25. Discovering the Story You Need to Tell featuring Lori L. Tharps

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

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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