Eleven Personal Essays to Read Over the Thanksgiving Holiday...
Welcome to Memoir Monday—a weekly newsletter featuring the best personal essays from around the web, and a quarterly reading series, brought to you by Narratively, The Rumpus, Catapult, Granta, Guernica, Oldster Magazine, Literary Hub, and Orion Magazine — plus many additional publications.
You might have noticed we also have a nice new logo, thanks to Ian MacAllen of Design is the Message!
In addition to the weekly curation, there are now original personal essays under the heading of First Person Singular, for paying subscribers.
The tenth original essay, published in the First Person Singular series in November, is “Sobriety Through the Major Aracana” by Christy Tending. The eleventh original essay is coming later this week. Submissions are open. You can find submissions guidelines and more on the “About” page.
Our first in what will be a series of seminars was Publicity 101 For Writers with book publicist Lauren Cerand, was held October 8th. Paying subscribers can view the resulting video here.
Essays from partner publications…
On Not Wanting Children
by Kathryn Mockler
“When I get the do-you-have-kids question now, and I cheerfully say, 'No, I didn’t want children,' the reaction is much different than when I was younger. It’s like people don’t know what to make of me. Who am I if I am not someone’s mother? They will end the conversation quickly or become cold. It doesn’t matter if it’s an acquaintance or a stranger. Recently I interacted with a nurse who had this reaction. Suddenly all the warmth and familiarity vanished, and I became someone with whom they could no longer relate.”
We Have Our Ghosts
by Elodie Olson-Coons
“On some level, I wish I’d been able to keep every tiny scrap of her, of the house, of our life — even the ones I barely remember or don’t understand. I hesitate, holding a picture of a dog she painted when she was seven or eight years old, then consign it gently to the flames. Good archiving, like a good renovation, means having the strength — the clarity of vision — to throw all but the essential away.”
Future Air
by David Gessner
“Early in the pandemic I began to wonder about what the world will be like when my daughter Hadley is my age. I have recently heard people use the phrase “living in the future” to refer to what life on earth feels like now. But what about the actual future? The future of weather? The future of heat? The future of storms? The future of fire? The future of human beings trying to adapt? The future of community and commitment to place? The future of, god help us, government? With that in mind I began to reach out to scientists and asked them to help me imagine the world of 2063 when Hadley will be sixty.”
Dorthe Nors Spends the Shortest Night of the Year on Denmark’s North Sea Coast
by Dorthe Nors
“The power of place. You came here once with all you had, left it and travelled on. And so it is filled with fragments of memory. They flicker, the fragments. They rise like dust in long unaired rooms. In these rooms, I move abruptly, unexpectedly. My movements make the particles rise. They dance in the light, my place-bound memories. Only for a moment, etched briefly in my mind. Most of them never to be grasped again.”
Brother
by Vanessa Onwuemezi
“Once as I stood next to my brother, he screamed my name. What is it to be named and have that name called out? Shaped by mouth and tongue of another. His body was small but the sound – back arched, eyes closed and knees bent so loud he called for me to come, felt my name stand tall with his voice and face to the sky and sound rung, rung my ears my bones shook. So loud, I would have come running towards the sound generated by this small body, back arched, knees bent under the weight of that sound.”
You Are Here
by Sara Eckel
“Your life synopsis sounds good, but it implies something that isn’t true. It implies that you have a life in New York—that you are taking lunches with writers and attending literary parties or have any social life at all. But although you have lived in New York for two years, you still don’t feel like a part of New York. You’re still pressing your nose against the glass, trying to figure out how to traverse the invisible, immeasurable gulf to the other side.”
Essays from Around the Web…
No Party Like a Chee Party
by Jennifer Chong Schneider
“Alexander Chee (gay, Korean American, sometimes-drag queen, tarot reader, writer and teacher of fiction and nonfiction) was the guest editor for Best American Essays 2022, out now, and from his introduction right through to the last pages, he’s done something difficult and magical: he’s used the platform to de-tokenize otherness in a mainstream anthology.”
Always Fine
by Jane Ratcliffe
“I grew up longing to be in a war. As a younger child, all I saw was the camaraderie, the adventure, and the bravery. The pure pluck of staying alive while bombs tumbled down and your city burned. Later, as a teen, my life felt suburban and safe, despite my penchant for punk rock. In my twenties, thirties and forties, I lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and even my wildness felt shielded, contained. Until September 11. First Lady Michelle Obama once said the presidency reveals who you are. Long before she uttered this, I intuitively felt as much about war. Some part of me, a part stuck deep to the bone, felt I needed to be in a war to reveal myself.”
The Hamsa Blues
by Judy Bolton-Fasman
“And then my thoughts are interrupted. Out of the corner of my eye, I see it – glowing ocean blue –the hamsa. I lay it on the palm of my hand, this ancient charm believed to be irradiated with luck and blessings. The hamsa is shaped like an open-palmed hand with five fingers pointing downward, indicating something is to be recovered. It sometimes has a small jewel of an eye embedded in it, which functions to ward off evil spirits. A person wearing the hamsa telegraphs they are beyond harm’s reach – good luck bands their world. The hamsa is also nuclear, turning hot then cold. “You blow hot and cold,” my father always scolded me. Prescient. My hamsa is turquoise marbled with streaks of pink. It suddenly quiets the maltreated child inside of me.”
For My Mother and Me, Cooking Was Complicated
by Rachel Paige King
“Now that she's been dead 10 years, my mother and I are finally starting to get along. She accompanies me on my trips to the supermarket. I sense her hovering nearby while I inspect the produce carefully, exactly as she taught. She hangs out with me in the kitchen, too. I chop vegetables while she issues orders: She's still bossy, but I no longer mind. Maybe it's because I'm relaxed and sipping a cocktail — her favorite — a crisp gin martini straight up with a twist. It reminds me of the times when she would occasionally let me, a young teenager, take a tiny sip of her bracing pre-dinner drink.”
When a Long-Ago Boyfriend Died, I Couldn’t Believe the Pain I Still Felt
by Jamie Beth Cohen
“The fact is, I’m happily married and have been for 18 years. I had spent decades with only the vaguest notion of what was going on in Jason’s life, and I was not in love with him when he died. Unless maybe I was, unless maybe I still am.”
🚨Announcements:
📢 Memoir Monday founder (and reading series host) Lilly Dancyger is offering a workshop:
Essay Revision Intensive, 12/3
📢 Apply for the Writing Between the Vines FREE Writing Residency!
Writing Between the Vines writing residency is celebrating its 10th year in 2023. Applications are now open for solo and co-residency retreats. There are 5 locations available. Deadline is November 28th.
📢 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.
A paragraph or a few lines from the piece that will most entice readers.
Because of data limits for many email platforms, going forward we will only include artwork from our partner publications. No need to send art.
*Please be advised, however, 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!
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