -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Jennifer Lunden joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her experience with ME/CFS and her new braided memoir American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body's Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life, writing about trauma, the long-term effects of adverse childhood experiences on health, misogyny in medicine, using imagery to ground our readers, how she found the right publisher, and what it takes to be a working, published writer.   Also in this episode: -capitalism and grind culture -epigenetics -destigmatizing ME/CFS and other autoimmune diseases   Books mentioned in this episode: Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso The Ladies Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness by Sarah Ramsey Notes from No Man's Land by Eula Biss A Good Country: My LIfe in Twelve Towns and the Devastating Battle for a White America by Sofia Ali-Khan Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich Hope in the Dark by  Rebecca Solnit Jennifer Lunden is the author of American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body's Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life. Her writing has been selected for a Pushcart Prize, listed as Notable in Best American Essays, and supported by grants from the Maine Arts Commission, the Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, and the Canada Council for the Arts. Her essays have been published in Creative Nonfiction, Orion, River Teeth, DIAGRAM, Longreads, and other journals. She has received fellowships from Yaddo, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Hewnoaks Artist Residency, Hedgebrook, Monson Arts, and the Dora Maar House in the South of France, and was the 2016 recipient of the Bread Loaf - Rona Jaffe Foundation Scholarship in Nonfiction.    A licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and former therapist, she provides individual and group supervision to other therapists and has also taught social work online for Simmons University and the University of New England. In 2012 she was named Maine's Social Worker of the Year for her campaign to prevent cuts to Maine's Medicaid program. She and her husband live in a little house in Portland, Maine, where they keep several backyard chickens, two cats, and some gloriously untamed gardens.    Connect with Jennifer: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennifer.lunden Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jleelunden/ Website: https://jenniferlunden.com/ Links for book purchase are on this page: https://jenniferlunden.com/american-breakdown/   -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Maggie Smith joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about having and holding boundaries in our work and in our lives, trusting our instincts as writers, taking risks, telling the truth as we know it, allowing our material to dictate form, how our work changes over time, and her highly anticipated memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful.   Also in this episode: -protecting our children in our work -poetry's possibilities -why we can only speak for ourselves   Books mentioned in this episode:  Blow Your House Down by Gina Frangello In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado The Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso The Chronology of Water by Kidia Yuknavitch Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas   Maggie Smith is the award-winning author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, Lamp of the Body, and the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. A 2011 recipient of a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, Smith has also received several Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has been widely published, appearing in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Poetry, and more.    Connect with Maggie: Website: https://maggiesmithpoet.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maggiesmithpoet/ Get You Can Make This Place Beautiful: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/You-Could-Make-This-Place-Beautiful/Maggie-Smith/9781982185855 -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Erika Bornman joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her experience escaping from KwaSizabantu and her participation in News24's exposé alleging this strict Christian mission is a cult is a cult riddled with abuse, the compassion she found writing about loved ones with whom she has longstanding conflict, how she approached crafting emotionally difficult passages, the legal advice she got about including controversial material in her memoir Mission of Malice, and why our voice matters.   Also in this episode:  -the importance of therapy for memoirists -working with hard deadlines -building empathy through stories   Memoirs mentioned in this episode: Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt The Choice by Dr Edith Eger Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser Lost Boy by Brent Jeffs and Maia Szalavitz Wholly Unravelled by Keele Burgin Unfollow by Meghan Phelps-Roper I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou  Always Another Country by Sisonke Msimang Boy on the Run by Welcome Mandla Lishivha Killing Karoline by Sara-Jayne King Mad Bad Love by Sara-Jayne Makwala King   Erika Bornman has carved a career for herself in magazine publishing as a writer and editor, despite her lack of formal training. Her memoir is her first book and an important element in her quest to make the world a safer place for children. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with her two cats. About her memoir Mission of Malice: When Erika Bornman was nine years old, her family joined, and ultimately moved to, KwaSizabantu, a Christian mission in South Africa – a place touted as a nirvana, founded on egalitarian values. But something sinister lurks below the veneer of piousness here. Life at KwaSizabantu is hard. Christianity is used to justify harsh punishments and congregants are forced to repent for their sins. Threats of physical violence ensure adherence to stringent rules. Parents are pitted against children. Friendships are discouraged. Isolated and alone, Erika lives in constant fear of eternal damnation. At 17, her grooming at the hands of a senior mission counsellor begins. For the next five years, KwaSizabantu wages emotional, psychological and sexual warfare on her, until, finally, she manages to break free and walk away at the age of 21. Escaping a restrictive religious community is difficult, but rehabilitation into ‘normal' life after a decade of ritual humiliation, brainwashing and abuse is much more painful, as Erika soon discovers. She cannot ignore her knowledge of the grievous human-rights abuses being committed at KwaSizabantu, and so she embarks on a quest to expose the atrocities. With her help, News24 launches a seven-month investigation, culminating in a podcast that will go on to win the internationally renowned One World Media Award for Radio and Podcast in 2021. In Mission of Malice: My Exodus from KwaSizabantu, Erika chronicles her journey from a fearful young girl to a fierce activist determined to do whatever it takes to save future generations and find personal redemption and self-acceptance.   Connect with Erika: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ebee40 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikabornman/ Website: www.erikabornman.com Get Erika's book: https://www.amazon.com/Mission-Malice-My-exodus-KwaSizabantu-ebook/dp/B09B45VMP6   -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Sandi Wisenberg joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about finding home, the structure our books need, her career as a journalist, negotiating a legacy of woman shame and Jewish shame, writing what you have to, and her new collection of memoiristic essays, The Wandering Womb.   Also in this episode: -looking for home -not wrapping our writing up too neatly -a closer look at “the wandering Jew” trope   Further reading about The Wandering Jew trope from rootsmetals.com: https://www.rootsmetals.com/blogs/news/the-wandering-jew-trope   Books mentioned in this episode: The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood The Company She Keeps by Mary McCarthy A Chorus of Stones by Susan Griffin Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her by Susan Griffin Books by Phillip Lopate   S.L. Wisenberg is the author of the forthcoming book, The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home, winner of the Juniper Prize in creative nonfiction. It will be published March 31, 2023, by the University of Massachusetts Press. She's also the author of a short-story collection, The Sweetheart Is In; an essay collection, Holocaust Girls: History, Memory, & Other Obsessions; and a nonfiction chronicle, The Adventures of Cancer Bitch. She is a fourth-generation native Texan who lives in Chicago and edits Another Chicago Magazine. She has an MFA in fiction from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and a BSJ from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She was a feature writer for the Miami Herald and has published prose and poetry in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Narrative, Prairie Schooner, New England Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Colorado Review, and many other places. Her anthologized work is in Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction, Creating Nonfiction: A Guide and Anthology, Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, Life is Short--Art is Shorter, and a number of other books. For ten years she was co-director of Northwestern's then-MA/MFA in Creative Writing program and was a graduate faculty recipient of a Distinguished Teacher Award. She has been the literary editor of TriQuarterly, the creative nonfiction editor of Another Chicago Magazine. and is now the editor of ACM. She's received a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. She was the Coal Royalty Chair for a semester at the University of Alabama, teaching in the MFA program. Wisenberg has read her work and lectured at many universities and colleges, including Brown, Creighton, Minnesota State, Texas A&M, University of Tampa, Ripon, and Lafayette. Besides Northwestern, she has taught at DePaul, Roosevelt, Western Michigan, North Park University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is working on a collection of short stories that are pre- and post-Holocaust and have a connection to old movies and Houston. One of these was runner-up in Narrative Magazine's Fall 2021 contest, and another won Narrative's Spring 22 contest.    Connect with Sandi: https://www.facebook.com/sandi.wisenberg Sandi Wisenberg @SLWisenberg slwisenberg.com Sandi's first three books: https://bookshop.org/books?keywords=wisenberg Sandi's forthcoming book:  https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781625347350 or Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wandering-womb-s-l-wisenberg/1142599024?ean=9781625347350 -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Stacey Freeman joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about how her husband's infidelity became the impetus for her writing career, single parenthood and the shock of dating after divorce, getting comfortable sharing after a lifetime of keeping the personal under wraps, cutting her manuscript by half, and the blog that became her memoir I Bought My Husband's Mistress Lingerie.    Also in this episode: -making a living from writing -finding peace with an ex -pivoting careers after children   Memoirs mentioned in this episode: Maid by Stephanie Land I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy If I Knew Then by Amy Fisher Managing Expectations by Minnie Driver No One Asked For This by Cazzie David Julie and Julia by Julie Powell Stacey Freeman is a writer and journalist and the founder of Write On Track LLC, a full-service consultancy dedicated to providing high-quality content and strategy to individuals and businesses. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily (published by The Washington Post), Forbes, Entrepreneur, MarketWatch, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Woman's Day, Town & Country, InStyle, PBS' Next Avenue, AARP, SheKnows, Yahoo!, MSN, HuffPost, POPSUGAR, Your Teen, Grown & Flown, Scary Mommy, CafeMom, MariaShriver.com, and dozens of other well-known platforms worldwide. She lives in New Jersey with her three children.   Connect with Stacey: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/staceyfreemanwriter/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/staceyfreemanwriter/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/StaceyFreemanJD Twitter: https://twitter.com/SoHeCheated LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceyfreemanwriter/ Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/22449933.Stacey_Freeman Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/staceyfreemanwriter/ Website: staceyfreeman.com Website: writeontrackllc.com Get her book: https://www.amazon.com/Bought-My-Husbands-Mistress-Lingerie/dp/1956692401/ref=sr_1_2?crid=G644U5E8GTU7&keywords=stacey+freeman&qid=1666283013&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIxLjQ2IiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=stacey+freeman%2Caps%2C164&sr=8-2   -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Jasmin Faulk-Dickerson joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up in Saudi Arabia under an oppressive regime, what being a woman of color does and doesn't mean to her, invisible identities, writing about ethnicity, race, and culture, her advocacy work, and how she navigated the socio-political in her memoir The Last Sandstorm.   Also in this episode: -Recognizing our privilege as we write -Knowing what to leave out of our manuscripts  -How hyper liberalism has impacted her   Memoirs mentioned in this episode: Becoming by Michelle Obama Home by Julie Andrews   Jasmin is a social & behavioral researcher, writer, speaker, and cultural identity advocate. She draws motivation from her personal story as well as her education to advocate and promote social justice and understanding. Born in the Middle East to an Italian mother and Arabian father, she immigrated to the United States in 1999 and pursued her education in Wyoming and Washington State in writing, equity, diversity, and leadership. Jasmin's areas of expertise are: DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion), ethical leadership, cultural diversity and social identity, women's issues, and oppression.  Jasmin is also versed in issues regarding: Arab women, Arab culture, social/cultural oppression, religious oppression, and The Middle East,  In her memoir, The Last Sandstorm, Jasmin highlights the colorful and challenging experiences of her upbringing in Saudi Arabia, which led to her harrowing escape in her 20s.  Jasmin is also the host of the podcast “I Want You To Meet”, where she engages with artists and activists in inspiring and educational conversations. She also guest lectures and guest speaks at events, colleges, and retreats and works at The Evergreen State College in Washington State.   Connect with Jasmin: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jasmin.faulk.dickerson/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100082512111864&ref=page_internal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasmin-faulk-dickerson-mpa-00324a117/ Website: https://www.jasminfaulkdickerson.com/ -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Debbie Weiss joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about widowhood and capturing grief and loneliness in ways that keep readers invested, starting scenes in the middle, finding themes in your story, how her blog was a stepping stone to watching her writing take off, and her new memoir Available As Is.   Also in this episode: -writing about the character-you from the narrator-you lens  -the online dating scene after 50 -structuring a memoir with lots of material   Books Mentioned in this episode: Consider the Oyster by M. F. K.  Fisher The Gastronomical Me by M.F.K. Fisher Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir by Lisa Dale Norton Educated by Tara Westover   Debbie Weiss is a former attorney who earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from Saint Mary's College of California in 2020. A native of the Bay Area, she turned to writing after George, her husband and partner of more than three decades, died of cancer in April 2013, and she found herself single and living alone for the first time in her life. Weiss's essays have been published in The New York Times's “Modern Love” column, HuffPost, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, Elle Décor, and Reader's Digest, among other publications. She lives in Benicia, CA with het second life partner, Randal.   Connect with Debi: Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/debbieweissauthor/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbie_weiss_author/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DWeissWriter Website: https://thehungoverwidow.com/ Purchase “Available As Is”: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1324017.Debbie_Weiss Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Available-As-Midlife-Widows-Search/dp/164742237X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1JLADG9KGH13C&keywords=available+as+is+debbie+weiss&qid=1665773224&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjkxIiwicXNhIjoiMC4zNiIsInFzcCI6IjAuNTEifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=available+as+is%2Caps%2C255&sr=8-1 -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Laura Cathcart Robbins joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about writing Stash, her new memoir that delves into addiction, privilege, and race, what self-care looked like for her while she tackled traumatic material, why she had to let go of controlling the narrative to better serve her story, and depicting the physical impact of addiction on the page.   Also in this episode: -Laura's wildly popular podcast The Only One in the Room -the importance of journals -sharing a manuscript with family and exes   Memoirs mentioned in this episode: Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamont Dry by Augustus Burrows Wild by Cheryl Strayed Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert California Soul by Keith Corbin Educated by Tara Westover   Laura Cathcart Robbin is the host of the popular podcast, The Only One In The Room, and author of the forthcoming Atria/Simon & Schuster memoir, STASH (due out in spring of 2023). She has been active for many years as a speaker and school trustee and is credited for creating The Buckley School's nationally recognized committee on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice. Her recent articles in Huffpo and The Temper on the subjects of race, recovery, and divorce have garnered her worldwide acclaim. She is a LA Moth StorySlam winner and currently sits on the advisory boards of the San Diego Writer's Festival and the Outliers HQ podcast Festival. Find out more about her on her website, or you can look for her on Facebook, on Instagram, and follow her on Twitter.   Connect with Laura:  Laura's Podcast: https://theonlyonepod.com/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHRtdMgfXBbfvb6YkJr2qQw Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theonlyoneintheroom/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theonlyoneintheroom Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheOnlyOnePodc1 Laura's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauracathcartrobbins/ Huffpost Profile: https://www.huffpost.com/author/laura-cathcart-robbins Laura's Website: http://www.lauracathcartrobbins.com/ -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

