126. Writing with a Sense of Exploration and Curiosity featuring Lilly Dancyger

Lilly Dancyger joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the challenges of existing in the world as a woman, approaching the writing process with a sense of exploration and curiosity, discovering what's really essential and what can we let go of, the nitty-gritty of writing an essay, getting clarity on our material, finding the container to write about what we need to write, articulating the connections we’re making, girlhood, going off the rails as a teenager, how grief and art can be inextricably linked, the tug to write about close relationships with women, living in community and caring for each other, and her book First Love: A Collection of Essays on Friendship.

Also in this episode:

-sad girls

-tending to friendships

-being open to not knowing where the story is going to go

Books mentioned in this episode:

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosio

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

The Heart and Other Monsters by Rose Anderson

Memorial Drive by Natasha Tretheway

Stay True by Hua Hsu

Girlhood by Melissa Febos

White Magic by Elissa Washuta

The Clean Life by CJ Hauser

Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones

Love is a Burning Thing by Nina St. Pierre

Lilly Dancyger is the author of First Love: Essays on Friendship (The Dial Press, 2024), and Negative Space (SFWP, 2021). She lives in New York City, and is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in nonfiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts. Her writing has been published by Guernica, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Longreads, Off Assignment, The Washington Post, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and more. She teaches creative nonfiction in MFA programs at Columbia University and Randolph College. Find her on Instagram at @lillydancyger and Substack at The Word Cave.

Connect with Lilly:

Website: https://www.lillydancyger.com/

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

X: https://twitter.com/lillydancyger

Substack: https://lillydancyger.substack.com/

Get her book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/714347/first-love-by-lilly-dancyger/

Learn more about her classes: https://www.lillydancyger.com/classes

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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