A Baker's Dozen of Great Personal Essays...
Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by
, now featuring three verticals:Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of the best personal essays from around the web brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Granta, Guernica, 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 “Call Me Mom Again” by
. A new essay is coming soon.The Lit Lab, featuring interviews and essays on craft and publishing, plus writing prompts and exercises. It is primarily for paid subscribers. Recently I posted “The Prompt-o-Matic #5,” the latest in that writing prompt series. This one is for everyone—no paywall.
*Please note: I am no longer posting about these roundups on X/Twitter.*
Essays from partner publications…
Before 2016 I Dated Republicans Without Much Shame
by Ginny Hogan
“Before 2016, I dated Republicans without much shame. I didn’t agree with them politically, but I subscribed to the mathematically-sound belief that the wider your net, the more likely you are to get a boyfriend. Besides, I thought politics was private; how we vote is anonymous, after all. However, on a date in early 2018, when a man told me his only deal breaker was that he wouldn’t date a Trump voter, I responded with, “well, of course I wouldn’t date a Trump voter.” And I meant it. Which meant that somewhere along the way, something had shifted.”
Between Conversion and Repentance: Christian Wiman on the Uses of Fiction
by Christian Wiman
“A butterfly is stuck to the mesh around the store-bought firewood outside the back door this morning. I watch my daughter watching it. Large black wings crimsoned with matching markings, pulsing like some exquisite viscera. It’s appalling, sometimes, to see life pouring into a child like a torrent too big for its channel.”
Sinéad O'Connor Helped Me Find My Voice
by
“I am trying to write about food and my relationship with my father and I keep writing variations of the phrase, “My father died almost eighteen years ago.” Why do I prefer this phrasing to “My father has been dead almost eighteen years?” Something active about the revision. Something alive: My father died. Even in that ending he was acting. To be dead is to be passive, acted upon by dirt and time. I am mostly fine telling people that my father died but I find every day, even eighteen years later, that I am still not ready for my father to be dead.”
Playing God
by Richard Kelly Kemick
“I've stopped telling people about my village. Not because I’m ashamed of it. All I have to show for my quarter-century on the planet are two worthless arts degrees, my job as a self-employed dog walker, and a book of poetry destined to sell fewer than twelve copies. My Christmas village—bustling with eighteen buildings, more than sixty people, and countless accessories—is probably the most impressive thing I’ll do with my life. And I’m okay with that.”
Ghosts of December
by Samantha Hunt
“The ghouls of October are practice runs for December when our ghosts really make their presence felt. By presence though, I mean absence. December can hurt more than other months. Repeated rituals permit a magical thinking. We say, last (or last, last, last) year, at this time, our dead were still here.”
Call Me Mom Again
by
“My mom wasted no time reconnecting with her sworn enemy after my dad’s death. She eased back into my grandmother’s life in the same way she’d started — with persistent, mundane phone calls about the very topics I spoke to Gram about when I played the primary caller role: The Weather, The Health Issues, and The Goddamn Neighbors.”
Essays from around the web…
Launching
by Caroline Grant
“Standing with my son at Yosemite, I see that he is so ready to launch, to slip loose from the gravity of my parenting and my expectations. His writing for those applications will carry him someplace new, and I am wildly curious about it. But I will content myself with following along in his slipstream. I ask if he’ll at least please let us know where he plans to enroll, and he grins a bit and shrugs, noncommittal.”
My Mentor Quietly Quit Me
by Sarah Herrington
“After a few more weeks of anxious roaming, I couldn’t take it anymore. I bought a ticket and some Xanax. I had found her stories at 16 when I was battling anorexia. Back then, her words made me feel less alone. Now, flying as a heartsick 30-year-old, I read a scene from her work over and over about two women making two separate movies, each with the other in it. There was an underlying theme of love being healing, but I guessed that only happened in fiction.”
When a Breakup Is an Act of Love
by Annie Dwyer
“This time, I could see the dead end. I wanted something consistent, and he couldn’t give it to me. I was willing to wait for someone who could. Instead of failure, it felt like an act of love.”
How Success Made Me Question My Worth
by
“At a certain point, a switch flipped in my brain, and I no longer felt like I was able to take time off from work—or even just work a normal eight-hour shift. Instead, I grinded away for upwards of 10 hours a day, eating dinner at my desk. I spent weekends lying on the couch, too exhausted to accept invitations from friends. The problem wasn’t that I had failed to become a successful professional. The problem was that I succeeded.”
I Am Marked an Enemy Perfect for Collapse: Sapphic Joy and Black Death in the Last of Us Part 2
by Stephanie Dinsae
“The two find a downstairs weed den, grown and curated by Eugene, one of their late townmates. As Ellie, I interact with a few artifacts of the den, including an iconic gas mask bong. I then interact with a glass jar of at least seven joints, which seems to be sealed shut, considering the fact that neither I nor Dina can open it properly. After struggling for just a few seconds, Dina slams the jar onto the ground. As Ellie, I am surprised by her reckless resolve to get things done, probably also a bit amused and intrigued.”
Despair is the Squirrel in my Rafters
by Jennifer D. Munro
“But in my attic, you’re an interloper. You shred my insulation, gnaw coated copper, make my joists your toilet. I lie awake all night with imaginings, as I used to: What if he has a gun this time? How far do bullets travel through walls? I still check the deadbolt every night. And check again.”
I Have Never Regretted My Abortion
by
“I often think about how my perception of this whole situation has morphed over time. Leading up to my abortion, I was filled with fear and doubt about whether I was doing the “right” thing. Feeling confident in my decision didn’t necessarily make it any easier. But those uncomfortable feelings subsided once the procedure was complete. Afterward, I felt relieved. Empowered, even. I was able to do something that is notoriously hard to do, to make a decision for my future and feel confident about that choice. I have never once regretted it.”
🚨Announcements:
📢 is Leading another “Writing the Mother Wound” workshop.
This one-day intensive runs from 12-3pm ET on Sunday, December 17th. Tuition is $75. For registration & inquiries, email writingourlivesworkshop@gmail.com
📢 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.
You can also support Memoir Monday—and indie bookstores!—by browsing this Bookshop.org list of every book that’s been featured at the Memoir Monday reading series. It’s a great place to find some new titles to add to your TBR list!
Thank you so much for all the links to the personal essays - such a lot of work to curate them for us.
I love first reading your essays post - I love to read through the paragraphs you have chosen, small nuggets of what is to come. They are the frame for a window that I will open (or may not depending on how busy I am) to discover more. But even if I don't click on the link, I have been shown the possibilities that lay beyond, and I am content.
Thank you for including Marissa G's essay about her abortion!