In her new book of short stories, Home is a Made Up Place, Seattle author Ronit Plank explores the intersection between fabricated characters and plots and the true life Plank lived. We can only make Soundside because listeners support us. Make the show happen by making a gift to KUOW:https://www.kuow.org/donate/soundside

Suzanne Roberts joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about the difficulty of being in a human body - especially a woman's, the male gaze, deciding how to approach our work, writing about loss, grief, death, and desire, reading widely and deeply, being an employee to our art, and Animal Bodies, her memoir made of lyrical essays, narrative pieces, and prose poems.   Also in this episode: -when the body becomes political -how poetry has informed her work -a tool to get yourself to write even material that you most fear sharing    Books mentioned in this episode:  The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith Guidebook to Relative Strangers by Camile Dungy Soil: A Black Mother's Garden by Camille Dungy What You Have Heard is True by Caroline Forche The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Rojas Contreras  Lying by Lauren Slater Constellations: Reflections from Life by Sinead Gleeson Drawing Breath by Gayle Brandeis Burnt: A Memoir of Fighting Fire by  Claire Frank The Abacus of Loss by Sholeh Wolpé Trespass by Amy Irvine Trailed by Kathryn Miles Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston   Suzanne Roberts is the author of the award-winning essay collection Animal Bodies: On Death, Desire, and Other Difficulties (March 2022),​ the award-winning travel memoir in essays Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel (2020), and the memoir Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award), as well as four books of poems. Named "The Next Great Travel Writer" by National Geographic's Traveler, Suzanne's work has been listed as notable in Best American Essays and included in The Best Women's Travel Writing. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, The Rumpus, Hippocampus, The Normal School, River Teeth, and elsewhere. She holds a doctorate in literature and the environment from the University of Nevada-Reno, teaches in the low residency MFA program in creative writing at UNR-Tahoe, and splits her time between South Lake Tahoe, California and an old green van named Shrek.   Connect with Suzanne:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suzanneroberts28/?hl=en Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/suzanne.roberts.798 Website: https://www.suzanneroberts.net/ Animal Bodies: https://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/nebraska/9781496231024/#:~:text=About%20the%20Book&text=In%20Animal%20Bodies%20Suzanne%20Roberts,taboo%20desires%20and%20our%20grief.   -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/ Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Happy Valentine's Day! In honor of artistic partnership, Vincent Paterson and Amy Tofte join Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation on their experience collaborating on their new book Icons and Instincts, Vincent's experience working with Madonna, Robin Williams, and other stars, the 6-step process Amy relied on during the writing process, the fight against artistic erasure, and allowing manuscripts to tell us what they need to be. Also in this episode: -How all of what we do as artists informs our creativity -Why time alone is essential  -Separating artists from their behavior Books mentioned in this episode:  On Writing by Stephen King   Vincent Paterson is a world-renowned director and choreographer in film, theatre, Broadway, concert tours, opera, television, music videos and commercials. His iconic works include Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal and the famous “lean” as well as Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour. He directed the opera Manon with Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazon, Cirque de Soleil's VIVA! ELVIS and Berlin's first original production of CABARET—the longest running play in Berlin's history. Film choreographies include The Birdcage, Dancer in the Dark, Evita and Hook. He resides in California with his husband, Rene Lamontagne.   Amy Tofte is an award-winning writer and storyteller. She won a prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2015. She has been a regular contributor to the award-winning LA STAGE Times and other online publications with more than 100 feature articles profiling Emmy winners, Oscar- and Pulitzer-nominated writers as well as nationally recognized theater artists. Tofte's critically acclaimed stage plays have been produced throughout the U.S., the U.K., Australia and at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival. She lives in Los Angeles.   Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Icons-Instincts-Choreographing-Directing-Entertainments/dp/1644282631/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1L41A3TOO0J68&keywords=Vincent+paterson&qid=1659550841&sprefix=vincent+paterson%2Caps%2C245&sr=8-1 Connect with Vincent: Website: http://www.vincentpaterson.com/www.vincentpaterson.com/HOME.html Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vincent.paterson.5 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vlpla/   Connect with Amy: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-tofte-1712334/ -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers    

