Memoir Nation

Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner

Memoir Nation: Weekly Inspiration for Writers is an extension of the Memoir Nation community hosted by Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner, two friends and colleagues who bring a community-minded sensibility to the writing journey. Originally launched as Write-minded in 2018, this is a weekly writing podcast that focuses on memoir and personal writing, as well as industry trends and tips and resources for writers and authors.

Memoir Nation features a segment called Book Alley at the end of each episode to talk about recent memoirs that authors have sent Brooke and Grant, or memoirs they've discovered that are thought provoking or have sparked inspiration. Brooke and Grant bring to this weekly podcast their deeply held belief that everyone is a writer, and everyone’s story matters. Discover more about Memoir Nation at memoirnation.com.

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Yesterday · 48 min
Murray Hill on Purpose as a Lifeline
Given our deep love of the show “Somebody, Somewhere,” Memoir Nation is thrilled to have Murray Hill as a guest on the show. We’re celebrating his new memoir, Showbiz! My Life as a Middle-Aged Man, where he shares how reading the stories of people like Tina Turner and Viola Davis inspired him to tell his own. Murray talks about the value of chosen family, how he chose to write about abuse in his memoir, while also keeping the story upbeat and inspiring. He shares openly about the challenges of writing the book, which took him five years. This is a delightful and candid episode by someone who’s shown how purpose can be a lifeline. Murray Hill, the self-proclaimed hardest-working middle-aged man in show business, is a one-man entertainment machine: comedian, host, actor, writer, producer, and walking time capsule of classic showbiz charm. Murray has spent decades turning every stage he steps on into his own personal variety show—and we expect the same today. Television audiences know him as the lovable Fred Rococo on HBO’s Somebody Somewhere, which won a bunch of awards, but the main one is that it’s one of my favorite shows all-time. Murray’s talents extend beyond performance. He’s served as a guest correspondent for ABC News and Hulu’s Pride Across America, reporting live from the nation’s biggest Pride celebrations. NBC News named him one of the “30 Most Iconic and Influential Drag Performers in Modern History.” And his memoir, Showbiz! My Life as a Middle-Aged Man just came out. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
September 28 · 45 min
Ebony Walden on the Travel Memoir
This week we’re honoring the power of the travel memoir, which is a popular subgenre of memoir—and a place where exploration meets self-discovery. The act of travel in fact has much in common with writing memoir, as both pursuits push you outside your comfort zone, and both invite self-interrogation. Not to mention, memoir-writing itself is a form of travel—to your past, into the recesses of personal experience, and into memory. So even if you’re not a travel writer, there’s much to be learned from an episode about the travel memoir. For Memoir Milestones this week, we’re celebrating Lisa Cheek, who has a brand new “mostly true” memoir out called THE BIG DAY: Saying "I Do" Only to Discover I Didn't. Listen in to find out why you should buy this book! Ebony Walden is an author, filmmaker, and speaker who has traveled to nearly fifty countries and all fifty US states. She is the founder of Ebony Walden Consulting, a racial equity–focused consulting firm, and the creator of Black Beyond Borders, a documentary series and podcast exploring culture, creativity, connection, and cuisine across the African diaspora. In 2025, she won the LA Independent Women Film Award for Best Web Series-Pilot. The series is also an official selection of the Virginia Black Film Festival and has several planned festival screenings in 2026. Ebony also writes Beyond Borders, a weekly Substack newsletter on travel and transformation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
September 21 · 45 min
Jessy Easton on Writing the Hard Thing
This week’s show explores writing the hard thing—and how releasing the hard thing into the world frees us from the burden of carrying secrets and being anything less than our whole selves in the world. Guest Jessy Easton is a beautiful writer with a strong Substack following for her work in somatic writing and her serialization of her memoir, The One Who Leaves. We’re excited to share with listeners Jessy’s beautiful insights about how her writing saved her, and some of what she’s learned—and what she teaches—through writing the hard thing. We also invite you to check out Grant’s guest post, “A Killing of Oneself. A Tendency.” on Jessy’s Substack, and to celebrate this week’s Memoir Milestone, Living with Strangers, by Robin Rosenbluth. Jessy Easton is a writer, memoirist, and somatic writing facilitator. She is the author of the serialized memoir The One Who Leaves, a Substack bestseller. Her Substack, AFTER/WORDS, is a space where readers engage with difficult stories through essays, live sessions, and somatic writing prompts focused on memory, lived experience, and the body. Her work has been published in The Rumpus, Good River Review, Beacon Quarterly, Rappahannock Review, and elsewhere, and her essay “The Things We Leave Out” was nominated for the Pushcart Prize Born in the Mojave Desert of California, Jessy now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains with her partner, their son, and their two black dogs. She is currently working on her next book. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
