Memoir Nation

On the heels of Mother’s Day, tune into Memoir Nation this week for a conversation about *mother as character*—among many other potential characters any one of us might be on the page. Guest Nicole Graev Lipson explores the idea of where fiction ends and truth begins when you’re a woman through this fascinating conversation prompted by her recent memoir-in-essays Mothers and Other Fictional Charac...

This week on Memoir Nation, Jill Ciment joins us to talk about what it means to reconsider a previously written memoir, and what that says about the nature of truth. We’re diving into the unreliability of truth, how we see things differently over time, and the nature of memoir as a flawed container for our stories. We’re also two weeks into the rebrand of this podcast, and Brooke and Grant invite...

We’ve been waiting a long time to make this announcement, and the day is finally here. Write-minded is rebranding as Memoir Nation—and along with Memoir Nation the podcast comes Memoir Nation the community and website, and an annual event we’ll be kicking off in January called JanYourStory. On this week’s episode, Grant and Brooke share the news, and talk about why they’re going this direction, an...

Writers, authors, you do not want to miss these great insights about reading on stage, taking up space, and generally being yourself—only amplified—when you read your work in public. Guest Jorah LaFleur brings a wealth of encouragement and permission, along with some great tips to improve your presence when you perform or read aloud. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices S...

This week we’re featuring longtime agent and publishing pro Betsy Lerner on her debut novel, Shred Sisters . We talk about being an industry insider and whether that gives you a leg up, as well as the old adage to write what you know. Betsy shares with us how her lived experience shows up in this book, noting that Freud would have a field day—and before it’s all over, she offers generous and tacti...

A few weeks back, Grant suggested Write-minded dedicate a whole episode to  All Fours , by Miranda July—and we decided to do it. This week Brooke and Grant explore  All Fours  as a novel of a generation, and talk about who Miranda July is, why the book has hit such a zeitgeist moment, and whether publishers can anticipate or make these kinds of successes. Brooke has suggested that  All Fours  is t...

Write-minded delves into publishing again in this week’s show, specifically focused on traditional publishing and the feelings that are part of the journey. Brooke and Grant connect with literary Kate McKean about her new book,  Write Through It,  which really is a roadmap to everything you want to know about how to stay the course on your publishing journey, and how to work through your feelings....

This week we invite one of our favorite authors, Lidia Yuknavitch, back to Write-minded to discuss her new book, Reading the Waves , as well as how we can re-envision and reimagine our past experiences through the practice of asking questions and reconsidering what we think we know. “Shapeshifting” is Lidia’s word, and the book (as well as this conversation) considers ways we can re-enter our own...

This week’s episode tells the story of a dramatic and traumatic story, and how writing played a central role in recovery and changing the outcome of one author’s life. This week’s episode is an epic tale as much as it is interview, and it will change the way you think of the power of writing to charge your neurons and heal your mind—not to mention the way you think about willpower, writers’ block,...

If part of why you write is because you have some things to share from a life well- or hard- or fully lived, then you’re in good company. Personal writing is about connection, and making sense of our experience, and this week’s guest, Sari Botton, knows a thing or two about what brings writers to the page. She is a champion of personal writing and memoir, and is going to share about contributing,...

There’s a caveat out the gate here, which is that in this week’s interview, Tom Perrotta stipulates that he writes about people and communities and the dramas that unfold—in places that just happen to be the suburbs. That said, we’re bringing you a great and often funny conversation with Perrotta about his decades of work, how his character Tracy Flick got caught up in the backlash of #MeToo, how...

This week's guest is Jean Kwok, a writer known for writing literary thrillers, which is the blending of literary writing and mystery, resulting in tension-filled books with exciting twists. Jean brings fantastic insights into complex literary structures and the importance of knowing what you’re doing. A fun listen for anyone who loves their mysteries and thrillers wrapped up in a literary package....