Maria Giura joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about which stories define us, avoiding the self-pity trap, the importance of allowing the reader to make decisions about the characters in our memoir for themselves, how we frame childhood and family dynamics, writing about the very early versions of ourselves after we've changed so much, and what challenges she faced writing Celibate in which she explores her relationship with the priest she fell in love with and how that experience helped her discover the life she wanted to live. Also in this episode: -shutting out the voices that tell you not to share your story -gaining the perspective our narratives need -how The Church and her faith guide her  Books mentioned in this episode: The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard Limbo by A. Manette Ansay The Art of Slow Writing by Louise DeSalvo   Maria Giura is the author of Celibate: A Memoir, which won a First Place Independent Press Award, and What My Father Taught Me, which was a Paterson Poetry Book Prize finalist. Her writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in several journals including New York Quarterly, Prime Number, Vita Poetica, Presence, Italian Americana, Lips, and Tiferet. An Academy of American Poets winner, Giura has taught writing at multiple universities including Binghamton University where she received her PhD in English. She currently teaches memoir workshops for Casa Belvedere Cultural Foundation. Follow her on Instagram @marigiurawrites, on Fb and at mariagiura.com   Connect with Maria: Website: mariagiura.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariagiurawrites/ Facebook:: facebook.com/maria.giura.3975/ Courses:  casa-belvedere.org/product/virtual-writing-workshop-writing-your-memories-gifts-given-and-received/ Purchase Maria's book, Celibate: amazon.com/gp/product/1627202145?pf_rd_r=CQE6RA5DTDTWKAJ82YT9&pf_rd_p=edaba0ee-c2fe-4124-9f5d-b31d6b1bfbee barnesandnoble.com/w/celibate-maria-giura/1131505200?ean=9781627202145 shop.aer.io/apprenticehouse/p/Celibate_A_Memoir/9781627202145-4208?collection=/0 bookshop.org/books/celibate-a-memoir/9781627202145   – Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com   More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Buick Audra joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her new album and companion memoir in essays Conversations with My Other Voice, the importance of protecting our work from judgment, being an abuse survivor, how she views regret, and the tool she used when deciding which details to share about others and which to leave out.    Also in this episode: -why writing about the abuse she suffered does not retraumatize her -how misogyny has impacted her art and career -a closer look at why sharing our voice matters    Books mentioned in this episode: To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine The Part That Burns by Jeannine Ouellette What Do We Need Men For by E. Jean Carroll I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron   Buick Audra is a Grammy-award-winning musician and writer living in Nashville, TN. She is the guitarist and primary songwriter and vocalist in the melodic heavy duo, Friendship Commanders. Her new album, Conversations with My Other Voice, was released on September 23rd, 2022. The album is accompanied by a memoir in essays by the same name.   Connect with Buick: Website: https://www.buickaudra.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buickaudra/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/buickaudramusic Twitter: https://twitter.com/buickaudra Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs25KbPeA2MD8z3sTUTCMRw Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@buickaudra Listen to Buick: https://buickaudra.bandcamp.com https://open.spotify.com/artist/349pAReW5Ad2bzV5nnGxjO?si=Cl-UJarYRV2lR-2F7AgbAQ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62698973-conversations-with-my-other-voice   Buy the album & book together:  https://buickaudra.bandcamp.com/album/conversations-with-my-other-voice   Buy the book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/conversations-with-my-other-voice-buick-audra/1142389645?ean=9798218066574 https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Conversations-My-Other-Voice/Buick-Audra/9798218066574?id=8650666689319 https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-My-Other-Voice-Essays/dp/B0BGSNTQTB/ref=sr_1_23 -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com   More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Lori L. Tharps joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about why memoirs are not an indulgence, the importance of finding your memoir's theme, deciding where your book should begin, having a writing life that feeds you and also keeps you fed, and systemic racism in the U.S. and how her Black and Spanish children were the impetus for her to uncover Spain's hidden Black history and write her memoir Kinky Gazpacho.   Also in this episode: -the multiple memoirs we have within us -how memoirs are healing medicine -the many ways to live a creative writing life   Books mentioned in this episode: The Liar's Club by Mary Karr The Color of Water by James McBride Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernadine Evaristo Will by Will Smith  From Scratch by Tembi Locke   Lori L. Tharps is a journalist and author whose work lands at the intersection of race and popular culture.  She is the author of three critically acclaimed non-fiction books that deal with race, culture and identity; Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (St. Martin's), Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain (Atria), and her most recent, Same Family Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America's Diverse Families (Beacon). Lori is also the author of the novel, Substitute Me (Atria),  A former associate professor of journalism at Temple University, Lori has won awards and accolades for her teaching in both academic and creative workshop settings. In addition to teaching at Temple, Tharps has also taught at numerous writing festivals and writing centers across the United States, including, Blue Stoop Philly and Gotham Writer's Workshop. In addition to her books, Lori's work can be read in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Essence, Glamour, and Entertainment Weekly magazines. Originally from Wisconsin, Lori now makes her home in the south of Spain.   Connect with Lori: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loriltharps/ Website: https://www.readwriteandcreate.com/ Link for Kinky Gazpacho, her memoir: https://amzn.to/3yKPvb9   -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com   More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/ More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE: https://ronitplank.com/home-is-a-made-up-place/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Literary Citizen of the Year Allison K Williams joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about the importance of plot, structure, and dramatic arc in memoir, the elements that make a story a story, insuring your memoir has a reader takeaway, what being in the circus taught her about writing, why she calls herself the unkind editor, and how she really feels about memoir.    Also in this episode: -Allison's editor origin story -what being a “real” writer actually means -tips for working with an editor   Books mentioned in this episode: Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick To Hell by Dinty W. Moore Broken in the Best Possible Way by Jenny Lawson The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova   Allison K Williams is the author of Seven Drafts: Self-Edit Like a Pro from Blank Page to Book. She has edited and coached writers to deals with Penguin Random House, Knopf, Mantle, Spencer Hill, St. Martin's and independent presses. She's guided essayists to publication in the New Yorker, Time, the Guardian, the New York Times, McSweeney's and TED Talks. As Social Media Editor for Brevity, she inspires thousands of writers with blogs on craft and the writing life. A former circus performer, Allison has written for NPR, CBC, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Creative Nonfiction, McSweeney's, Kenyon Review Online and Travelers' Tales. Her plays, including Mark Twain Award winner Hamlette and London Fringe Best of Fringe Winner TRUE STORY, have been produced worldwide.   Connect with Allison: Twitter: twitter.com/guerillamemoir Instagram: instagram.com/guerillamemoir Website: www.allisonkwilliams.com Linktree: www.linktree.com/guerillamemoir -- Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, Hippocampus, The Iowa 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 a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot and was a Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards, the Housatonic Book Awards, and the Book of the Year Awards. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, the Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction Anthology, and her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' Eludia Award. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family where she is working on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com   More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/   Connect with Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo: Canva Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Scott sits down with Seattle author and podcaster Ronit Plank to chat about her writing and podcast. The discussion wanders through her writing career and how it transitioned into podcasting.   Ronit got her start writing short works for stage while working at the Actors Gang in Los Angeles performing improv. Once she moved to Seattle, she became interested in writing and took classes at the University of Washington Extension for fiction. After writing some short fiction she became more interested in memoirs and non-fiction. More recently, Ronit writes a lot of parenting articles. Her thesis paper became the foundation of her memoir When She Comes Back.   Ronit talks about her first podcast, And Then Everything Changed, describing the ideas and methods. She then talks about her current podcast, Lets Talk Memoir and how she prepares for each guest.   WARNING: This episode mentions Oregon multiple times. Kidding. But no, really.

