Paul talks with the NYT-bestselling memoirist and teacher, Abigail Thomas. Her memoir, Safekeeping (2000), is a marvel of technical innovation, enviable humor, and just plain old heart. She’s clear-sighted about her own failings, as well as other people’s, but she never seems to judge anyone.

In this episode Abigail Thomas shares the backstory of how she came to write Safekeeping, how the memoir was initially turned down by all the editors the book was sent, except for one. 

The interview is something of a masterclass on writing memoir as Thomas also talks about:

• How to shape an experimental or “mosaic” memoir like hers
• How to own what you don’t remember
• Her favorite writing exercise (hint: it’s 2 pages about…)
• How to stop getting hung up by chronology in memoir
• Writing memoir vs. "tattling"
• How to create distance in memoir

Abigail Thomas, the daughter of renowned science writer Lewis Thomas, is the author of three works of fiction: Getting Over Tom, An Actual Life, and Herb’s Pajamas.

Her memoir, A Three Dog Life, was named one of the best books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. She is also author of Safekeeping and What Comes Next and How to Like it (memoirs), as well as Thinking About Memoir.

Discussed in this episode:

 “Getting Started” (essay): https://www.abigailthomas.net/getting-started/

Safekeeping (memoir)

What Comes Next and How to Like it (memoir)

Forthcoming Untitled Memoir published by the Golden Notebook bookstore, Woodstock, NY

Credits:

This episode was edited by Paul Zakrzewski and produced by Magpie Audio Productions. Theme music  is "The Stone Mansion" by BlueDot Productions.

In this converation with memoirist Abigail Thomas, we discuss the backstory of writing Safekeeping, and that now-classic memoir was initially turned down by all the editors the book was sent, except for one. 

We talk about how crafting a memoir-in-fragments like Safekeeping allows a writer to depict memories in a way a more conventional structure doesn’t permit. She talks about why writing what you don’t remember is as important as what you do; and the value of following what interests and obsesses you, even if it doesn't seem to go anywhere at first.

Thomas’s is one of the great voices in memoir—shrewd, warm, devoid of self-pity—and like all wise teachers, she imparts insights about a life well spent, even when talking about a book well-crafted.

This conversation was recorded in 2022 and just updated.

Abigail Thomas is the author of several memoirs, including Safekeeping, A Three Dog Life, What Comes Next and How to Like it, and most recently Still Life at Eighty, as well as three works of fiction: Getting Over Tom, An Actual Life, and Herb’s Pajamas.

Some of my biggest takeaways

“Chronological order makes little sense to me…”

Most of Thomas’s memoirs eschew the conventional chronological approach, opting instead for fragmented structures that mirror the way memory works. Abigail Thomas believes that "life has been lived like a series of moments," and memoirs are stronger when they reflect that.

"Well, I will confess that I have a poor memory, except for the things I remember. So putting them in chronological order makes very little sense to me. It's why this now? Why am I thinking of this now? Why this memory? Write it down. You'll find out why. The trick is not to boss them around, you know. Just let them come, and they will."

This memoir-in-fragments approach unexpectedly draws the reader in

Safekeeping, for example, is comprised of dozens of short sections—some four or five pages, others as brief as a single sentence. Then there’s the narrator herself, frequently switching between past and present tense, or between first- and third-person.

With all that lack of connective tissue, all that shifting of tenses and point-of-view, you’d expect the narrative flow to be constantly disrupted. Instead this approach creates a genuine connection with readers, in part because it invites them to piece together the narrative puzzle

The key to writing a great memoir-in-fragments is to have a strong, unified voice

Married for the first time at 18, remarried at 27—Abigail Thomas’s life was full of wrong turns. She had a lot of living under her belt. Yet the narrator here keeps things light and crisp, avoiding self-judgment. Instead, here the persona is vulnerable, startlingly honest, unsentimental, wry, and above all, entertaining.

In The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick writes that great memoirs feature a “truth-telling” narrator. We trust the voices of George Orwell, Annie Dillard, or James Baldwin because they seem so honest and self-aware. Thomas’s narrator is one of these.

"The more vulnerable you make yourself, the stronger you become”

Thomas urges writers to be honest and vulnerable, since revealing truths about oneself tends to have a liberating effect. This openness serves as a conduit through which readers can see their truths reflected in the author’s life, reinforcing the fact we all tend to feel similar things inside.

The key is to write without an agenda—to connect with an emotion and let go of outcomes.

“You need to write about the stuff you don't wanna write about…[but] you have to find a side door, and it isn't therapy. Writing isn't therapy. But if you're truthful, and honest, and write what you need to write, it has the effect of you've made something out of it separate from yourself, you've revealed things to yourself about yourself, and it's a way of forgiving yourself, you know, and others.”

“The past is every bit as unpredictable as the future”

The unpredictable nature of memory can be troubling for both writer and reader. Yet, Thomas says that this unpredictability is where the real magic of memoir writing lies. The unpredictable becomes an asset, turning writing into a journey of self-discovery and an act of creative courage.

“I don't believe in chronology. And the older you get, the more you don't believe in chronology or even time. What is it? I mean, I'm at the age now where I live entirely in the moment. Sometimes the moment is a good one, sometimes it's a more interesting one, but that's where I am. I never think about the future. I do have memories, and I write about them because I wrote somewhere, ‘You discover that the past is every bit as unpredictable as the future.’ And for me, the future is behind me. You know, I don't have... I just have now.”

What you don’t remember can be as powerful as what you do

Many writers (me included) tend to get hung up by the fact they don’t remember enough when it comes to memoir. But embracing the fallability of memory is exactly the point of memoir, says Thomas. It’s what makes a narrator more authentic—and believable:

“I really do think that what you don't remember belongs in there, because in the course of writing this, you may begin to remember, or you may begin to remember why you don't remember. But it is interesting for the reader to know that the writer is at least honest enough to say, ‘I don't remember why I did this. I don't remember what came before,’ because it's so human.”

Discussed on this episode

*  “Getting Started” - reflections on how Abby started writing Safekeeping

* Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life Bookshop.org | Amazon

* What Comes Next and How to Like it Bookshop.org | Amazon

* Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing Bookshop.org | The Golden Notebook | Amazon

* Read my essay “How to create narrative tension in a memoir-in-fragments”

Credits

This episode was produced by Magpie Audio Productions. Theme music  is "The Stone Mansion" by BlueDot Productions.

Jill Christman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about contextualizing a memoir in a post-Roe world, what it means to make a choice as mothers, ending a pregnancy, knowing you will write about an experience while it is happening, writing about childhood sexual abuse, returning to a manuscript with your skirt on fire, writing to a point of discovery, putting down our self-defense and  having to be fully, fully vulnerable, getting clear on why we’re showing up to tell this story now, and her new memoir The Heart Folds Early.

Ronit’s in-person Fall Workshop - Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story     https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story

Also in this episode:

-writing in present tense

-not casting judgment on others

-how an imaginary choice is not a choice

Books mentioned in this episode:

Love Works Like This by Lauren Slater

The Book of Knowledge and Wonder By Steven Harvey

Crossed Over: A Murder, a Memoir by Beverly Lowry

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Maha

A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis

The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander

Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas

An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken

Jill Christman’s recent articles on writing:

1. “Writing the Tooth—Or, How to Find Big Ideas in Tiny Things.” Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. https://www.assayjournal.com/jill-christman-writing-the-toothmdashor-how-to-find-big-ideas-in-tiny-things-assay-122.html

2. “Three Takes on a Jump.” https://riverteethjournal.com/river_revisted/river-teeth-classics-three-takes-on-a-jump/

3. “Tacking: A Sailor’s Guide to Writing Against the Wind.” Writer’s Digest,https://www.writersdigest.com/tacking-a-sailors-guide-to-writing-against-the-wind

Jill Christman is the author of The Heart Folds Early: A Memoir (released March 2026 from the University of Nebraska Press). Christman’s other books include If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays (2023 Foreword INDIES Silver Winner), Darkroom: A Family Exposure (winner of AWP Prize for CNF), and Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies and in magazines such as Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, Iron Horse Literary Review, Longreads, and O, The Oprah Magazine. A 2020 NEA Literature Fellow, she teaches at Ball State University and serves as editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative and Beautiful Things (a weekly online magazine of micro nonfiction). Visit her at jillchristman.com.

Connect with Jill:

https://www.instagram.com/jillchristmanwriter

@jillchristman.bsky.social

jillchristman.com

Order for yourself and all your memoir-loving friends—directly from the University of Nebraska Press or your local independent or by using any of the handy links on my website. Use code 6AS26 for 40% off on any UNP book!

–

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

Antonio Michael Downing is an author, speaker, and musical artist. His memoir Saga Boy was called "singularly dazzling" by Kiese Laymon and "the triumph of Blackness everywhere" by Scotiabank Giller Prize–winner Ian Williams. He is also the author of the children's picture book Stars in My Crown and his debut novel, Black Cherokee. He writes and performs music as John Orpheus.

