Essays, Workshops, Calls for Submissions, and an Anthology Editing Chat with Moi...
Workshops from Narratively, Anne Liu Kellor, Margaret Juhae Lee, and calls for submissions: Sinéad O’Connor, infidelity, Literary Liberation. Plus an ask-me-anything chat I'm holding August 7th.
Welcome to Memoir Land—a newsletter edited by
, 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.
The Lit Lab, featuring interviews—The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire—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) exclusively for paid subscribers.
Goodbye to All That, where I continue 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.
*While I have you…I could use some more support in the form of paid subscriptions. If I’ve featured your work or that of your publication’s contributors…if you’re a publicists whose clients I’ve regularly featured…if you just want to help me keep doing ALL THIS and paying contributors, please consider becoming a paid subscriber…*
Essays from partner publications…
Unburying My Mother’s Secret
by
“Karl and I were still in our honeymoon year of marriage when we made a trip to Connecticut to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. We arrived home while my parents were out to dinner, and I set a bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. After my parents returned and my mother went upstairs to take a bath, my father led me into the kitchen, pointed at my bottle of wine, and said, ‘There is no more alcohol in this house.’ Why? I wondered. I pressed him for an answer. After an uneasy silence, he looked at me and said, ‘Your mother has been keeping a secret.’”
My Drag Mother was the Center of our Family's Orbit
by
“Drag came to feel like a natural extension of myself. I was raised as a girl, yes, but my exuberant, camp, queer, and sometimes vulgar femininity and sensibilities—my personal brand of femme lesbianism—were certainly not in line with heterosexual societal norms for young Southern ladies. Yet drag embraced them. And drag in the Bible Belt felt like a huge fuck you to the zealots and fascists and “respectable” folks who wanted us all to die or disappear, who decreed that queer and trans people were sinners and perverts, out to corrupt the children and destroy traditional family values. They didn’t want the freaks out in public. It wasn’t good for their image or their immortal souls. But if they were going to call me a freak, I wanted to surround myself with as many other freaks as possible.”
Debuting at 70
by
“At my book party thirty years later, when I said a halting “yes” to revealing my age, I held my breath. Instead of the awkward silence I’d expected, I heard a swell of applause. A woman I’d never met told me I’d given her hope. ‘I’m 53,’ she said. ‘I was ready to give up, but now I’ve got to keep going.’ A writer in her 80s who’d just sent her memoir to an agent whispered, ‘It’s never too late.’”
Neko Case on Why Sinéad O’Connor Matters as Much Today as She Ever Did (Excerpted from Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O'Connor Means to Us)
by
“I was the human demographic The Lion and the Cobra was aimed at when it came out in 1987, but I resisted it. Why? Because I was a seventeen-year-old asshole. I hadn’t actually heard her music yet, but the hype was deafening, and I took that to be a red flag because I considered myself pretty fucking punk. (I fought hard for that feeling.) I also didn’t know yet that I wanted to be in a band, because I was a dumb fuckin’ girl and who would be into hearing me play? (Turns out I was not so punk.) I thought I already knew the answer to this question in my soul despite never actually asking it.”
Essays from around the web…
All I Wanted Was to Be the Popular Girl. My Teen Doesn’t Care About That.
by
“When you parent an only child, there’s no measure to gauge what’s typical and what’s cause for worry-induced insomnia. I knew Tess was not like other kids, but I cringed when I heard other parents call kids ‘off.’ It has become the de facto word to replace ’80s-era slurs for anyone with cognitive or behavioral challenges. It sounds to me like spoiled milk. Really, I reasoned, wasn’t her uniqueness a good thing?”
Amerikanka
by
“In Russia, my gender was not ‘woman’ but Amerikanka. My Americanness stuck out as obviously as the waifish, long-haired young man in poet sleeves whom Lena pointed out in the park one day, noting: ‘Smotri, eto nash goluboi!’ (‘Look, that’s our homosexual!’). I wore khaki hiking shorts, a black tank top, and black Danish walking sandals almost every day. When I walked around town with my wide-legged stride—the walk that my grandfather in Texas called ‘pulling a trailer’—my nationality was visible from a mile away. Every day after my Russian classes at the university, I walked back to Lena’s apartment with my Russian-American friend Olga, the only student from my college whom I deemed serious enough about speaking Russian to hang with me. Crowds of little boys sometimes followed us, throwing crabapples and yelling things about Americans at our backs. I couldn’t understand their words, but I knew they weren’t nice. Olga and I ignored them and kept walking as hard little balls rained down all around us and bounced off the sidewalk like a sudden hailstorm.”
