Ronit Plank's Blog, page 8
January 13, 2025
Episode 143 ft. Paula Whyman
Paula Whyman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about getting out of our comfort zone, her attempt to restore native meadows in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, becoming obsessed with subjects and deep diving, writing about science and nature, controlling and selecting details for impact, being attentive to what readers need, writing tangentially, the need for deadlines, when your editor calls you a meanderer, leaning into exploration and not shutting ourselves down, allowing our writing to reflect the way our minds work, and her new memoir Bad Naturalist.
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Episode 143 ft. Paula Whyman Jan 13, 2025
Paula Whyman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about getting out of our comfort zone, her attempt to restore native meadows in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, becoming obsessed with subjects and deep diving, writing about science and nature,...
Episode 142 ft. Eiren Caffall Jan 7, 2025
Eiren Caffall joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her generational experience of loss, coming out of the shadows about having an ill body, how polycystic kidney disease (PKD) has shaped her and her family’s life, writing about the collapse of ecosystems...
Episode 141 ft. Nadia Colburn Dec 31, 2024
Nadia Colburn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about by tuning into our bodies to discover what we need to say, creating different cultural conversations about surviving trauma, tapping into our subconscious, coming out of secrets, how poetry can help us...
The post Episode 143 ft. Paula Whyman appeared first on Ronit Plank.
January 7, 2025
Episode 142 ft. Eiren Caffall
Eiren Caffall joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her generational experience of loss, coming out of the shadows about having an ill body, how polycystic kidney disease (PKD) has shaped her and her family’s life, writing about the collapse of ecosystems on the Atlantic ocean, seamlessly weaving in narrative, historical, lyrical, scientific, and metaphorical threads, allowing our children to weigh in on stories that involve them, feeling all the places we’re still wounded, depicting mother-daughter relationships with complexity, the umpteenth draft, form as key, holding two things in mind at once, reframing and understanding family dynamics, and her new memoir The Mourner’s Bestiary.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 142 ft. Eiren Caffall Jan 7, 2025
Eiren Caffall joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about her generational experience of loss, coming out of the shadows about having an ill body, how polycystic kidney disease (PKD) has shaped her and her family’s life, writing about the collapse of ecosystems...
Episode 141 ft. Nadia Colburn Dec 31, 2024
Nadia Colburn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about by tuning into our bodies to discover what we need to say, creating different cultural conversations about surviving trauma, tapping into our subconscious, coming out of secrets, how poetry can help us...
Episode 140 ft. Kristen Van Nest Dec 24, 2024
Kristen Van Nest joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how discovered who she was on a global stage and her addiction to travel, loving the growth phase of new projects, how improv and stand up improves our writing, writing funny and the architecture of a...
The post Episode 142 ft. Eiren Caffall appeared first on Ronit Plank.
December 31, 2024
Episode 141 ft. Nadia Colburn
Nadia Colburn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about by tuning into our bodies to discover what we need to say, creating different cultural conversations about surviving trauma, tapping into our subconscious, coming out of secrets, how poetry can help us access material, not needing to share work until we’re ready, what we learn from being in community with other writers, and her signature online course Align Your Story for Women.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 141 ft. Nadia Colburn Dec 31, 2024
Nadia Colburn joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about by tuning into our bodies to discover what we need to say, creating different cultural conversations about surviving trauma, tapping into our subconscious, coming out of secrets, how poetry can help us...
Episode 140 ft. Kristen Van Nest Dec 24, 2024
Kristen Van Nest joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how discovered who she was on a global stage and her addiction to travel, loving the growth phase of new projects, how improv and stand up improves our writing, writing funny and the architecture of a...
Episode 139 ft. Jennifer Lang Dec 17, 2024
Jennifer Lang joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about asking the right questions, understanding what home means and where it is, being sure to put your story in the narrative you’re sharing, her sense of self on and off the yoga mat, answers to mid-life...
The post Episode 141 ft. Nadia Colburn appeared first on Ronit Plank.
December 24, 2024
Episode 140 ft. Kristen Van Nest
Kristen Van Nest joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how discovered who she was on a global stage and her addiction to travel, loving the growth phase of new projects, how improv and stand up improves our writing, writing funny and the architecture of a joke, having a love-hate relationship with social media and publishing, keeping your ideal reader in mind, marketing our work ourselves and hustling to get our book in front of people, hammering in the theme in our manuscripts, publishing in literary reviews, establishing publishing proofpoints, cold pitching 150 agents, selling on proposal, and her memoir Where to Nest: A Global Search for Love, Cheap Wine and a Place to Belong.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 140 ft. Kristen Van Nest Dec 24, 2024
Kristen Van Nest joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about how discovered who she was on a global stage and her addiction to travel, loving the growth phase of new projects, how improv and stand up improves our writing, writing funny and the architecture of a...