If you are an entrepreneur, you are wearing all the hats, and it can be crazy but it is also exciting. In this episode, I interview my amazing client, Ronit Plank. Ronit is a writer, speaker, and podcaster whose work has been published in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Rumpus, Writer's Digest, and elsewhere. She is the host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed, The Body Myth, and Let's Talk Memoir. She is nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and her first book is the memoir When She Comes Back. Her short story collection Home is A Made-Up Place, winner of the 2020 Eludia Award, will be out later this year. Find her at www.ronitplank.com and @ronitplank on Twitter/Instagram.Ronit and I started working together in October of 2020. I helped her with her podcast, And Then Everything Changed. Once she put that podcast on hold, I helped her launch, from scratch, her 2 podcasts The Body Myth and Let's Talk Memoir.In this episode we talk about how she went from being an actor to being a well respected writer, her journey to memoir, how she manages her marketing with all of her projects & how she grows her online community. In this episode:- Writing memoir. - Finding a publisher for her memoir.- Launching her 3 podcasts & how they help her with her credibility. - Staying true to yourself. - Juggling multiple passions and projects. Action Steps:1. Listen to others. Be open to being surprised2. Share what others post when you love it. Support others!3. Be reliable Connect with Ronit:Website: http://ronitplank.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/Connect with me, Hayleigh Hayhurst:Website: https://www.espressopodcastproduction.com/Podcast courses: https://espressopodcastproduction.vipmembervault.com/products/courses/view/1126813Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/espressopodcastproduction/Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/espressogrowthMusic: John Kiernan. www.johnkiernanmusic.comHost your podcast on Spreaker: https://spreaker.pxf.io/Boss

In this episode, Ronit lends us her tender voice to read the testimony of a survivor of the Japanese New Religious Movement known as Sukyo Mahikari. With little known about the group around the world, it is imperative to share experiences where possible and through her written responses to interview questions, Alice is allowing us to do just that.Sukyo Mahikari Prayer Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS5Zreiio1MThank you so much Ronit for collaborating with me on this project. To find Ronit and her work follow her website that includes details of her memoir "When She Comes Back" and her current podcast "Let's Talk Memoir"https://ronitplank.com/CRIMECON UK 2022Falling Out with Elgen Strait Podcast - www.fallingoutpod.comCult Vault Shop - cultvaultpodcast.com/shopCrimecon UK 2022 - https://www.crimecon.co.uk/Get In TouchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultvaultpod/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultVaultPodTumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cultvaultReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Cult-VaultGmail: cultvaultpodcast@gmail.comPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/thecultvaultSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/cultvaultpodcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Ronit Plank's mother left to follow the Indian mystic, some would say cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (also known as Osho) when she was five years old. Through the process of writing her memoir, When She Comes Back, Plank rewrote her definition of forgiveness.

In today's episode, we explore Ronit Plank's coming of age memoir in which she chronicles her evolving relationship with her mother, who left the family and moved to India to follow Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a cult guru who later oversaw the largest biological attack on U.S. soil. In this episode, we talk about complex family dynamics as well as the quest for self-identity, understanding, and reconciliation that's integral to the human experience.Learn more at www.ronitplank.com. Guest: Ronit Plank, Podcast, Speaker, and Author of When She Comes Back: A Memoir

Ronit Plank is an award-winning writer and host and producer of the podcast And Then Everything Changed. She's a native New Yorker and former actress who has written for The Atlantic, The Iowa Review, The Rumpus, American Literary Review, and The Washington Post, among others. She is the author of the memoir When She Comes Back about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation and the 2020 Eludia Award-winning short story collection Home Is A Made-Up Place which will be out with Sowilo Press in Spring 2022). She is a teacher with a Masters of Fine Arts in Nonfiction writing from Pacific University and has appeared on NPR, and at Town Hall Seattle, and Listen To Your Mother Seattle. Connect with her:Website: www.ronitplank.com  Personal Facebook Page: @RonitFeinglassPlankInstagram: @ronitplank  LinkedIn: @ronitplankTwitter: @ronitplank   

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, speaker, and memoirist Ronit Plank, each episode of this limited series highlights different aspects of the memoir writing experience, writing tips, and inspiration.   Ronit's essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, The Washington Post, Writer's Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACKabout the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd   Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Author Ronit Plank joins the show to talk about her memoirs chronicling her adolescent life being abandoned by her mother who joined a cult. Photo: iStock / Getty Images Plus jakkapan21

