Let’s Talk Memoir

Steve Eichenblatt joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing a father through abandonment, the abuse he endured from his adoptive father, living in a household of trauma, feeling emotionally disconnected, verbal abuse and the wounds that don’t go away, embracing vulnerability and learning how to connect, writing and processing old, longstanding anger, sharing manuscripts with family before publication, the response to our narratives from siblings and parents, fighting for our voice and agency, learning to help ourselves, being accountable, and the 10-year process of writing his new memoir Pretend They Are Dead. Also in this episode: -not giving up -finding your writing space and time -writing without boundaries    Books mentioned in this episode: -Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt -Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger -The Great Santini by Pat Conroy -Stay True by Hua Hsa   Steven Scott Eichenblatt is a graduate of Florida State University and the University of Florida College of Law. A practicing attorney with Page and Eichenblatt, and father of five, he has spent over thirty years advocating for children as a pro bono guardian ad litem and representing families of first responders killed on 9/11. He lives with his wife, Melissa Ross, in Orlando, Florida.   Connect with Steve: Website: www.stevenscotteichenblatt.com   Ronit’s upcoming 10-week online memoir course: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   – 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

Dr. Camille U. Adams joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about generations of mothers choosing to unmother their children, colonial violence in Trinidad and Tobago, stifling relationships, cognitive dissonance, finding the psychological, emotional, and geographical distance we need, narcissism and the golden child, not wanting to tell the story we ultimately find a way to tell, being a poet first, retracting and pulling back to get close to ourselves and write, exigence in memoir, going no contact with family, cocooning ourselves, finding support systems that work, getting into literary magazines, how content creates form, and her 300-page poem How To Be Unmothered: a Trinidadian memoir. Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   Also in this episode: -the narcissist’s nest -using elements of fiction -trusting yourself   Books mentioned in this episode: -Thick and Other Essays by Dr. Tressie McMillam Cottom -Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Diaz -Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat -Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward -The Dragon Can’t Dance by Earl Lovelace -The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon   Dr. Camille U. Adams is a writer from Trinidad and Tobago. Camille is the author of the memoir, How To Be Unmothered: a Trinidadian memoir, released August 2025 with Restless Books. Her manuscript was recognised as a finalist in the Restless Books Prize in New Immigrant Writing 2023. Camille earned her MFA in Poetry from City College, CUNY and a Ph.D. in Creative Nonfiction from FSU. She has been awarded Best of The Net - nonfiction 2024, and has received five Pushcart Prize nominations, three Best of the Net nominations, and recognition for a notable essay in Best American Essays 2022. Among Camille’s awarded fellowships is an inaugural Tin House Reading Fellowship, an inaugural Granta nature writing workshop fellowship, an inaugural Anaphora Arts Italy Writing Retreat Fellowship, a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship, a Community of Writers Erica Ellner Memorial Scholarship, and a Roots Wounds Words Fellowship. Additionally, Camille is a Tin House alum and has received support from Kenyon Writers Workshop, VONA, and others. She has served as a juried reader for Tin House for two consecutive years, as a CNF editor at Variant Lit, and as an assistant editor at Split Lip Magazine and at The Account. Camille currently lives in Brooklyn where she teaches and is hard at work on book two.    Connect with Camille: Website: www.camilleuadams.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/camille_u_adams Twitter: https://x.com/camille_u_adams Threads: https://www.threads.com/@camille_u_adams Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/camilleuadams.bsky.social   – 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

