Essays, Essays, and more Essays...
Essays, Essays, and more Essays...
Plus: My guest-speaking in Paulette Perhach's 'Posing Naked on the Page' workshop, and Memoir Land merch, in the announcements at the bottom...
Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by Sari Botton, now featuring four verticals:
Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Granta, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Electric Literature. Below is this week’s curation.
First Person Singular, featuring original personal essays. Recently I published
“MRI of a Rose,” by
.The Lit Lab, featuring interviews and essays on craft and publishing. There are also weekly writing prompts and other exercises from, ahem, a New York Times bestselling ghostwriter of memoirs (that’s me) for paid subscribers. Most recently I posted “The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #47: Dale Corvino,” “The Prompt-O-Matic #37,” and “The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #48: Gila Pfeffer”.
Goodbye to All That, where I’m continuing to explore my fascination with the most wonderful and terrible city in the world, something I began doing with two NYC-centric anthologies, Goodbye to All That, and Never Can Say Goodbye. Recently I reprinted “The Fling,” an excerpt of my memoir.
Essays from partner publications…
My Marriage Was a Never-Ending Scavenger Hunt
by Patricia Coral
“A room with an ocean view. Carefully chosen lingerie. Days spent between the bed and the water. You wrote our names on the sand with a heart and a “Just Married” next to them. You didn’t stop taking pictures of me. You didn’t stop saying how much you loved me.”
A Lot of Other Women
by Jasmin Sandelson
“Miri—though she does not know this, does not know me—is my nemesis. Each morning, Miri struts to the front row and claims the center desk. Each morning, she is flanked by girls whose gel pens are name-brand, girls who ride the same Tube home to the same nice neighborhood, girls whose parents pay the school fees, who don’t have to ask Grandpa to cover what the scholarship doesn’t.”
Get into Medical School, I Thought I’d Have to Hide Parts of My Blackness
by Chika Stacy Oriuwa
“I wondered if they even noticed that I was the only Black candidate and if they questioned how this could be possible at an interview in Toronto, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world. Sitting across from the older white male cardiologist, I wondered if he was questioning whether I fit the mould of what a physician really looks like.”
Fashion Was in My DNA, Wasn’t It?
by
“When I was a freshman in college, I told her that I saw myself moving back home after college and taking over her store. She shut me down pretty quickly. I was used to things coming pretty easily to me—from good grades to a full wardrobe, gratis— courtesy of Artichoke. ‘You think I’m just going to give you my store?’ I remember her saying. ‘No way.’”
Essays from around the web…
Daylighting a Brook in the Bronx
by
“Imperfect as it was, the daylighting plan was progressing. The final roadblock was the steep price of the land needed to reroute the brook above-ground. At this point in the story, the city was trying to cut a deal but the freight company that owned the real estate was acting like a crook.”
D&D turns 50 this year. Gather round the Dungeon Master's table
by Ethan Gilsdorf
“What’s most remarkable about the game is the unique space it has protected from its pop culture competitors. D&D is not about consuming narratives. Instead, the focus remains on a shared, communal, imaginative space, which its players agree to inhabit and nurture by spending an evening playing around a table together. In our culture today, there exist few opportunities for genuine collaborative creativity and play that are accessible to anyone of any age and skill level. But D&D has provided that for 50 years.”
I Froze My Eggs to Reclaim My Right to Rest
by Jean Guerrero
“Then there’s the myth that Latinas are hyperfertile. That racist idea, which preys on white fears about our larger families and demographic change, contributed to forced sterilizations that disproportionately targeted Latinas in the 20th century. Even among ourselves, many Latinas think it will be easy for us to get pregnant, as do our doctors. One consequence of this is that Hispanic women are less likely to get infertility testing than white women and have lower rates of infertility treatment. But Latinas don’t find it any easier to become pregnant than other women.”
The Landlord, the Tenant, and the Machete
by
“Precipitating events: Two women in their ninth decades, living in adjacent rooms, with history. One woman had been haute. Her fingers snapped. Her slick marble floors were to be swept, her baby was to be held, her windows were to be brightened just so, like that, and, por favor, cream for the coffee in the china cups of our guests, and now, again, the slick marble floor was to be swept. The other woman had been her maid. Then, fortunes reversed.”