September 14 · 44 min
Terria Smith on How Our Adventures Shape Us
There’s so much self-understanding to be gleaned from how we move in the world. This week Brooke and Grant explore adventure and migration and living abroad, springing from the stories of guest Terria Smith, whose memoir, Love You So Many, explores all of these themes and more. What sometimes looks like a jagged arc of a life can in fact be destiny—and Terria’s journey-memoir drives that point home. In her book, she’s reclaiming her people’s migratory roots, striking out into the world on her own terms, and coming to terms with the choices she’s made in ways that are heartfelt and honest and true. For all these reasons, her book and this episode are a blueprint for memoir—and we hope you enjoy. And on Memoir Milestones this week, we’re celebrating Lisa Ramelow and her memoir, Misadventures in My High Heels: Walking Through Life's Ups, Downs, and Silver Linings. Terria Smith is a tribal member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and is a proud original Californian. She is the editor of News from Native California magazine and director of the Berkeley Roadhouse, Heyday’s California Indian publishing program. She’s also the editor of the 2023 anthology Know We Are Here: Voices of Native California Resistance. She received her undergraduate degree at Cal Poly Humboldt and her masters degree at UC Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
September 7 · 40 min
Captain Nia Gilliam on Monoculture Moments in Memoir
We’re taking the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11 to explore monoculture moments in memoir. These are collective events that we’ve all gone through together, where you know exactly where you were when an event happened. Captain Nia Gilliam had one of the most rarified views of 9/11 imaginable, from the cockpit of the last plane cleared for takeoff at Newark Airport on 9/11. Her story is about that day, what she saw and how it threatened to ground her forever, after a lifelong dream—and fight against the odds—to become a commercial airline pilot. In honor of those we lost and of that day, we’re honored to be speaking with Captain Gilliam and hearing from her about getting this book done, the particular trauma of that day, and her advocacy on behalf of Black female pilots. Quite a story and quite a life! We’re hosting a live event at Vintage Wine on September 18, 5-7pm. Get your tickets here. And check out Embassy Kid, by J. K. Amerson López, who we’re celebrating this week on Memoir Milestones. Captain Nia Gilliam is one of the few Black female airline pilots in the United States, flying as an Airbus Captain for a major US airline with type ratings across multiple Boeing and Airbus fleets. She witnessed the September 11 attacks from the flight deck at Newark Airport—an experience at the heart of her debut memoir, Cleared for Takeoff. In 2016, she co-founded Sisters of the Skies, a nonprofit working to increase the number of Black female pilots, which received the Henderson Trophy in 2023 and coverage from Good Morning America and Bloomberg. Her honors include the Egretha Award and the United Airlines BEACON Excellence Award, and she was featured on PBS American Masters: The Women's List alongside Shonda Rhimes and Madeleine Albright. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
August 31 · 45 min
Reyna Grande on Finding Beauty in Your Prison
We are back from our summer break with the first guest of our ninth season, Reyna Grande, in conversation about her new book, Migrant Heart. In this book, Reyna examines the ways in which she’s gravitated toward the memories that most hurt. There’s a real tension between excavating sadness and joy in our work, and discovering how both might show up on the page. Reyna’s honest look at questions of fixation, wrapping identity around trauma, and poking at the wound is an invitation to any writer—or person—to invite in more happiness and gratitude. This is not an interview that leans into unrealistic notions of happiness, but rather a deep exploration about the benefits of breaking ourselves free from our constant preoccupations. Also, there are a couple things we want to share with readers. One, come visit us in Berkeley at Vintage Wine on September 18, 5-7pm. Get your tickets here. And check out Go On and Have a Whore Phase, by Yasmin Olo, the first author we’re celebrating for our new feature, Memoir Milestones. Reyna Grande is an award-winning author whose work powerfully illuminates the complexities of immigration, family separation, and the pursuit of the American Dream. Born in Mexico, Reyna embarked on a perilous journey to the U.S. at age nine to reunite with her parents—a defining experience that fuels her writing. Breaking generational barriers, she became the first in her family to graduate from college, earning a BA from UC Santa Cruz and an MFA from Antioch University. Her diverse body of work includes her celebrated memoirs, The Distance Between Us and A Dream Called Home, and her newest book is the memoir-in-essays, Migrant Heart: Essays About Things I Can’t Forget. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
August 24 · 1 hr 1 min
Andre Dubus III and Marya Hornbacher on The Cost of Telling the Truth
This is the last of our summer Best-Of episodes, this one featuring clips from our interviews with Andre Dubus III and Marya Hornbacher. Yes, these two authors are legacy memoirists, both of whom have written New York Times bestsellers. But also, both know something of the cost of telling the truth. Andre speaks to the cost to his relationships, while Marya speaks to the cost to her reputation. Both know what it is to be scrutinized, but also to stand proud in their raw and honest truths. These are two passionate interviews that we both loved and learned from this year. Andre Dubus III has authored nine books including the New York Times’ bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. Dubus has been a finalist for the National Book Award, and has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a recipient of an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. He teaches at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Marya Hornbacher is an award-winning journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and the recipient of a host of awards for her work, which include Wasted, Madness, Sane, and Waiting, and the novel: The Center of Winter. Marya has spent a prolific quarter century writing and teaching and writes a popular Substack called Going Solo at the End of the World. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
August 17 · 44 min
Roxane Gay and Myriam Gurba on Refusing to Be Nice
These two former guests are partnered for their clear-eyed take on the world and their unwillingness to back down. Roxane Gay and Myriam Gurba are as loved as they are rebuked for their honesty and their critical takes‚ and for writing things that others might not dare. This week we’re celebrating bravery on the page, and heroines like Roxane and Myriam who say the things that need to be said. And we explore the kind of writing they do and why there’s not really room for niceness when you’re calling out, drawing attention to, or pushing back. An inspiring episode for writers looking to harness and use their voices to speak truth to power and effect change. Roxane Gay’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, and more. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, The New York Times-bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women, and The New York Times-bestselling Hunger. She also writes the Substack newsletter, The Audacity. Myriam Gurba is the author of four books: Dahlia Season, Painting Their Portraits in Winter; Mean, and Creep. Myriam’s writing has been widely anthologized and has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Believer, Paris Review, and elsewhere. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
August 10 · 58 min
Jose Antonio Vargas and Beth Macy on Memoir That Changes Culture
During the month of August, Memoir Nation revisits its favorite guests of the past year. This week we’re pairing up powerhouse authors Jose Antonio Vargas and Beth Macy, whose memoirs touch on social-cultural issues that force conversation—and effect change. These two episodes circle questions of immigration and who gets to claim belonging in this country (Vargas) and poverty and who can get ahead and how in this country (Macy)—and why memoir is a powerful vehicle for spreading messages that desperately need our attention. If you love these authors, be sure to check out their full episodes, and we’ll see you next week for another Best of Memoir Nation. Happy Summer! Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and Tony-nominated theatrical producer. He’s the founder of the nonprofit immigrant storytelling organization Define American, and his best-selling memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published in 2018, with an updated edition in 2025. His next book, White Is Not a Country, will examine America's foundational Black and White racial binary, and where everyone else fits within and outside that binary. Beth Macy reported and wrote for The Roanoke Times for a quarter-century and is the author of Dopesick, Raising Lazarus, Factory Man, and Paper Girl, her first memoir. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
August 3 · 43 min
Kwame Alexander and E. Jean Carroll on the Power of Staying the Course
