249. Utilizing Core Principles of Storytelling in Memoir featuring Jenny Lisk

Jenny Lisk joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing her husband to an aggressive brain cancer and becoming a widowed parent, learning how to do a job she never asked for, being a resource for widowed parents, feeling like you're doing grieving wrong, better understanding grieving children, launching a podcast to learn more about widowhood, incorporating a Caring Bridge blog into memoir, utilizing storytelling principles to flesh out a story and transform it into memoir, fear of vulnerability, defining book marketing broadly, assisting writers in self-publishing, memoir as an act of service, and her memoir Future Widow.

Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story

Also in this episode: - knowing where to end a memoir - instrumental and intuitive grievers - early marketing and building relationships

Books mentioned in this episode: - The Anatomy of Story by John Truby - Real American Julie by Lythcott-Haims The Chicago Manual of Style from University of Chicago Press

Jenny Lisk is the founder of the Widowed Parent Institute. She is an award-winning author and widowed mom who is dedicated to helping widowed parents increase their family's well-being. Jenny’s books, Future Widow and Widowed Parents Unite, and her show, The Widowed Parent Podcast, guide the journey of solo parenting after loss.

Jenny’s work has been featured in The Washington Post, Katie Couric Media, Yahoo Life, ParentMap, and more. She lives in Redmond, Washington, with her two college-age kids.

Connect with Jenny: Website: https://jennylisk.com https://jennyliskllc.com/ https://widowedparentinstitute.com/

- Ronit Plank bio and links: Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington’s Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY’s Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let’s Talk Memoir and the Substack Let’s Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/