119. Leaning into Honesty, the Darkly Funny, and the Jewish featuring Gila Pfeffer

119. Leaning into Honesty, the Darkly Funny, and the Jewish featuring Gila Pfeffer

Gila Pfeffer joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about outsmarting genetic destinies and her preventative double mastectomy, remembering what’s at stake in our work, tempering the serious with a satirical lens, honing humor in our work, smart book titles and SEO, advocating for our book cover, considering both the art value and marketing value in our memoirs, fostering a humor-writing community, writing about being Jewish, depicting ourselves honestly, and her new memoir Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer and Other Inconveniences.

Also in this episode:

-choosing how much to explain

-conveying rituals

-writing classes

Books mentioned in this episode:

-Genius and Anxiety by Norman Lebrecht

-Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

-Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

-Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

-Nobody Will Tell You This But Me by Best Kalb

-My Mess is a Bit of a Life by Georgia Pritchett

Gila Pfeffer is a Jewish American humor writer and personal essayist whose debut memoir, NEARLY DEPARTED: Adventures in Loss, Cancer and Other Inconveniences, is out now. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Today.com, and elsewhere. Gila’s monthly “Feel It on the First” campaign reminds women to prioritize their breast health. A mother of four grown children, she splits her time between New York City and London.

Connect with Gila:

Website: gilapfeffer.com

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

Threads: https://www.threads.net/@gilapfeffer?xmt=AQGzcrgWO3KjUCrvxqH6-VUVEQcOffv4SUmjnKPrnIvRoeI

X: https://x.com/gilapfeffer

Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gilapfeffer

Publisher site: https://theexperimentpublishing.com/catalogs/summer-2024/nearly-departed/

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, 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 lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches memoir workshops and is working on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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

Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Newsletter sign-up: https://ronitplank.com/#signup

Follow Ronit:

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

https://twitter.com/RonitPlank

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

Episoder(241)

23. The Acceptance of Imperfection featuring Kathy Curto

23. The Acceptance of Imperfection featuring Kathy Curto

Kathy Curto joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about accepting imperfection in our writing,  the effect of time and distance in our work, finding beauty even in the painful, what she’s learned...

3 Jan 202341min

22. Writing a Memoir About The Mother Who Betrayed You featuring Author Laura Davis

22. Writing a Memoir About The Mother Who Betrayed You featuring Author Laura Davis

Celebrated author and memoir teacher Laura Davis joins Let’sTalk Memoir for a special holiday episode for a conversation about writing her memoir The Burning Light of Two Stars: A Mother-Daughter Stor...

27 Des 20221h 25min

21. Inside Passage: The Waterfield Sisters on Their Fractured Childhood and the Redemptive Power of Memoir and Music featuring Keema Waterfield and Tekla Waterfield

21. Inside Passage: The Waterfield Sisters on Their Fractured Childhood and the Redemptive Power of Memoir and Music featuring Keema Waterfield and Tekla Waterfield

Keema and Tekla Waterfield join Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being raised by a young single mother in Southeast Alaska after their father left the family. With very little money but a pa...

20 Des 202252min

20. No Job for a Man featuring John Ross Bowie

20. No Job for a Man featuring John Ross Bowie

John Ross Bowie joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about working in Hollywood, mental health, the patterns we discover in our lives and write about, grappling with shame, coming to terms with ...

13 Des 202243min

19. Writing About Family Secrets featuring Isidra Mencos

19. Writing About Family Secrets featuring Isidra Mencos

Isidra Mencos joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about setting her coming-of-age memoir against the backdrop of Spain’s cultural upheaval after the death of Franco, balancing personal narrativ...

6 Des 202238min

18. Crafting a Braided Memoir featuring Jamie Gehring

18. Crafting a Braided Memoir featuring Jamie Gehring

Jamie Gehring joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her braided memoir Madman in the Woods which details her and her family’s experience living next to Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, how she inco...

29 Nov 202238min

17. The Role of the Reflective Narrator featuring Lily Dunn

17. The Role of the Reflective Narrator featuring Lily Dunn

Lily Dunn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the impact her father leaving to follow the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh had on her childhood, when she knew it was time to write her memoir S...

22 Nov 202233min

16. Voice First featuring Sonya Huber

16. Voice First featuring Sonya Huber

Sonya Huber joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about structure and time in memoir, the challenge of getting to the core of who we are and facing ourselves on the page, how her perspective on “...

15 Nov 202231min

Populært innen Fakta

fastlegen
dine-penger-pengeradet
mikkels-paskenotter
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
foreldreradet
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
treningspodden
jakt-og-fiskepodden
rss-bisarr-historie
rss-kull
rss-sunn-okonomi
takk-og-lov-med-anine-kierulf
sinnsyn
rss-kunsten-a-leve
hagespiren-podcast
gravid-uke-for-uke
fryktlos
hverdagspsyken
level-up-med-anniken-binz
rss-bak-luftfarten