Lora Abrador joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation weaving together three themes in her memoir, writing about the ancient technique of egg tempura paint, incorporating 300 images in her book, gaining confidence as an artist, struggling to form a lasting romantic partnership, nature vs. nurture, our innate personalities, self-actualization, love addiction, feeling like a wounded bird, really connecting with an editor, publishing options, working with copyeditors, factchecking, recording an audio book, not intending to reveal ourselves but doing so anyway, and her new memoir Art & Love: My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera.   Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   This episode is brought to you by Prose Playground. If you’ve been writing for years but haven’t published, have tons of ideas but can’t get them on the page, if you have a book coming out, or you’re simply curious about writing, join Prose Playground—an active, supportive writing community for writers at every level. Visit www.ProsePlayground.com to sign up free. Also in this episode:  -trade reviews  -beta readers -proof readers and proof listeners   Books mentioned in this episode:  Editing the RedPen Way: Ten Steps for Successful Self-Editing by Anne Rainbow When She Comes Back: a memoir by Ronit Plank Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage by Eleaonor Vincent Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over  by Nell Painter Lab Girl by Hope Jahren Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by Musa Mayer Hold Still by Sally Mann My Name is Barbra by Barbra Streisand At the age of 19, Lora Arbrador was given a recipe for making egg tempera, a homemade paint that combines colorful pigments with egg yolk. Like a musician with a strong affinity for a particular instrument, Ahrbrador found her creative home in egg tempera.  To support her art practice, Arbrador became a registered nurse and the medical world has been the inspiration for many of her paintings, including the series, Ways of Dying: A Chronicle of the AIDS Epidemic. Her painting, Don’t Go My Friend: The Death of John Walsh, MD, won first place at the Art and Healing exhibit at Artwest Gallery.    In 1997, Arbrador co-founded the Society of Tempera Painters which was modeled after the 1901 Society of Painters in Tempera in England.  Her first book, A History of Roman Calligraphy, is housed in the Marjorie G. and Carl W. Stern Book Arts & Special Collections Center of the San Francisco Public Library. Arbrador has exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the US, including South Bend Regional Museum of Art, Wenatchee Valley College Art Gallery and the Bade Museum of the Pacific School of Religion. Arbrador is the former Editorial Director of NurseWeek magazine Art & Love: My Life Illuminated in Egg Tempera.   Connect with Lora: Website: www.artandlovebook.com instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arbrador facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arbrador https://www.facebook.com/lora.arbrador/ substack: artblotterplus.substack.com Purchase the book: www.artandlovebook.com/shop   – 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

Gretchen McGowan joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the grit and glam of the 90s in New York, her career producing independent films, the thrill of creating something from nothing, honoring our own process, willing to be self-deprecating, negotiating manuscript revisions in digestible ways, keeping writing momentum in mind, getting character-you into trouble, when everyone around you seems to have it figured out, loving the hustle of NY, scrappiness, her role as the head of Goldcrest films, and her memoir Flying In: My Adventures in Filmmaking. Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story  This episode is brought to you by Prose Playground. If you’ve been writing for years but haven’t published, have tons of ideas but can’t get them on the page, if you have a book coming out, or you’re simply curious about writing, join Prose Playground—an active, supportive writing community for writers at every level. Visit www.ProsePlayground.com to sign up free.   Also in this episode: -doing what works -transcendental mediation -women’s career memoirs   Books mentioned in this episode: -Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb -An Unfinished Woman by Lillian Hellman -The Memoir Project by Marion Roach Smith -Fast Draft Your Memoir by Rachael Herron   Gretchen McGowan is an award-winning producer and the head of production for Goldcrest Films in New York City where she has overseen titles such as Cat Person, Carol and Restrepo. Gretchen independently produced Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control, helped to make his iconic film Coffee and Cigarettes and has made over sixty films across the globe. Her new memoir is Flying In: My Adventures in Filmmaking.   Connect with Gretchen: Website: www.gretchenmcgowan.com Links: https://linktr.ee/gretchenmcgowan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gretmcgowan Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   – 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

Sarah Gallucci joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being the child of a teen mom and early influences on ideas of love and relationships, pivoting from journalism to reporting on her own life, the hey day of mommy blogging, when relationships become incredibly messy, how we experience pleasure, manipulative, coercive, and nonconsensual sex, giving a partner a hall pass, measuring the brokenness of a marriage, writing when you’re in the thick of it, the aftermath of divorce, why writing real sex is imperative to literature, the autonomy of self-publishing, when family stops speaking to us after publication, strategies to writing about sex, and Laid: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Marriage.   Info/Registration for Ronit’s 10-Week Memoir Class Memoir Writing: Finding Your Story https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story    This episode is brought to you by Prose Playground. If you’ve been writing for years but haven’t published, have tons of ideas but can’t get them on the page, if you have a book coming out, or you’re simply curious about writing, join Prose Playground—an active, supportive writing community for writers at every level. Visit www.ProsePlayground.com to sign up free.   Also in this episode: -trusting your truth -blogging and going viral -writing from a raw, unprocessed place   Books mentioned in this episode: -Hunger by Roxanne Gay -Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay -Wild by Cheryl Strayed -Push by Sapphire   Sarah Gallucci is the author of Laid: A Memoir of Love, Sex, and Marriage. She has written reported features for CNN, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Harper's Bazaar, among others. Sarah works as a professor at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is also a speaker, and has given two TEDx talks. Most importantly, Sarah is the mother of two with storytelling, creative healing, and pasta in her blood.   Connect with Sarah: Website: www.SarahGallucci.com Instagram: @_Sarah_Gallucci_ TikTok: @_Sarah_Gallucci_ Threads: @_Sarah_Gallucci_ Book: https://www.amazon.com/Laid-Memoir-Love-Sex-Marriage/dp/B0DVCBXVZ7/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0 Talks: https://www.sarahgallucci.com/speaking   – 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