206. Changing the Culture of Abuse and Family Dysfunction Through Memoir featuring Leslie Johansen Nack

Leslie Johansen Nack joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about growing up with parents who struggled with mental illness and substance abuse, surviving an inappropriate and domineering father, getting tools to heal, making ourselves safe, knowing as a child you will write your story, becoming sober, portraying difficult and abusive people as whole human beings, writing a memoir like a novel, when family members disavow our memoirs, excavating the divided self on the page, grappling with feeling exposed, telling the truth to help move the cultural needle, and her new memoir Nineteen: A Daughter’s Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery.

*Seattle area listeners, Leslie and Ronit will be in conversation at Third Place Books Ravenna on Tuesday, October 28th 2025 at 7:00. Reserve your spot here:

https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/leslie-johansen-nack

Also in this episode:

-overcoming past trauma

-writing a memoir sequel

-when siblings respond to our memoir differently

Book mentioned in this episode:

Liars Club by Mary Karr

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

American Daughter by Stephanie Thornton Plymale

How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

Unearthed: On Race and Roots, and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong by Claire Ratinon

Leslie Johansen Nack is the author of two award-winning books: her debut memoir, Fourteen, and her historical novel, The Blue Butterfly. Hersequel, Nineteen: A Daughter’s Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery, a Zibby most anticipated book for 2025, concludes her raw and deeply personal story, chronicling her path to sobriety and a renewed sense of hope. Nack graduated from UCLA with a degree in English literature and overcame past traumas to raise two children in a healthy, loving home. She is a member of NAMW, the Historical Novel Society, and the PNWA. She lives outside Seattle with her husband.

Connect with Leslie:

Website: www.lesliejohansennack.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesliejohansennack/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Leslie.johansen.nack/

YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqImTCBk_TIKCpA7NSWHbbQ

Get the book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/search/books/_/N-/Ntt-Leslie+Johansen+Nack

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Follow Ronit:

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

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers