52. Approaching Traumatic Material with Complexity and Compassion featuring Brittany Means

Season 5 is coming to an end but season 6 is almost here, along with some more memoir resources and links.     Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Follow Ronit: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com/   Let’s Talk Memoir is a podcast for memoir lovers, readers and writers, featuring interviews with memoirists about their writing process, their challenges, and what they’ve learned about sharing the most personal of narratives. Hosted by writer, editor, and memoirist Ronit Plank, each episode of this limited series highlights different aspects of the memoir writing experience, writing tips, and inspiration. 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 lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches and edits memoir and is working on her next book. Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers

5 Dec 20245min

David Tereshchuk joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being drawn to journalism to help him cure the matter of unanswered questions in his own life, his early years living in the rural borderlands of Scotland, how he turned to alcohol at a very early age, going from from tea and copy boy to anchorman of a nightly news program, becoming sober in his forties, his pursuit of ironclad truth, the place uncertainty holds in our lives, and his resolution to be open-hearted and honest about his life when writing his new memoir A Question of Paternity. Also in this episode: -the place uncertainty holds in our lives -his work in media -the paradox in his life and work   Books: The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt Born a Crime by Trevor Noah   DAVID TERESHCHUK is a journalist working mainly in broadcast media but also for magazines and newspapers (New York Times, The Guardian, New Statesman). He spent two decades with British commercial television, reporting, producing, and making documentaries, before moving to the US, where he worked for ABC, CBS, CNN, Discovery, A&E and The History Channel. His earliest work included coverage of the guerrilla war in Northern Ireland, and then extended into international issues, especially in the Third World. Since 2012 he has been a producer and correspondent for PBS, concentrating on ethical issues. He broadcasts a weekly public radio dispatch of media criticism, The Media Beat, and writes an online column by the same name. A graduate of Oxford University, he has been a US citizen since 2002 and lives in New York City and Ireland. His memoir, A Question of Paternity: My Life as an Unaffiliated Reporter, was published by Envelope Books on September 19th.   Connect with David: Website: https://www.themediabeat.us/david-tereshchuk/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidtereshchuk X: https://x.com/dtereshchuk Facebook: facebook.com/david.tereshchuk Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Question-Paternity-Life-Unaffiliated-Reporter/dp/1915023157   – 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 lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches and edits memoir and is working 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://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

5 Dec 202435min

Rachel Zimmerman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about rebuilding her family’s life after her husband’s death by suicide, the physical toll of grief, feeling like a doomed family, finding joy and pleasure after terrible loss, how her career in journalism informed her writing process, not tying things up in a bow, our children getting veto power about what we include in our books, when family remembers differently, getting the wise narrator present on the page to transform our experience into a story, and her memoir, Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide.    Also in this episode:  -how her memoir’s title changed -taking writing classes -feeling like a loss freak   Books mentioned in this episode:  The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander  The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion Blue Nights by Joan Didion The Long Goodbye by Megan O’Rourke Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward   Rachel Zimmerman is the author of Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide. An award-winning journalist, Zimmerman has written about health and medicine for more than two decades. She currently contributes stories on mental health to The Washington Post and previously worked as a staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and a health reporter for WBUR, Boston’s public radio station. Her essays and reporting have been published in The New York Times; Vogue; The Cut; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Atlantic; Slate; The Huffington Post; and Brevity, among others.    Zimmerman is co-author of The Healing Power of Storytelling; and The Doula Guide to Birth. She’s been awarded residencies at Millay Arts and the Turkeyland Cove Foundation and currently lives with her family in Cambridge, Mass. Connect with Rachel: Website: https://www.rachelzimmerman.net/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachel.zimmerman13 FB: https://www.facebook.com/rachel.zimmerman.77 X: https://x.com/@zimmerman082 Get her book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1951631358/ref=sr_1_1?crid=X9DA82X3A2SP&keywords=us+after%3A+a+memoir+of+love+and+suicide&qid=1697209495&s=books&sprefix=us+after+a+memoir+of+love+and+suicide%2Cstripbooks%2C166&sr=1-1   – 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 lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches and edits memoir and is working 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://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

3 Dec 202447min

Sarah LaBrie joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the year her mom was diagnosed with schizophrenia and the legacy of mental illness in her family, rethinking ambitions in light of tragedy and grief, releasing emotional pressure with writing, when fiction doesn’t cut it, finding company for our mental illness stories, knowing why you want to write a memoir, learning to stop punishing ourselves, being a workaholic, processing our stories through writing, and her new memoir No One Gets to Fall Apart.   Also in this episode: -contemplating our parents’ backstory -reading as much as you can -ketamine therapy   Books mentioned in this episode: Beautiful Days by Zack Williams Heartberries by Terese Marie Mailhot The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway Braiding Sweetgrass and all books by Robin Wall Kimmerer   Sarah LaBrie is from Houston, TX and is the author of the memoir No One Gets to Fall Apart (HarperCollins, October 2024). She is a TV writer, memoirist, and librettist. Sarah was most recently a producer on the HBO and Starz television show, Minx. She has also written on Blindspotting (Starz), Made for Love (MAX), and Love, Victor (Hulu/Disney). Her libretti have been performed at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Her fiction also appears in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, Guernica, The Literary Review, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She has held residencies at Yaddo, UCross and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She holds an MFA from New York University, where she was a Writers in the Schools Fellow. Connect with Sarah: Website: https://www.sarahlabrielivesinlosangeles.com/ Get her book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/no-one-gets-to-fall-apart-sarah-labrie?variant=41476933419042 IG: @itsmesarahlabrie twitter: @sarah_labrie tiktok: sarahlabrie62 – 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

26 Nov 202429min

Steve Hoffman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about not getting sidetracked from the story you want to tell, the difference between accuracy and truth, coming to terms with who you are, how screenwriting classes improved his memoir, leaning into weaknesses and what we haven’t done well, writing sensorily about food and wine, learning how to tell a story, beyond beautiful prose, vulnerability and the process of changing, expanding our linguistic palates, immersing the reader vs. drowning them in description, embracing what is weird and singular about your life and sharing that on the page, new ways of seeing the same thing, mid-life self-acceptance, and his memoir A Season for That: Lost and Found in the  Other Southern France.   Also in this episode: -accepting our flaws and frailties -keeping forward propulsion in mind -deep reading   Books mentioned in this episode: My Father’s Glory by Marcel Pagnol Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse The Shipping News by Annie Proulx The Dead and the Living by Sharon Olds   Steve Hoffman is a Minnesota tax preparer and food writer. His writing has won multiple national awards, including the 2019 James Beard M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award. He has been published in Food & Wine, The Washington Post, and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, among others. He shares one acre on Turtle Lake, in Shoreview, Minnesota, with his wife, Mary Jo, their elderly and entitled puggle, and roughly 80,000 honeybees. Connect with Steve: Website: https://www.sjrhoffman.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sjrhoffman/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sjrhoffmanwriter/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-hoffman-6761112/ Book Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/Season-That-Found-Southern-France/dp/0593240286 Press Kit with copy of book: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ziwgi8owbwaoxnvb7wctk/AJS8Fwk5NKHILGum6nnQ4t0?rlkey=xdhrgfmzqd4smh4ct3kxpen2l&st=0nmf301u&dl=0 Photos from our time in France: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ztxem7efsu10eggtxltv7/AAkjbYta2Svt7tSC7C_np24?rlkey=oglczi4nys1qi1ufb86j4szu4&st=srofkk02&dl=0 – 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

19 Nov 202438min

Seth Lorinczi joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about going from a state of deep hiding to deep sharing, untangling the scars of the Holocaust and world wars through psychedelics, how ancestral trauma can warp relationships with the people we love, when your spouse is a character in your book, writing the truth and the fear of family betrayal, peeling back everything in his life and putting vulnerability into action, and his memoir Death Trip: A Post-Holocaust Psychedelic Memoir.   Also in this episode: -attunement -putting stories in context -protecting people who don’t want to be in our memoirs   Books mentioned in this episode: Scattered Ghosts Nick Farley Barley Fatherland by Burkhard Bilger Young Heroes of the Soviet Union by Alex Halberstadt   Seth Lorinczi’s writing appears in The Guardian, DoubleBlind, Narratively, Portland Monthly and other print anthologies and periodicals. "Death Trip: A Post-Holocaust Psychedelic Memoir" is his first book. In addition, he was a co-founder of “Judaism & The Psychedelic Renaissance,” a first-of-its-kind live event in Portland. Connect with Seth: Website: https://www.sethlorinczi.com/ www.spiralpathcollective.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sethlorinczi/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seth.lorinczi/ Link to Ronit’s Writer’s Digest article mentioned in this episode: https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-nonfiction/how-to-approach-friends-and-family-about-your-memoir   – 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

14 Nov 202445min

Naomi Cohn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about becoming legally blind in mid-life and how that changed her writing process, going from poetry to lyric essay, falling in love with Braille, being sure something is done and also realizing there’s more, reading our work aloud, privacy and what’s ours to tell, the perceptual richness of having altered sight, tapping into our senses, Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, nonlinear logic, writing in small chunks, being curious, trusted readers, and her new book The Braille Encyclopedia. Also in this episode: -prose poems  -tapping into the nonlinear -ableism   Books mentioned in this episode: What It Is by Lynda Barry Pain Woman Takes Your Keys by Sonya Huber Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado The Periodic Table by Primo Levi   Naomi Cohn, author of the debut memoir THE BRAILLE ENCYCLOPEDIA, is a writer and teaching artist who works with older adults and people living with disabilities. Her past includes a childhood among Chicago academics; art-making: editing Disclosure, a national publication on community organizing; involvement in a guerrilla feminist art collective; and work as an encyclopedia copy editor, community organizer, fundraiser, nonprofit consultant, and therapist. Red Dragonfly Press published her chapbook, Between Nectar & Eternity, in 2013. Her poetry and essays have also appeared in Baltimore Review, Hippocampus, Nimrod, Poetry and, Terrain, among other places. She makes her home in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Connect with Naomi: https://naomi-cohn.com/ Order Naomi’s Book: https://rosemetalpress.com/books/the-braille-encyclopedia/ Attend Naomi’s Reading Events: https://rosemetalpress.com/readings-events/ – 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

12 Nov 202452min

Anne Pinkerton joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about processing the loss of her older brother David, how brothers and sisters get short shrift when it comes to grief in our culture, her Writing Through Loss workshops, disenfranchised grief, when family members are private people, owning our story, taking breaks, giving ourselves grace, and learning how to take care of ourselves when writing about grief, treating our characters with love and care, when family doesn’t read our memoirs, feeling protective of our own experience, and her memoir Were You Close? A Sister's Quest to Know the Brother She Lost.   Also in this episode: -bereavement writing group -how grief messes with our executive function -providing consolation for other grieving siblings   Books mentioned in this episode: The Empty Room by Elizabeth Davida Rayburn Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion Wild by Cheryl Strayed  Into Thin Air by John Krakauer History of a Suicide by Jill Invisible Sisters Jessica Handler 100 Tricks Any Boy Can Do by Kim Stafford   Anne Pinkerton is the author of Were You Close? a sister's quest to know the brother she lost (Vine Leaves Press, 2023). Her essays and poems have appeared in the Boston Globe, Hippocampus Magazine, Modern Loss, “Beautiful Things” at River Teeth Journal, and Sunlight Press, among other publications, as well as the anthologies The Pandemic Midlife Crisis: Gen X Women on the Brink and Nothing Divine Dies: A Poetry Anthology About Nature. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Bay Path University and pays the bills as a marketing communications professional.  Connect with Anne: Website: https://annepinkertonwriter.com/ Were You Close? https://annepinkertonwriter.com/the-book/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AnnePinkertonWriter Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/annepinkertonwriter TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@annepinkertonwriter   – 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

7 Nov 202447min