In this Episode Lissa and Antonio travel the world in their far reaching conversation from Trinidad, to Canada, to Brooklyn, to the Cherokee Nation- discussing his memoir Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming, his debut novel Black Cherokee, and a broader conversation about lineage and inherited systems.

For GO DEEPER content visit www.BlackMarketReads.com

Black Market Reads is produced by the Givens Foundation for African American Literature in partnership with iDream.tv. Our production team for this episode includes co-producers Lissa Jones and Edie French, technical director Paul Auguston, the voice Yo Derek, and our artist of inspiration Ta-coumba T. Aiken.

Author and broadcaster Antonio Michael Downing joins Melvin E. Edwards for a powerful conversation about identity, reinvention, and belonging.

Born in Trinidad and raised in rural Canada, Downing’s life has taken him through multiple identities — musician, performer, writer, and now host of CBC’s The Next Chapter.

His acclaimed memoir Saga Boy: My Life of Blackness and Becoming explores the complicated intersections of race, masculinity, immigration, and family.

In this episode, we discuss:

* Growing up in Trinidad before moving to Canada

* The shock of suddenly becoming “the only Black kid in town”

* Reinventing himself through music and art

* What masculinity meant to him as a young man

* The emotional process of writing Saga Boy

* Why identity is never a fixed destination

This conversation is raw, reflective, and deeply human.

If you’ve ever struggled with where you belong — this episode is for you.

Antonio Michael Downing’s website

Antonio Michael Downing (@antoniomichaeldowning) Instagram

Stories from Real Life

Media Well Done, LLC

• The Economy of Words: What novelists can learn from hip-hop legends and the tight structure of a three-minute song.
• Ritualising the Flow State: How to use physical objects to "hypnotise" your brain into writing mode.
• Writing What You Don't Know: The meticulous research and radical empathy required to write across culture, gender, and history.
• Reverse-Engineering Emotion: How to study the books that move you to figure out exactly how the "magic" works.
• The 1990s & The "Trail of Tears": Why Antonio chose a pre-cellphone era to explore the history that "never stays in the past."

• Website: antoniomichaeldowning.com
• Instagram: @antoniomichaeldowning

• 📺 Watch the Full Shows: The Writing Community Chat Show | 360+ Author Interviews, Writing Tips & Creative Chaos.
• ✍️ The Stories Behind the Stories And Great Writing Articles: WRITE, CONNECT, GROW, With The Writing Community Chat Show. | 📚The WCCS | Substack
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On this episode, Chrys and Benjamin Gorman talk with Antonio Michael Downing, author of BLACK CHEROKEE and SAGA BOY, about growing up in Trinidad, a remarkable act of kindness, and books as “counter-algorithmic” resistance.

Find Antonio Michael Downing here:

https://www.antoniomichaeldowning.com/

Find Chrys Gorman here: https://linktr.ee/ChrysGorman

Find Benjamin Gorman here: https://linktr.ee/benjamingorman

If you’d like to support Benjamin Gorman’s Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/BenjaminGorman

If you’d like to advertise your book or other artistic endeavor on the show, please reach out to NotAPipePublishing@gmail.com

Sign up for our emails to never miss an interview, book excerpt, cover reveal, or book review.

On every First Taste Reading Series episode, a writer introduces their book and reads a selection from it.

Antonio Michael Downing, author of Black Cherokee, reads an excerpt from his novel.

You can purchase a copy of the book here: https://bookshop.org/a/339/9781668066102

Links!

• Antonio Michael Downing on the Internet: https://antoniomichaeldowning.com/
• Antonio Michael Downing on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/antoniomichaeldowning/
• Debutiful on the Internet: https://www.debutiful.net
• Debutiful on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debutiful
• Debutiful on Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/debutiful.bsky.social
• Debutiful on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/debutiful

DISCOVER THE BEST DEBUT BOOKS OF 2025 (SO FAR)!

DISCOVER THE MOST ANTICIPATED DEBUT BOOKS OF 2025!

