161. Writing to Our Past Self featuring Megan Williams

161. Writing to Our Past Self featuring Megan Williams

Megan Williams joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being a new mother while training at the police academy, looking for validation, resisting the urge to punish ourselves, pushing back against the voice of patriarchal culture, writing to our past self, going too far and not going far enough, the loneliness of motherhood, setting boundaries in memoir, testing ourselves, what motherhood feels like now, moving elegantly through time in memoir, surrounding yourself with talented writers, frontloading a manuscript, and her memoir One Bad Mother: A Mother’s Search for Meaning in the Police Academy.

Also in this episode:

-thinking as a form of writing

-writing community

-writing conferences

Books mentioned in this episode:

Crossing the River by Carol Smith

Starry Field by Margaret Juhae Lee

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Alliosn

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

A Well-Trained Wife by Tia Levings

Megan Williams is the author of One Bad Mother: A Mother’s Search for Meaning in the Police Academy. After graduating from Haverford College, Megan received her Ph.D. in English from Temple University and taught at Lafayette College and Santa Clara University. She has moved across the country—never landing in the middle—three times in twenty years. She now lives in Bellingham with her husband, who runs Blue Dog Bakery and keeps their teenage twins, rescued cat, horse, and mastiff full of treats.

Connect with Megan Williams:

Website: www.meganwilliamsauthor.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1347114175

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

Tiktok: @one.bad.mother

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-williams-6585844a/

Get the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/one-bad-mother-a-woman-s-search-for-meaning-in-motherhood-and-the-philadelphia-police-academy-megan-williams/20964845?ean=9781960573858

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.

She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Jaksot(242)

9. Writing About Our Children featuring Debi Lewis

9. Writing About Our Children featuring Debi Lewis

Debi Lewis joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation on best practices for writing about our children, navigating the medical memoir, positioning books to make them appealing to publishers, and how s...

3 Touko 202230min

8. A Conversation with Writing and Publishing Expert Jane Friedman

8. A Conversation with Writing and Publishing Expert Jane Friedman

Jane Friedman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the most common craft issues she sees in memoir manuscripts, what writers often misunderstand about the industry, The Big Five, how to wr...

26 Huhti 202237min

7. Writing Your Story for Yourself featuring Melissa Gould

7. Writing Your Story for Yourself featuring Melissa Gould

Melissa Gould joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how writing was a way back to herself after she became a widow unexpectedly and at a young age, making the jump from screenwriting to non...

19 Huhti 202230min

6. Not Too Soon, Not Too Much: Stories That Insist on Being Told featuring Meg Weber

6. Not Too Soon, Not Too Much: Stories That Insist on Being Told featuring Meg Weber

Meg Weber joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about knowing when the right time is to tell your story, approaching loved ones about scenes in your memoir featuring graphic sex and kink, why com...

12 Huhti 202235min

5. Doing Whatever it Takes to Get Yourself to Write featuring Andrea Ross

5. Doing Whatever it Takes to Get Yourself to Write featuring Andrea Ross

Andrea Ross joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about battling memoir imposter syndrome, choosing scene over exposition, doing whatever it takes to get yourself to write, and how she used the w...

5 Huhti 202232min

4. Finding the Thread featuring Ellen Blum Barish

4. Finding the Thread featuring Ellen Blum Barish

Ellen Blum Barish joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about becoming a memoirist after a career as a journalist and how that deepened her love of writing, the power of working on smaller pieces...

29 Maalis 202232min

3. Putting it All on the Page: The Good, the Bad, and the Heartwrenching featuring Christie Tate

3. Putting it All on the Page: The Good, the Bad, and the Heartwrenching featuring Christie Tate

Christie Tate joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the ethics of writing about groups therapy and ex-boyfriends, navigating writing anxiety, becoming a full-time writer, and why she never ...

22 Maalis 202233min

2. The Transformation of Trauma featuring Jeannine Ouellette

2. The Transformation of Trauma featuring Jeannine Ouellette

Jeannine Ouellette joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the power of literary constraints, why the how can be just as important as the what, writing about childhood sexual abuse, believing...

15 Maalis 202243min

Suosittua kategoriassa Koulutus

rss-murhan-anatomia
voi-hyvin-meditaatiot-2
psykopodiaa-podcast
psykologia
adhd-podi
rss-rahamania
rss-valo-minussa-2
rss-tietoinen-yhteys-podcast-2
rss-narsisti
kesken
rss-liian-kuuma-peruna
rss-duodecim-lehti
rahapuhetta
rss-vapaudu-voimaasi
rss-niinku-asia-on
rss-psykalab
rss-luonnollinen-synnytys-podcast
leikitaanko-laakaria
filocast-filosofian-perusteet
rss-monarch-talk-with-alexandra-alexis