2/14/22 - Author Ronit Plank by The Lisa Wexler Show

Scott Slaughter co-host and producer of The Only One In The Room has a short and casual, yet deep conversation with our guest Ronit Plank right after the show. Special thanks to our sponsors: BetterHelp: BetterHelp is a great, affordable option for professional counseling done securely online. As a listener, you'll get 10% off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com/one   Best Fiends: Join us and the millions of Americans who are already playing this game. Download Best Fiends for FREE on The Apple APP store or Google Play. That's friends without the R, Best Fiends. Join our Patreon: Become an Only One In The Room patron by joining us on Patreon! Starting at only $5.00 per month, you'll get bonus content, access to outtakes that the general public will NEVER see, extremely cool merch, and depending on what tier you get, monthly hang time with Scott and Laura. Join our Patreon today at https://www.patreon.com/theonlyonepodcast  Don't miss our new Friday series On My Nightstand. Be sure to join our Facebook Group for the most up-to-date info on guests, episodes and more. You can also DM us on Instagram @theonlyoneintheroom or email us via the website at www.theonlyonepod.com Also visit the website for the latest from our host Laura Cathcart Robbins like live events, appearances, featured articles and more. We love hearing from you in the comments on iTunes and while you're there don't forget to rate us, subscribe and share the show! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine being raised in Eden, or at least a kibbutz that felt like Eden, where you, your parents, and your sister were all part of a large, happy, peaceful, useful community. Writer, memoirist, and podcaster, Ronit Plank, moved to the US with her family when she was four years old, and after her parents divorced, she and her little sister lived with their mother in Seattle. But what would you do if one day, your mother dropped you off in New Jersey to live with your father, while she left to join the ashram of a guru named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in India? Would you tell yourself it was no big deal? That lots of kids only had their dads? Or would you spend your childhood planning for the time when she finally came back for good? More From Ronit Plank: Visit: https://ronitplank.com/ Listen: And Then Everything Changed Read When She Comes Back Finding Ronit Plank: Twitter & Instagram: @RonitPlank Special thanks to our sponsors: Best Fiends: Join us and the millions of Americans who are already playing this game. Download Best Fiends for FREE on The Apple APP store or Google Play. That's friends without the R, Best Fiends.  BetterHelp: BetterHelp is a great, affordable option for professional counseling done securely online. As a listener, you'll get 10% off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com/one   Join our Patreon: Become an Only One In The Room patron by joining us on Patreon! Starting at only $5.00 per month, you'll get bonus content, access to outtakes that the general public will NEVER see, extremely cool merch, and depending on what tier you get, monthly hang time with Scott and Laura. Join our Patreon today at https://www.patreon.com/theonlyonepodcast Be sure not to miss Scott Talks on Wednesdays, our Sunday release called Sunday Edition & our brand new series On My Nightstand releasing on Fridays by subscribing to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.  Join our Only One In The Room Facebook Group if you'd like to ask a question of any of our upcoming guests for this series.  Also visit the website www.theonlyonepod.com for the latest from our host Laura Cathcart Robbins like featured articles and more. We love hearing from you in the comments on iTunes and while you're there don't forget to rate us, subscribe and share the show! All of us at The Only One In The Room wish you safety and wellness during this challenging time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every single chapter of this stunning book deserves to be read out loud, but for today's On My Nightstand, I chose one of my favorites, Lady Of The House.  Ronit's writing has been featured in The Rumpus, The Atlantic, The Iowa Review, American Literary Review, The New York Times, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award. Her short story collection Home Is A Made-Up Place won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She created the podcast And Then Everything Changed and in Spring 2022 will launch the limited series podcasts The Body Myth and Let's Talk Memoir. She is a creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family. Instagram and Twitter: @ronitplank FB: Ronit Plank Website: https://ronitplank.co Thank you to our Sponsors: BetterHelp: BetterHelp is a great, affordable option for professional counseling done securely online. As a listener, you'll get 10% off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com/one   Best Fiends: Join us and the millions of Americans who are already playing this game. Download Best Fiends for FREE on The Apple APP store or Google Play. That's friends without the R, Best Fiends.  Join our Patreon: Become an Only One In The Room patron by joining us on Patreon! Starting at only $5.00 per month, you'll get bonus content, access to outtakes that the general public will NEVER see, extremely cool merch, and depending on what tier you get, monthly hang time with Scott and Laura. Join our Patreon today at https://www.patreon.com/theonlyonepodcast Be sure not to miss our weekly full episodes on Tuesdays, Scott Talks on Wednesdays & Sunday Edition every Sunday by subscribing to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.  We love hearing from you in the comments on iTunes and while you're there don't forget to rate us, subscribe and share the show! All of us at The Only One In The Room wish you safety and wellness during this challenging time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ronit Plank is a writer, speaker, teacher and mother whose work has been featured in The Rumpus, The Atlantic, The Iowa Review, Writer's Digest, The Washington Post, The Seattle Times, The New York Times and elsewhere. Her stories and essays have been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net and she is author of When She Comes Back, a memoir about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation. Her short story collection Home Is A Made-Up Place won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022 by Sowilo Press. She's also creator and host of the award-winning podcast, "And Then Everything Changed," featuring interviews with authors, survivors and people in recovery about pivotal moment in their lives and the decisions that have defined them. She lives in Seattle with her family. See https://ronitplank.com/ for more information and for links to her book, articles and podcast. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/maria-leonard-olsen/support

How do you heal after being abandoned by the person who is supposed to love you most in the world? This week's guest, author Ronit Plank, shares her story of being raised in a kibbutz in Israel, moving to the United States, losing her father in divorce, and then losing her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh as a young child. Ronit's story is a story of resilience, reconciliation, forgiveness, and the incredible power of love.Ronit Palnk is a writer, editor, and speaker whose work has been featured in The Rumpus, The Atlantic, The Iowa Review, American Literary Review, The New York Times, Writer's Digest and elsewhere. When She Comes Back, her memoir about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award. She has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net and her short story collection Home Is A Made-Up Place won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is creative nonfiction editor at The Citron Review and lives in Seattle with her family.You can find Ronit:Instagram: @ronitplankFacebook: Ronit PlankWebsite: www.ronitplank.comRonit's Memoir: When She Comes BackRonit's Podcast: And Then Everything ChangedPlease share this episode with a friend who would be inspired by Ronit's capacity for love & forgiveness.Would you like a signed copy of Ronit's Book? DM me about this episode! We will be choosing one lucky listener to get a copy of the book!Let me know what you thought of this episode:DM me on Instagram: @tiphanyKane Come visit my website: www.tiphanykane.comGet your #Selflove merchandise

Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and podcaster whose work has been featured in The Rumpus, The Atlantic, The Iowa Review, Writer's Digest, The Washington Post, HuffPost, and The New York Times among others. Her stories and essays have been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net and she is author of When She Comes Back, a memoir about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation. Her short story collection Home Is A Made-Up Place won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. I met Ronit at an event a couple months ago and had an immediate connection with her.  As I've read her book, When She Comes Back, I feel like we are long lost sisters at times.  While we had different experiences growing up, we both had parents who abandoned us, creating this void of confusion in our lives that left us constantly questioning how to take up space.  If you've watched the docuseries Wild, Wild Country, some of Ronit's story will be familiar, as the cult featured in the docuseries is the cult her mother joined.  Listen in to hear Ronit share: Her experience of being born on a kibbutz in Israel and living separately from her parents as a baby and toddler The effects of her mom leaving her and her little sister to follow a guru How she maintained a relationship with her mom in spite of being repeatedly abandoning her The challenge and conflicting emotions of having her mom be close to her after her daughter was born What it's been like for her to mother after not having a mother role model The difference between the vulnerabilities we choose to share and those we must carry How knowing someone's story creates space for compassion in spaces where compassion might not otherwise exist Links mentioned: Get my newsletter to be notified of our 2022 Plan & Prep Pajama Party Connect with Ronit and get the book: Ronit Plank IG/Twitter: @ronitplank  Thank you to our sponsor: Evite: Head over to Evite to choose from thousands of design options to create and send invitations for free.

Ronit Plank (she/her) is a writer, podcaster, teacher, and storyteller with a passion for learning how someone else has lived or survived. She loves the way stories–whether fiction, nonfiction, or interviews–bridge vastly different lived experiences and help connect those who might not otherwise have found each other. She wrote her memoir When She Comes Back to offer a window into how losing her mother to a cult impacted her childhood and how, after years of emotional distance, they reconciled when she became a mother herself. She created the podcast And Then Everything Changed to highlight the lives of people who have survived hardship, trauma, or pain and have made it their mission to help others find their way. Learn more about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com/ - be. (bewomn.com) is a newsletter & community here to empower women and non-binary people to step into their collective experience and share what makes theirs different and the same. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://campsite.bio/bewomn Follow us on Instagram: @be.womn Follow us on Twitter: @bewomn

In this episode I interview author Ronit Plank about her coming-of-age memoir. Her book "When She Comes Back" is centred around her Mother leaving to join infamous cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.For a chance to win 1 of 3 exclusively signed copies of this memoir in September, follow/like/comment on my social media postsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultvaultpod/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultVaultPodYoutube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCM-6n1rFPHQVDnEQWay3odQA huge thank you to this month's sponsors! Find out more about Help You Find Me at - https://helpyoufind.me/HYFMCultFind Ronit's Memoir here - www.RonitPlank.comGet In TouchInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/cultvaultpod/Twitter: https://twitter.com/CultVaultPodTumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/cultvaultReddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/Cult-VaultGmail: cultvaultpodcast@gmail.comPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/thecultvaultSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/cultvaultpodcast/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On this episode we are joined by internationally bestselling author and friend of the pod, Joanna Rakoff, to discuss Laura Dave's instant #1 New York Times bestseller and Reese Book Club Pick, The Last Thing He Told Me...a thriller rooted in hope! ** Complicated Woman. After an introduction to the book and our love of Laura Dave's backlist, we each share what we found remarkable about Hannah, who we declare a truly subversive female protagonist. (07:42) ** Killer Quotes. This book is filled with “killer quotes” but Carinn & Kate pick their favorites and discuss how they relate to the book's larger themes and questions. (28:33) ** What's Your Damage, Heather? This novel explores one of our favorites...mommy issues. Hannah was abandoned by her own mother and we chat about how that kind of trauma can imprint on a person for life. Joanna likens it to a memoir she loves, When She Comes Back, by Ronit Plank. (32:38) ** What She Said. We deep drive into Laura Dave, her ability to pivot, how she keeps getting better, and the decades long journey this book took to publication. (43:18) ** Takeaways. The book leaves us debating whether we could have done what Hannah did? And also wondering whether a woman can be the hero of her own story AND ALSO a true partner in a relationship. (54:30) ** Who Won The Book? For Kate it's the propulsive pacing and for Carinn it's Jake, the ex-fiance whose character jumps off the page! (67:25) ** Crystal Ball. Carinn looks into the future book she *wants* to read next, while Kate posits what she thinks Laura Dave may write should she actually pursue a potential sequel.  (74:30) Follow us on Instagram and Facebook @popfictionwomen and on Twitter @pop_women. To do a full deep dive, check out our website at http://www.popfictionwomen.com (www.popfictionwomen.com). Stay Complicated! We've launched a platform at patreon.com/popfictionwomen to keep making the podcast you love -- and to make it even better.  Support this podcast

Ronit Plank was six years old when her mother left her and her four-year-old sister for India to follow Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a cult guru at the center of Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country and whose commune was responsible for the largest biological attack on US soil. This was the beginning of a very long road to Plank grappling with the toll her mother's leaving took, measuring her self-worth by her mother's absence. In this stunningly personal presentation, Plank joined us with storyteller Alice Ikeda to share from her coming-of-age memoir When She Comes Back. Plank told us about her father, who'd left the family the previous year, stepping up and bringing the young Ronit and her sister to live with him. She explored how, on the surface, his nurturing was the balm that she sought, but she soon took on the role of partner and confidant to him, and substitute mother to her sister. Though they have a relationship now, Plank examined the pain a child feels when she discovers that her love for her mother is not enough to make that parent stay. With this intimate story of resilience and reconciliation, Plank and Ikeda invited us to a raw conversation about family members who leave, writing memoirs about family, the ethics for memoirs, and why personal stories matter. Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and podcaster whose work has been seen in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Rumpus, The Iowa Review, and American Literary Review, among others. She is host and producer of the award-winning podcast And Then Everything Changed featuring interviews with survivors, authors, thought leaders, and people in recovery about pivotal moments in their lives and decisions that have defined them. When She Comes Back is her first book and her short story collection Home Is A Made-Up Place will be published in 2022. Alice H. Ikeda has been in pursuit of stories that spur courageous conversations from the inception of her career. Her work has been seen on Emmy-nominated programs for networks such as NHK Television Japan, RTP Portugal, CTV Canada, PBS, History Channel, A&E, Discovery Channel, Fine Living Network, Lifetime Television, HGTV, and others. She is currently a principle with Ikeda/Vanderburg Productions where she continues her pursuit of interviews and stories with social impact. Buy the Book: https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781945060199  Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here. 

