130. Writing Memoir As a Mother-Daughter Team featuring Dorothy and Rachel Leland

Dorothy and Rachel Leland join Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about Rachel’s battle with Lyme disease beginning at 13 years old, controversial medical diagnoses, advocating for treatment, living with chronic illness, keeping a journal, collaborating on a story, writing a memoir as a mother-daughter team and honoring both of those perspectives, taking care of ourselves when working on physically charged material, and their memoir Finding Resilience: A Teen's Journey Through Lyme Disease.

Also in this episode:

-Lyme politics

-keeping a journal

-using photographs to generate material

Books mentioned in this episode:

When Your Child Has Lyme Disease by Dorothy Leland

Educated by Tara Westover

The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank

Rachel became severely disabled by Lyme disease at age 13. It took years, but she's now a strong and healthy adult woman. She lives in Washington state and works in a school as a speech therapy assistant. In addition, she films and edits videos, which she posts on social media to help inspire and educate others about chronic illness.

As President of LymeDisease.org, Dorothy advocates nationally for improved diagnosis and medical treatment for Lyme disease. She has co-authored two books about Lyme disease and writes the blog "Touched by Lyme."

Connect with Dorothy and Rachel:

Website: https://resilientlyrachel.com/book/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/resilientlyrachel/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dorothy.leland/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/2LymeDisease.org/

Get the book: https://amzn.to/3HDqmmA

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, 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 memoir workshops and is working on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers