176. Using the Tools of Fiction to Move Readers featuring Maureen Stanton
Let’s Talk Memoir10 Kesä 2025

176. Using the Tools of Fiction to Move Readers featuring Maureen Stanton

Maureen Stanton joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her writing beginnings in fiction and using the scenic and immersive to move readers, falling in love with creative nonfiction, revisiting and recreating a love story, discovering the question behind her book, facing the blank page, bad first drafts, writing an illness narrative, placing an essay in Modern Love, authenticity on the page, the long winding path to publishing, not thinking your book will ever get published, working on multiple projects while querying, how love evolves, and her new memoir The Murmur of Everything Moving.

Also in this episode:

-the fog of grief

-killing our darlings

-submitting to writing contests

Books mentioned in this episode:

-Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

-Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

-The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr

-This Boys Life by Tobias Wolff

-Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

-Barbarian Days by William Finnegan

Maureen Stanton is the author of The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir, winner of the Donald L. Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence; Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood, winner of the Maine Literary Award for memoir and a People Magazine "Best Books Pick"; and Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: An Insider’s Look at the World of Flea Markets, Antiques, and Collecting, winner of the Massachusetts Book Award in nonfiction and a Parade Magazine "12 Great Summer Books" selection. Her nonfiction has been widely published, including in The New York Times, Fourth Genre, Creative Nonfiction, Longreads, New England Review, Florida Review, River Teeth, The Sun and many others. Her essays have received the Iowa Review prize, The Sewanee Review prize, Pushcart Prizes, the American Literary Review award, and the Thomas J. Hruska award from Passages North. She's been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Maine Arts Commission, the MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and lives in Maine.

Connect with Maureen:

Website: https://www.maureenstantonwriter.com

LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/maureenstanton41

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maureenstanton41

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@maureenstanton41

LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/maureen-stanton-6693ab11

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maureen.p.stanton

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/maureenstanton.bsky.social

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(237)

35. From Blog to Book featuring Stacey Freeman

35. From Blog to Book featuring Stacey Freeman

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...

23 Maalis 202340min

34. Excavating Cultural Identity in Memoir featuring Jasmin Faulk-Dickerson

34. Excavating Cultural Identity in Memoir featuring Jasmin Faulk-Dickerson

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 ident...

21 Maalis 202337min

33. Finding the Themes in Your Story featuring Debbie Weiss

33. Finding the Themes in Your Story featuring Debbie Weiss

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 sto...

14 Maalis 202331min

32. The Intersection of Race, Privilege, and Addiction in Memoir featuring Laura Cathcart Robbins

32. The Intersection of Race, Privilege, and Addiction in Memoir featuring Laura Cathcart Robbins

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 tack...

7 Maalis 202339min

31. Language, Lyricism, and Sound featuring Suzanne Roberts

31. Language, Lyricism, and Sound featuring Suzanne Roberts

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, g...

28 Helmi 202346min

30. The Magic of Dialogue featuring Felicia Thai Heath

30. The Magic of Dialogue featuring Felicia Thai Heath

Felicia Thai Heath joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up on the run to help keep her father, a notorious Vietnamese kingpin, safe from capture, the power of dialogue to tell our ...

21 Helmi 202330min

29. Co-Authoring a Memoir featuring Vincent Paterson and Amy Tofte

29. Co-Authoring a Memoir featuring Vincent Paterson and Amy Tofte

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 Instinct...

14 Helmi 202349min

28. Resisting Self-Pity in Memoir featuring Maria Giura

28. Resisting Self-Pity in Memoir featuring Maria Giura

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 m...

7 Helmi 202339min

Suosittua kategoriassa Koulutus

rss-murhan-anatomia
voi-hyvin-meditaatiot-2
psykopodiaa-podcast
rss-narsisti
adhd-podi
aamukahvilla
rss-liian-kuuma-peruna
rss-eron-alkemiaa
rss-koira-haudattuna
rss-rahamania
rss-tietoinen-yhteys-podcast-2
rahapuhetta
kesken
mielipaivakirja
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-vapaudu-voimaasi
rss-niinku-asia-on
rss-uskonto-on-tylsaa
rss-onks-ok
rss-turun-yliopisto