Happy August, Memoir Nation! As is our custom, we bring you our favorite guests of the past year, partnered by theme. This week we chose Kwame Alexander and E. Jean Carroll, both of whom have seen major personal victories in the months since we originally interviewed them. Kwame Alexander launched his own imprint, Kwame Alexander Books, and E. Jean Carroll finally got her settlement money from Trump. These two guests are exemplary of how to face the hard stuff and keep going—all the way to the top. As we say in the show opening, it’s as if they’re interviews are in conversation with one another—and neither one fails to inspire. We’re wishing you good summer writing and good summer reading, and we hope you enjoy our Year 8 “best-of” series. Kwame Alexander is an Emmy® Award-winning producer of The Crossover, his Newbery Medal-winning novel turned Disney+ TV series, the creator of the new animated PBS special Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Band, and the new head of Kwame Alexander Books, an imprint of Sourcebooks. His mission is to change the world—one word at a time. E. Jean Carroll is a journalist and longtime advice columnist best known for her column “Ask E. Jean” in Elle, which ran for over 25 years. She is the author of Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President, about the two sexual abuse cases she won against Trump, twice, and for which she has subsequently received a $5.6 millon payout. Her high-profile legal victories against Donald Trump have elevated her as a symbol of resilience and truth-telling. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
July 27 · 52 min
Roz Hernandez on the Freedom and Success of Not Being for Everyone
These week comedian Roz Hernandez opens up her heart and her story to us—and shares about the acceptance that comes when you stop trying to be “for everyone.” As a transgender comic, Roz talks about the experience of being hated just for existing, and why she decided to take her comedy show on tour to LGBTQ+ bars around the country—and experience that would later become the foundation for her memoir, Peeing in an Empty Bottle. This is our final episode of our eighth year of podcasting, and we love that it ends on a story of transformation, acceptance, and how we all have the choice to settle into the best version our ourselves we can be—even when that means we’ll have our detractors and critics. Freedom and success often go hand-in-hand, and Roz embodies a version of what that looks like in this week’s show. Roz Hernandez is a transgender comedian based in Los Angeles. In 2023 she starred in an 8 episode tv series on Hulu called “Living for the Dead” with Kristen Stewart. In 2024 New York Magazine’s Vulture named her one of the “Comedians You Should and Will Know”; she was the opening act for Bob the Drag Queen’s US tour; Apple Podcasts named her comedy podcast “Ghosted! by Roz Hernandez” their Pick of The Month; and she was featured in the Netflix documentary about LGBTQ standup called “OUTstanding: A Comedy Revolution.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
July 20 · 1 hr
Emily Rapp Black on Writing the Hardest Things
Memoir Nation explores the hardest things this week with guest Emily Rapp Black. Her new book is I Would Die If I Were You, part memoir, part how-to, that supports writers through writing trauma and the things that won’t let us go, and how to stay the course. In this week’s show, we talk a lot about process—doing the work, the permission to write what is calling to be written, and how to shake things up when you’re struggling. We talk about being in the mess, not worrying about your book being right for everyone, and how to grapple with the things other people say—like I would die if I were you. There is so much wisdom and grace in this interview, and in Rapp Black’s new book. In this week’s trend, we cover Sarah Wynn-Williams’s memoir, Careless People, in an effort to continue the upward sales trajectory of this book that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are desperate to silence. Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Editor’s Pick, and a finalist for the PEN-USA Award; Sanctuary, a New York Times Editor’s Pick; Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg; and most recently, I Would Die If I Were You: Notes on Art and Truthtelling. A former Fulbright scholar, she was educated at Harvard, Trinity College-Dublin, Saint Olaf College, and the University of Texas-Austin. Her work has appeared in VOGUE, the New York Times, The Sun, TIME, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and other publications. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California-Riverside. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
July 13 · 48 min
Siri Hustvedt on Grief as Unrequited Love