Author Antonio Michael Downing (BLACK CHEROKEE) talks writing to discover, observing life as raw material, letting the story draw what’s on the page, and the importance of Miss Donna’s 3 rules of gardening

Antonio Michael Downing is the author of the memoir Saga Boy, My Memoir of Blackness and Becoming, in which he show us how he had become, like his father and grandfather before him, a Saga boy, a Trinidadian playboy and almost loses everything of value himself until he rescues himself and becames the musician and writer he was born to be. In his new book, a novel entitled Black Cherokee, we meet the unforgettable Ophelia Blue Rivers, a mixed-race Black girl fighting for her identity in a South Carolina Cherokee community. Listen in as he and I speak about writing into identity, and so much more. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. Fuse, her acclaimed memoir of mixed-race identity and mental illness, was published by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Since then, she’s produced a collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, a short-fiction collection, Widow Fantasies, and a poetry chapbook, the leaves of grass are dreaming. Her debut novel, The Unravelling of Ou, is being published this month by Windsor’s Palimpsest Press.
Hollay is a board member of the League of Canadian Poets, the co-chair of the League's BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of the region in which she lives. She’s also a host on The New Books Network. and a host of HOWL—the literary arts show—on 89.5 CIUT FM.

https://www.hollayghadery.ca/

https://palimpsestpress.ca/books/the-unravelling-of-ou-hollay-ghadery/

Tara sits down with Iranian-Canadian author Hollay Ghadery to discuss her first novel, The Unravelling of Ou, published by Palimpsest Press in February 2026. Later in the interview, Hollay talks about poetry and how best to read it for those who may be new to it.

https://palimpsestpress.ca/books/the-unravelling-of-ou-hollay-ghadery/ : 

"Moving on is hard. Even harder when it’s from a make-believe friend—someone, or in this instance, some thing—who’s been your strongest source of support. On what should be one of the happiest days ever, the day her granddaughter is born, Minoo is faced with a terrible choice: make a clean break from her constant companion, a sock puppet named Ecology Paul, or lose her daughter and granddaughter, and maybe all of the people she loves. On an emotional drive home from the hospital, Ecology Paul shares the story of how Minoo got to this point, recalling Minoo’s early teenage pregnancy in Iran, her exile to Canada, her questions about her sexuality, and how a ragtag sock puppet came to her when she desperately needed to be seen. Full of imagination, whimsy and heart, The Unravelling of Ou follows Minoo’s struggles to justify the puppet’s existence and untangle herself from her dependence on it, and reconnect with the people she loves."

Books and authors discussed/recommended:

• Fuse: Memoir; Rebellion Box; Widow Fantasies; The Blades of Grass are Dreaming (chapbook); The Unravelling of Ou by Hollay Ghadery
• The Dowager Empress: Poems by Adele Wiseman by Elizabeth Greene (editor)
• Deviant by Patrick Grace
• Unravel: Poems by Tolu Oloruntaba
• Lockers Are for Bearcats Only by Mallory Tater
• The Last Unicorn; Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle
• author Aisha Sasha John
• Good Bones by Maggie Smith
• author Charlie Petch
• Syncopation: A Novel in Verse by Whitney French
• Stan on Guard; Call Me Stan: A Tragedy in Three Millenia by K.R. Wilson
• Elegy for Opportunity by Natalie Lim
• author Ali Hazelwood
• Restaurant Kid: A Memoir of Family and Belonging by Rachel Phan
• Breathing is How Some People Stay Alive by Alison Gadsby
• Weird Babies by Jaclyn Desforges
• The Dialogues: The Song of Francis Pegahmagabow by Armand Garnet Ruffo

https://www.instagram.com/hollayghadery/

https://www.instagram.com/river_street_writes/

https://www.riverstreetwriting.com/

Check out Sublime at https://sublime.app/?ref=perell

This episode brings together the moments from How I Write in 2025 that have stayed with me the longest. These are the clips I revisit when I need to be reminded why writing matters.

Robert Macfarlane talks about wonder as something you have to actively protect. Jayne Anne Phillips explains why the memories we keep from childhood reveal who we are. Paul Harding makes the case for aiming higher than feels comfortable and learning from the writers who shaped you.Henrik Karlsson shows what it means to really look at the world instead of getting trapped in your own words. Alain de Botton reveals how the news narrows our thinking. Lulu Cheng Meservey talks about writing that feels alive rather than polished to death and Mitch Albom tells a story that shows why storytelling is a craft of emotion as much as technique.

And then there is poetry. Dana Gioia and David Whyte both treat poems as part of a life, something to memorize, perform, and return to when everything feels confusing or heavy.

This episode is a reminder that writing is not just about words. It is about attention, courage, honesty, and the way we make sense of being alive. Hey! I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible. Follow me Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv X: https://x.com/david_perell

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Sam and James tackle the Unexpected history of contagion in this impromptu brain explosion recorded in the car! (so apologies for not ideal sound quality). It's all about catching infection in bags, infectious ideas, crazes, modern tech, fear, panic, experts, the Dance Macabre, and conspiracy! Timely and fascinating - it's one of the best episodes yet....

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