This week, Grant and Brooke talk with Dennis James Sweeney about his new book, How to Submit. If you've ever felt intimidated by the submissions process; wondered what some of the common pitfalls are when it comes to submitting, or if you need a reframe about how to think about submitting, this show is for you. Dennis has an encouraging and helpful way of submitting—thinking about it as based on c...

This week we’re focusing on a little celebrated but much important aspect of storytelling: your story’s scope. How much ground are you trying to cover and how do you execute the pacing? These are the questions you must answer if you know and understand your scope. This week’s guest, Tara Dorabji, has a new novel, Call Her Freedom , that spans more than five decades, and yet, it’s a relatively shor...

This week we’re looking into the stories that inspire and move us, focusing on those that focus on everyday characters who are extraordinary in their very ordinariness. We speak to guest Sadeqa Johnson about the characters who’ve called to her, those voices that became well-rounded characters who she brought to life. This episode touches on a bit of magic, and what it’s like to listen to and get t...

Are you considering doing a writers’ retreat this year? Whether you want to create your own, find something far-flung and exotic, or consider the writing retreat’s bigger cousin, the writers’ conference, this episode gives insights, definitions, and parameters for retreating. Guests Ellen Sussman and Connie Hale are both writing retreat leaders who share about their own programs and so much more....

On this week’s show, we’re recognizing and honoring how far we’ve come in the world of fiction in the past decades since everyone in this week’s conversation remembers a time when there was no such thing as a gay protagonist. Guest Lee Wind talks to us about his new novel and his LGBTQ advocacy—for writers and readers. We also talk about James Bond, great books for queer youth, and why we love the...

This week we touch upon the struggle that presents itself for memoirists who can’t or won’t let the past stay in the past, especially when other people wish you would. Guest Susan Lieu shares powerfully in this week’s show about how her mother became the central force and inspiration for her work after she died due to complications from a tummy tuck. In the process of writing about her mother and...

We welcome you to 2025 with a show that explores the exploration of form. In this conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Forrest Gander, we consider the nature of the writing journey—and its connection to landscape, the multiplicity of selves, and the kaleidoscopic experience of bringing together multiple eras of a lived life. Gander calls his new book a novel poem, and you’ll find out wh...

Welcome to Write-minded's 7th New Year's show—where Grant and Brooke always circle around their challenge with resolutions, even as they make them and break them and every so often vow not to bother with them. This year they look back to certain resolutions declared and uncompleted, and grapple with the reckoning that must come when you assert such intentions out loud. And yet, Write-minded is als...

This week’s show focuses on endings, and beginnings. Guest Zahid Rafiq, who’s written a short story collection whose endings serve the stories and his characters, speaks to how he thinks about endings, including those that others might find less than satisfying. We’re defending a particular type of ending, those in which writers may feel less than compelled to tie their story in a bow for readers....

This week’s show features guest Faith Adiele, who’s just released two chapbooks that are in conversation with one another. These books are a springboard for a conversation about hybrid writing, hybrid memoirs, the popularity of chapbooks, and hybrid forms. If you’re a writer who’s been told “you can’t do that,” this episode will be validating, if not vindicating. The publishing world is playing ca...

This week guest Jeannine Ouellette returns to Write-minded to share some specific teachings and practical tips for writers who want to better curb their own impulses to tell and/or to overwrite. This episode is a little more craft-focused than we normally do, and there’s no better person than Jeannine to showcase actionable ideas and student case studies. If you don’t already subscribe to her Subs...

This week’s Write-minded delves into our cultural and literary relationship with drugs, examining the role drugs play in creativity and among creatives. We also look at novels and memoirs that center drugs and alcohol, and talk to author Emily Witt about her own foray into this territory with her latest memoir,  Health and Safety.  Join us for this inquiry into the intersections between drugs and...

This week’s episode is a deep conversation that covers love, embracing contradiction, and guest Carvell Wallace’s journey to and through memoir. This is an enlightening interview for anyone who’s ever contemplated paradox, or how to tackle big, tangly ideas in your writing. Writing a memoir is an ambitious act of the heart, and we honor that journey this week in all its complexity and bigness. On...