This week’s show is a meditation on grief and the ways it weaves itself into our writing. Guest Siri Hustvedt says so many profound things about the writing process, about writing after loss, and about how to make sense of a life in the absence of a person who’s been part of your everyday for more than four decades. Hustvedt was married to the acclaimed novelist Paul Auster for 43 years, and her new book, Ghost Stories, is a book about loss, and a book that works to keep Auster alive on the page through his own words. The book has been widely compared to Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, and for Memoir Nation provides a beautiful portal into the many permutations of loss. Siri Hustvedt is the author of a book of poetry, four collections of essays, two works of nonfiction, and seven novels, including the international bestsellers What I Loved and The Summer Without Men. Her most recent novel The Blazing World was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and won The Los Angeles Book Prize for fiction. In 2012 she was awarded the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities and in 2019 princess asturias prize. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University and is a lecturer in psychiatry at Weil Cornell Medical College in New York. Her most recent book is Ghost Stories: A Memoir. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
July 6 · 46 min
Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman on the Importance of Indie Media (and Celebrating the Relaunch of “The Rumpus”)
This week we’re taking a bit of a departure from all things memoir to celebrate independent media with Roxane Gay and Debbie Millman, who bought “The Rumpus” in 2025. We’re supporting their relaunch in this interview, and talking about the indie media landscape, some of their new initiatives, when they knew they were buying the magazine, and also the all-important role their dog Max plays in the new endeavor. We invite you to please support indie media in all the ways you can. Sign up to become a Rumpus member, and as Brooke and Grant suggest in their opening banter, small gestures go a long ways—like “Buy Me a Coffee” where you can tip Memoir Nation for the suggested amount of $5 if you like this or future shows. And thank you! Founded in 2009, “The Rumpus” is an influential independent online literary magazine dedicated to fostering community and championing diverse perspectives. For over 15 years, the publication has served as a premier platform for emerging and established voices, publishing original fiction, poetry, essays, interviews, comics, and cultural criticism that challenge, provoke, and inspire. Work published in “The Rumpus” has consistently earned the literary world’s highest honors, including Pushcart Prizes, PEN America awards, Best American anthology selections, and Best of the Net recognitions. This week’s guests are the new owners of “The Rumpus,” partners in life and in this collaboration—literary goddess Roxane Gay and brand strategist and visionary Debbie Millman. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
June 29 · 50 min
Rosebud Baker on Tragedy + Time = Memoir
So much of what’s funny stems from what’s terrible and tragic, and the funniest people are also often the darkest ones. This week we explore that truth with comedian Rosebud Baker, who talks with Grant Faulkner about her alcoholism, what happens to women when they become moms, and also her anger—and how she turns that into humor. This is a permission-giving show, as so many Memoir Nation episodes are. We invite anger and tragedy and hardship here, and also always the acknowledgment that writing memoir is hard work. On the trend we talk about the linear memoir and remind listeners that the elevation of one form doesn’t mean the collapse of another. It’s all there for our use, and your memoir knows what it wants to be! Rosebud Baker is a comedian, actor, and Emmy-nominated writer named to Variety's "10 Comics to Watch" and Vulture's “Comedians You Should and Will Know” lists. She wrote for Saturday Night Live from 2022 to 2025 and won a WGA Award for her work on Inside Amy Schumer. Her Netflix special The Mother Lode premiered in February 2025. Fully Baked is her debut memoir. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
June 22 · 39 min
Beronda Montgomery on Memoir as Testimony
This week’s show is a nuanced exploration of the various and creative ways memoir can be an exploration of identity, culture, and history, and how in unearthing our own stories, we can discover so much about the world around us. Guest Beronda Montgomery has written a thoughtful and “thinking” memoir that has us ruminating on trees, legacy, ancestors, and who gets and is denied credit in our society. We learned so much from reading this book, and gained so much from being in conversation with Beronda. In the book trend this week, we talk about shorter books—the financial and attentional reason shorter might be better. Beronda L. Montgomery, PhD, is a writer, researcher, and scholar who pursues a common theme of understanding how individuals perceive, respond to, and are impacted by the environments in which they exist. Her primary laboratory-based research has been focused on the responses of photosynthetic organisms, like plants, react to external light cues. Beronda is author of two books When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy and Lessons From Plants. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
June 15 · 59 min
Ronit Plank on Memoir Advocacy