Is there a story inside of you that you just know would help you heal if you let it out? Or perhaps it would help others heal? Here's your inspiration to put it out there! Ronit Plank never planned to write a memoir. However, she realized that her story's too good to keep to herself. This week, Heather talks with Ronit about her shockingly beautiful, recently-published memoir, When She Comes Back, where she details her tumultuous childhood, being abandoned by the most important person in her life, her mother, and the lessons she learned by revisiting her past.TOP TAKEAWAYS: Vulnerability is strength.Our memories are valuable but unreliable. Memoirs offer truth by way of perspective—That is, they tell the truth of how their author felt. Telling our story is one of the most empowering and cathartic processes we can undergo. Get additional details, show notes, links, and a full transcript of the episode here.Get your BRAVE on by joining our exclusive (and FREE) Facebook Collective, Brave on Purpose. Join here. Call 312-646-0205 to share feedback, ask questions, or tell us how you're choosing bravely!Grab your BRAVE AF and GRATEFUL AF swag now. Check out The Brave Files Book Collection here! Support The Brave Files on Patreon here.Join us for the next "So you want to start a podcast" LIVE Q&A session with the experts from the Podcast Power Academy. Register here

In this episode of the First Time Story series, my guest was Ronit Plank. Ronit shared the story of the first time she ever went to a giant community coven Wiccan gathering at a Unitarian Church when she was in college. Next, we played the First Time Lightning Round™ and learned that Ronit loves getting hot stone massages and if someone can teach her how to safely do a handstand, she'll give it a go!! Ronit is a freelance writer, host, and producer of the podcast And Then Everything Changed, and author of the new memoir When She Comes Back. When She Comes Back is a story about Ronit’s mother leaving her, twice, in order to follow a group during her childhood, which led to Ronit growing up without her mother but later reconciling.

Author Lily Dunn’s father joined Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh’s movement about the same time that And Then Everything Changed host Ronit Plank’s mother followed him to India. They both grew up in the shadow of Bhagwan (also known at Osho, the guru at the center of Netflix’s docuseries Wild Wild Country), each with a parent more devoted to his teachings and the lifestyle he extolled than to them. Lily shares some of what she witnessed at the Rajneeshee house she visited on weekends and she and Ronit discuss how their relationships with their father and mother respectively irrevocably changed when they chose freedom over parenting. In this special episode to mark the release of Ronit's memoir When She Comes Back and Lily's forthcoming memoir, the authors discuss their books, writing about family, and how watching Wild Wild Country which became a media sensation affected them.  Connect With Lily: Website A Wild and Precious Life Twitter   Connect With Ronit: For more about this episode click here! Instagram Facebook

Bonus Episode!  We talk to Ronit Plank about her new Memoir, When She Comes Back.  It is the story of her mother, who left Ronit and her sister to become a member of a cult and how she healed the relationship when her mother returned. Ronit is host & producer of the award-winning podcast And Then Everything Changed featuring interviews with survivors, authors, thought leaders, and people in recovery about pivotal moments in their lives & decisions that have defined them. When She Comes Back, her memoir about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh is her first book.  Subscribe to Hot Flashes & Cool Topics on any podcast platform. https://ronitplank.com/ www.hotflashescooltopics.com    

Ronit Plank author of the new memoir When She Comes Back talks about losing her mother twice to the cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh of Wild Wild Country fame and then joining a coven herself. Listen to this fantastic true story about what it's like to watch part of your family's story on Netflix and how one woman's search for spirituality ultimately created in her an extra sharp bullshit detector for coercive religions, gurus, and eerily-charismatic figureheads.Join us EVERY Friday night at 7pm PST for Story Smash the Storytelling Game Show! LIVE and STREAMING on Facebook and YouTube with your host Christine Blackburn, comedian Blaine Capatch, writer Danny Zuker and many more talented people like Wayne Federman, MaryLynn Rajskub, Melissa Peterman, Ed Crasnick, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Greg Proops! Four comedians spin the Story Worthy Wheel of Truth and tell a true 1 or 2 minute story on the topic they land. The "expert judges" comment and everyone laughs their ass off. Story Smash sold-out consistently at the Hollywood Improv for 3 years. It's a blast! Check out the Story Smash website here,The Story Worthy Hour Of Power is now once a month on the third Sunday at 5:00pm PST, via Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank California. Watch 5 true hilarious stories in 1 hour! More info on the website, Story Worthy. Please subscribe for free, rate, and review Story Worthy on Apple Podcasts here. It really helps. Follow Christine and Story Worthy on Social Media- Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and at ChristineBlackburn.com. Thanks guys! Christine Privacy Policy and California Privacy Notice.

Ronit Plank author of the new memoir When She Comes Back talks about losing her mother twice to the cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh of Wild Wild Country fame and then joining a coven herself. Listen to this fantastic true story about what it's like to watch part of your family's story on Netflix and how one woman’s search for spirituality ultimately created in her an extra sharp bullshit detector for coercive religions, gurus, and eerily-charismatic figureheads.Join us EVERY Friday night at 7pm PST for Story Smash the Storytelling Game Show! LIVE and STREAMING on Facebook and YouTube with your host Christine Blackburn, comedian Blaine Capatch, writer Danny Zuker and many more talented people like Wayne Federman, MaryLynn Rajskub, Melissa Peterman, Ed Crasnick, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Greg Proops! Four comedians spin the Story Worthy Wheel of Truth and tell a true 1 or 2 minute story on the topic they land. The "expert judges" comment and everyone laughs their ass off. Story Smash sold-out consistently at the Hollywood Improv for 3 years. It’s a blast! Check out the Story Smash website here,The Story Worthy Hour Of Power is now once a month on the third Sunday at 5:00pm PST, via Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank California. Watch 5 true hilarious stories in 1 hour! More info on the website, Story Worthy. Please subscribe for free, rate, and review Story Worthy on Apple Podcasts here. It really helps. Follow Christine and Story Worthy on Social Media- Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and at ChristineBlackburn.com. Thanks guys! Christine