Episode 139 ft. Jennifer Lang Dec 17, 2024
Jennifer Lang joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about asking the right questions, understanding what home means and where it is, being sure to put your story in the narrative you’re sharing, her sense of self on and off the yoga mat, answers to mid-life...
Episode 138 ft. Anne Cheng Dec 10, 2024
Anne Cheng joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about pivoting from writing scholarly works on race and gender to writing in first person and quite personally, teaching herself how to say the things that had remained unspoken in her life, her cancer diagnosis...
The post Episode 140 ft. Kristen Van Nest appeared first on Ronit Plank.
December 17, 2024
Episode 139 ft. Jennifer Lang
Jennifer Lang joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about asking the right questions, understanding what home means and where it is, being sure to put your story in the narrative you’re sharing, her sense of self on and off the yoga mat, answers to mid-life questions, learning to write flash prose, putting manuscripts away for a while, being a Jewish writer living in Israel, leaning into experimental and playful prose, coping with imminent empty nests, and her new book Landed: A Yogi’s Memoir in Pieces & Poses.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 139 ft. Jennifer Lang Dec 17, 2024
Jennifer Lang joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about asking the right questions, understanding what home means and where it is, being sure to put your story in the narrative you’re sharing, her sense of self on and off the yoga mat, answers to mid-life...
Episode 138 ft. Anne Cheng Dec 10, 2024
Anne Cheng joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about pivoting from writing scholarly works on race and gender to writing in first person and quite personally, teaching herself how to say the things that had remained unspoken in her life, her cancer diagnosis...
Episode 137 ft. David Tereshchuk Dec 5, 2024
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,...
The post Episode 139 ft. Jennifer Lang appeared first on Ronit Plank.
December 10, 2024
Episode 138 ft. Anne Cheng
Anne Cheng joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about pivoting from writing scholarly works on race and gender to writing in first person and quite personally, teaching herself how to say the things that had remained unspoken in her life, her cancer diagnosis and treatment, the rise in anti-Asian violence during the pandemic, the ways Chinese femininity dovetails with Southern femininity, what we don’t know about those closest to us, sharing work about our partner with our partner, the cumulative effect of an essay collection, allowing our voice to come through in our writing, and her new book Ordinary Disasters: How I stopped Being a Model Minority.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 138 ft. Anne Cheng Dec 10, 2024
Anne Cheng joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about pivoting from writing scholarly works on race and gender to writing in first person and quite personally, teaching herself how to say the things that had remained unspoken in her life, her cancer diagnosis...
Episode 137 ft. David Tereshchuk Dec 5, 2024
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,...
Episode 136 ft. Rachel Zimmerman Dec 3, 2024
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...
The post Episode 138 ft. Anne Cheng appeared first on Ronit Plank.
December 5, 2024
Episode 137 ft. David Tereshchuk
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.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 137 ft. David Tereshchuk Dec 5, 2024
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,...
Episode 136 ft. Rachel Zimmerman Dec 3, 2024
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...
Episode 135 ft. Sarah LaBrie Nov 26, 2024
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...
The post Episode 137 ft. David Tereshchuk appeared first on Ronit Plank.
December 3, 2024
Episode 136 ft. Rachel Zimmerman
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.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 136 ft. Rachel Zimmerman Dec 3, 2024
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...
Episode 135 ft. Sarah LaBrie Nov 26, 2024
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...
Episode 134 ft. Steve Hoffman Nov 19, 2024
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...
The post Episode 136 ft. Rachel Zimmerman appeared first on Ronit Plank.
November 26, 2024
Episode 135 ft. Sarah LaBrie
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.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 135 ft. Sarah LaBrie Nov 26, 2024
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...
Episode 134 ft. Steve Hoffman Nov 19, 2024
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...
Episode 133 ft. Seth Lorinczi Nov 14, 2024
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...
The post Episode 135 ft. Sarah LaBrie appeared first on Ronit Plank.
November 19, 2024
Episode 134 ft. Steve Hoffman
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.
Listen on iTunes Listen on Spotify YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
Episode 134 ft. Steve Hoffman Nov 19, 2024
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...
Episode 133 ft. Seth Lorinczi Nov 14, 2024
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...
Episode 132 ft. Naomi Cohn Nov 12, 2024
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,...
The post Episode 134 ft. Steve Hoffman appeared first on Ronit Plank.