Feast of Famine
by Glenn Shaheen
“New Yorkers in the unemployment line telling me they saw death, a man jumped from a building, hit the ground in front of them, they dodged the body and bought a bacon egg and cheese.”
Hard Water
by Kimberly Elkins
“Momma puts a towel down on the bathroom floor for me to lie on, and a baby pillow under my hips to lift them so she can examine me. I keep my eyes closed for a long time, feeling the coolness of the tiles through the towel, and when I finally open my eyes, I see that my mother’s eyes are squeezed shut, kneeling there on the floor with her hand still high up on the inside of my thigh, but I hope she’s kept them open long enough to take a good look, to form an opinion, to give me an answer, to make a plan.”
He Thought We’d Be Better Off
by Jennifer B. Calder
“Was it situational depression after nearly a year of unemployment following previous decades of professional ups and downs? Was it undiagnosed mental illness? Was it noble devotion? Sacrificial, as his letters suggested? Was it desperation? Or was it, as our oldest son, Logan, said, ‘A lapse in judgment?’ Or, as our middle son, Grady, asked, ‘Did Dad love us too much?’”
Why the Cubs Matter to a Left Coaster
by Ellen Notbohm
“And my mother, daughter of that immigrant boy with the Cubs-logo red running in his veins. . . As she slipped deeper into dementia, it grew harder to get a reaction to anything from her. Even the photos and news of family that used to delight her often elicited nothing. And yet…On November 5, 2016, I arrived at her care facility at noon. She wasn’t up yet, but the staff bustled to get her going. It took a long time, distressed sounds coming from behind the door. When they finally wheeled her out, she looked at me with no recognition, then stared past. But I plunged ahead, telling her I had great news. No reaction. I took her hands in mine and said, ‘Mom. The Cubs won the World Series!’”
Training Bras to Hot Flashes: Judy Blume’s Timeless Wisdom on Faith and Growing Up
by
“Growing up as a Muslim-Jewish girl in an interfaith family in the 1980s, I felt like an outsider in a world that didn’t see me. Then, I discovered Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. For the first time, I saw a character grappling with the same questions of faith and identity that consumed me. Margaret wasn’t just a fictional character; she was a lifeline.”
My 8-Year-Old Was Suffering From Cancer. To Keep Her Alive, I Made An Unthinkable Choice.
by
“Paid leave is about more than just economics. It’s about ensuring that every family has access to the support they need, regardless of their circumstances. My family is still recovering from the impact our cancer years had on us. We each struggle with varying degrees of PTSD, anxiety and depression, and while my children are entering into their teen years with wry wit and aplomb, I still feel like a hole was punched through me. It’s a wound I don’t know how to heal.”
🚨Announcements:
📢 I’ll Be Guest Speaking in this Workshop on 11/13: Dive Deep into Personal Essay Writing with "Posing Naked on the Page"
Ready to bare your soul through words? Consider the upcoming "Posing Naked on the Page" class, led by Paulette Perhach, an essayist who's had two essays go viral to more than 2 million readers each.
This intensive 12-week course will transform your approach to personal essay writing, helping you craft raw, authentic pieces that resonate with readers.
Throughout the course, you'll learn to:
Overcome writer's block and self-doubt
Develop your unique voice and perspective
Master the art of vulnerable, impactful storytelling
Whether you're a seasoned writer or just starting your journey, this class will push you to dive deeper into the emotional work of essay. Use code “PosingNakedWithSari” at checkout for $50 off the course fee!
Spots are limited to 20 students, so reserve yours today! Sign up now at: https://www.pauletteperhach.com/posing-naked-on-the-page
PS Paulette is offering a free one-hour workshop on Oct. 30 called "The Craft of Posing Naked on the Page," where you'll learn how to identify where you're hiding in your writing and develop the craft techniques that create authentic connections with readers. If you’d like to get a sense of her teaching style and a preview of the course, register now for this transformative session here!
📢 Attention Publications and writers interested in having published essays considered for inclusion in our weekly curation:
By Thursday of each week, please send to memoirmonday@gmail.com:
The title of the essay and a link to it.
The name of the author, and the author’s Twitter handle.Nope…not doing Twitter anymore! Read and share the newsletter to find out/spread the word about whose pieces are featured.A paragraph or a few lines from the piece that will most entice readers.
Please be advised that we cannot accept all submissions, nor respond to the overwhelming number of emails received. Also, please note that we don’t accept author submissions from our partner publications.
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