This week’s episode will be a fast favorite because guest Ronit Plank is speaking the language of a memoir advocate. We get right to the heart of so many things that make memoir special and important. Ronit speaks about coming to memoir kicking and screaming, and how it opened her up, and how memoir makes us all more empathetic. A true memoir advocate, with her own popular memoir podcast, Let’s Talk Memoir, Ronit is a kindred spirit in this space. She’s also a new contributor to the Memoir Nation Community with her quarterly group, Mining the Depths, and she’s delightful to listen to. Let’s talk memoir, let’s talk advocacy—here on this week’s Memoir Nation. Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Her memoir, When She Comes Back, was named a Book Riot Best True Crime Book, and won a 2022 Book Excellence Award and other indie awards. Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place and her work has been widely anthologized. She teaches memoir for the University of Washington’s Continuum Program, and she’s host of the podcast Let’s Talk Memoir and writes the Substack Let’s Talk Memoir. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
June 8 · 45 min
Eleni Sikelianos on How Subject Shapes Story
Form, form, form. We can’t stop circling it on Memoir Nation because everyone has a different approach to it. Mostly we’re taught that once you know your form, you can pour your content into it. And yet, we keep hearing from authors whose process is the exact opposite—which is that form follows content. Today we talk with Eleni Sikelianos about the ways in which she followed her subject matter to find the form of her story, in addition to memoir as series, what it means to embody the life of an ancestor you never knew in your writing, and the role of photographs as narrative rather than decorative elements. A fascinating exploration! Born into a family of tree workers, bohemians, poets, ne'er-do-wells, visionaries, and small-time sort-of hustlers, Eleni Sikelianos is a poet, writer, collaborator, and "master of mixing genres." As a student of the poets of Naropa, she is a lineage-holder in the Outrider poetics family tree. Deeply engaged with ecopoetics, her work takes up urgent concerns of environmental precarity and ancestral work. She has published ten books of poetry (most recently, Your Kingdom, 2023) and three unclassifiable hybrid works, sometimes called nonfiction, sometimes memoirs, sometimes fiction: The Book of Jon and You Animal Machine, and Memory Rehearsal. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
June 1 · 44 min
Beth Ann Fennelly on The Micro Memoir
If you’re a regular listener of Memoir Nation, you know we love to cover memoir in all its changing and emerging forms. The micro memoir is a form all its own—different from the fragmented style that’s been so popular of late. In this week’s show, we’re going micro, exploring how writers can boil the essence of what needs to be said into the fewest number of words. We’ll talk about the form, its benefits for all writers, and how memoir keeps pushing the boundaries with our guest, Beth Ann Fennelly. And in this week’s book trend, we cover how Substack is changing the way we think about book tours. Beth Ann Fennelly was Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2016-2021 and teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi where she is a four-time teaching award winner. She has published three poetry books: Open House, Tender Hooks, and Unmentionables. She’s also published a book of nonfiction, Great with Child, and a novel she co-authored with her husband, Tom Franklin, called The Tilted World. Her sixth book, Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs, was named an Atlanta Journal Constitution Best Book, a Goodreaders Favorite for 2017, and the winner of the Housatonic Book Prize. Her new book is The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
May 25 · 49 min
Brandon Deyette on Writing in Another Voice
This week on Memoir Nation we take a specific guest with a specific skillset/talent and look at ways to apply what he does to our broader writing community. Guest Brandon Deyette shares with us how he channels story by being hyper-attuned to his emotions, and Brooke and Grant speculate that this kind of attention is an emotional practice that any memoirist can cultivate. When you write memoir, you’re always embodying another voice—that voice of your earlier self, who in some cases is a near stranger to the person you are today. An interesting subject matter with a fun and eccentric guest. Enjoy! Brandon Deyette is a writer, co-author, and award-winning filmmaker whose work centers on translating lived experience into deeply resonant narrative. He is the co-author of Young Is Blessed, a memoir written alongside Young Bae— tattoo artist, entrepreneur, and star of VH1's Black Ink Crew—chronicling her journey from an abusive childhood in South Korea to becoming a celebrated entrepreneur and television personality. As a filmmaker, his projects have earned recognition at festivals including Palm Springs, Atlanta, and New York. His television credits include Emmy-nominated series on The Weather Channel, TLC, VH1, and OWN. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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