123. Balancing the Child and Adult Voice featuring Katya Cengel

123. Balancing the Child and Adult Voice featuring Katya Cengel

Katya Cengel joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the three months she spent as a child in a psychosomatic ward, her career in journalism, institutionalization and treating kids with mental illness, working with case files, using the journalist persona, growing up being scapegoated, balancing the child and adult voice, reliving painful events, turning the focus on ourselves, family response to memoir, and her memoir Straitjackets and Lunch Money.

Also in this episode:

-family dynamics

-taking care of our mental health when writing memoir

-preadolescent eating disorders

Books mentioned in this episode:

-It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

-Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

-Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan

-The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan

Katya Cengel is the author of four non-fiction books, including most recently Straitjackets and Lunch Money, which the San Francisco Chronicle called “incredibly affecting” and Kirkus Reviews called “harrowing but engrossing”. Cengel’s earlier titles cover everything from minor league baseball in Bluegrass Baseball to falling in love at Chernobyl in From Chernobyl with Love. She has received an Eric Hoffer Academic Press award, an Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY), and a Foreword INDIES.

As a journalist Cengel has written for New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine and Atavist Magazine among others. Her writing has taken her to Utah to search for Bigfoot (she didn’t find him) and to Mongolia to write about female street artists. Her stories have received a Society of Professional Journalists Green Eyeshade Award and a Society for Features Journalism Excellence-in-Features Award.

Connect with Katya:

Website: www.katyacengel.com

X (Twitter): https://x.com/kcengel

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

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katya.cengel/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katya-cengel-7b7b4214/

Get the book: https://www.woodhallpress.com/product-page/strait-jackets-and-lunch-money

https://bookshop.org/p/books/straitjackets-and-lunch-money-a-10-year-old-in-a-psychosomatic-ward-katya-cengal/19786290?ean=9781954907683

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1954907680/ref=x_gr_bb_amazon?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_bb_amazon-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1954907680&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2

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)

69. Complicated Family Legacies and Heaps of Material featuring Gretchen Cherington

69. Complicated Family Legacies and Heaps of Material featuring Gretchen Cherington

Gretchen Cherington joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about complicated family legacies and processing sexual abuse, confronting the public view of a loved one we’re writing about, protecting...

16 Jan 202451min

68. Building Bylines, Crafting Book Proposals, and Pursuing Editors featuring Dina Gachman

68. Building Bylines, Crafting Book Proposals, and Pursuing Editors featuring Dina Gachman

Dina Gachman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about ambiguous loss, taking risks on the page, writing about family, connecting with and pursuing editors, her approach to building bylines and...

9 Jan 202434min

67. The Stories Landscapes Hold and the Presence of Absence featuring Pamela Petro

67. The Stories Landscapes Hold and the Presence of Absence featuring Pamela Petro

Pamela Petro joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the stories landscapes hold, why she resisted memoir and how she ultimately put herself on the page despite trying hard not to, pushing ou...

2 Jan 202447min

Dear Let’s Talk Memoir listeners,

Dear Let’s Talk Memoir listeners,

Thank you for such a great year! Very grateful for your kind words, downloads, and reviews. You are cordially invited to share your feedback.  Help shape upcoming Let’s Talk Memoir content - a brief s...

27 Des 20233min

66. Embracing our Writing Seasons featuring Victoria Buitron

66. Embracing our Writing Seasons featuring Victoria Buitron

Victoria Buitron joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the power of flash and lyric creative nonfiction, when chronology doesn’t work, accountability partners and writing mentors, the traum...

26 Des 202338min

65. Authenticity, Recovery, and Advocating for Survivors in Memoir featuring Maya Golden

65. Authenticity, Recovery, and Advocating for Survivors in Memoir featuring Maya Golden

Maya Golden joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about extensive complex childhood trauma and the repercussions of sexual abuse, recovering from addiction, approaching memoir writing with authen...

19 Des 202336min

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

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 ...

12 Des 202354min

63. Writing That Gets Noticed featuring Estelle Erasmus

63. Writing That Gets Noticed featuring Estelle Erasmus

Estelle Erasmus brings her 30 years of experience to Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about what it takes to break through submission slushpiles, the key to exemplary essays, honing our writer’s v...

7 Des 202335min

Populært innen Fakta

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