64. Memoir in Present Tense and Reprocessing Our Lives Through Writing featuring Sherry Sidoti

Sherry Sidoti joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about memoir in present tense, reckoning with the complexities of transgenerational trauma, dysfunctional families, the effect writing memoir can have on our significant others, mother-daughter-sister relationships, self-care practices and engaging with our bodies while working on charged material, vulnerability hangovers, and her memoir A Smoke and a Song.

Also in this episode:

-broken backstories

-making material digestible

-reprocessing our lives through the act of writing

Books mentioned in this episode:

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T. Kira Madden

All of This by Rebecca Woolf

Clarity by DIana Estill

When She Comes Back by Ronit Plank

Sherry Sidoti is an author and the founder and lead director of FLY Yoga School, a yoga teacher training program, and FLY Outreach, a not-for-profit that offers yoga and meditation for trauma recovery on Martha’s Vineyard. A certified Labor Doula, Addiction Recovery Coach, and Somatic Attachment Therapy Program graduate, she leads spiritual courses, teacher training, and retreats globally. Her musings, infused by twenty years of practicing and teaching yoga, healing arts, and mysticism have been published by The Martha’s Vineyard Times, Heart & Soul Magazine, Elephant Journal, and Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly. Her essay “Mosaics” is featured in the 2022 She Writes Anthology: Art in Times of Unbearable Crisis. Sherry is most devoted to her greatest teacher, her son Miles, whose love, sensitivity, humor, and wisdom illuminate her path. A Smoke and a Song is Sherry’s first book. She currently resides on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Connect with Sherry:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sherry.sidoti/

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

Website: https://www.sherrysidoti.com

A Smoke and a Song: https://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Song-Memoir-Sherry-Sidoti/dp/1647425093/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1691880496&sr=8-1

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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

Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd

Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/

More about HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE, a short story collection: 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