My Midnight in Prague
by
“I have a sense of achiness, introspection, and emotional despair as we hike the hills of the ‘City of a Hundred Spires.’ It’s 90 degrees, and I’ve never done absinthe before… but I sense this isn’t what’s causing my struggle.”
I was a toothless teenager—here's how it shaped me
by
“As a kid, I didn’t think about the shame associated with teeth, about how much of my self-worth was wrapped around something I had no control over. But teeth are more than just teeth, or, at least, they were—and still are—for me.”
What Uncle James’ Heartbreak Taught Me
by
“I knew of my uncle’s love of dog sweaters, and his habit of sending flirty eyes towards couples that men wrongly interpreted as directed to the women dangling from their arms, but he never defined himself as a Friend of Bill’s. So excited by our dinner, I took no note if he was sober, sipping water to my wine, or tea to my sake. Uncle James had been the fun version of my dad, until he wasn’t. Until he lost the love of his life, and his heart became so broken he believed only alcohol could fill the cracks. Until alcohol killed him.”
Reimagining Grief
by
“Because I was in my early fifties, I didn’t tell anyone about Boris. I didn’t feel the need to. The dozens of characters I had created over the years for fiction were imaginary friends in some way. If I could talk to them when developing plots and personalities, how was Boris any different? Where do the characters we create come from anyway? In 1896, my paternal great-grandfather, Louis Cohen, fled Russia to avoid being conscripted into the Czar’s army, or worse, be massacred during a pogrom. Perhaps my psyche had constructed Boris as an agglomeration of my ancestor and his authoritative oppressor to exhibit strength. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe Boris was one of a million souls hanging out in the Jungian collective unconscious, waiting to be plucked to guide those who needed help.”
All That Grows, Grows Back
by Allison C. Macy-Steines
“When I was six years old—a year that stands out in my life like an overly ripe scab—hair pulling took over without warning. My younger sister Kaitlyn had contracted what the doctors thought was a viral encephalitis. She suddenly started having hundreds, sometimes thousands, of seizures a day, screaming around the clock. A week after Kaitlyn’s first major hospitalization, my grandma, whom I adored, died from breast cancer. I missed the first day of first grade to attend her funeral, and I started having nightmares. Anxiety bubbled and puckered inside of my body, looking for a way out…So I pulled. I pulled as if my life depended on it. Back then, the pulling wasn’t a conscious decision, but now I recognize that pulling allowed me to hyperfocus on the hairs on my body rather than the problems in my life.”
The Endless Day
by
“I have not slept since who knows how long or eaten since forever. I dream of the cheese sandwich that is coming, and then stealthily check the corners of my mouth to see if I’m drooling. Next, I languorously support my chin in one hand, like a Modigliani model.”
I Was Horrified By What A Teacher Asked My Daughter To Do. His Response To Me Was Just As Disturbing.
by
“In Sleeping Beauty, Aurora’s parents destroy all the spindles in the kingdom after the evil fairy Maleficent says the princess will prick her finger on one and die — yet she still manages to find one. Aurora is drawn to it, though it’s locked away in a tower, as if her demise is inevitable. What I didn’t know then, but research is now proving, is that eating disorders may also be genetic, so, despite all my efforts, I watched a perfect storm headed straight for my daughter.”
🚨Announcements:
📢 Anthology Editing Ask-Me-Anything Chat August 7th at 4-5pm ET with me, , Editor of the Bestselling Anthologies Goodbye to All That and Never Can Say Goodbye…
Hey, everyone. I’ve just enabled the Substack chat function for paid subscribers to Memoir Land, and plan to start using it occasionally for popular topics .
Lately people have been asking if/when I might offer another anthology editing workshop like the popular one I used to lead at Catapult. (Several of my students went on to get anthology deals!) I am considering doing this in the fall or winter. For now, though, I’ve got too much on my plate, but I thought I’d hold a quick-and-dirty ask-me-anything chat on the topic with paid subscribers.
Mark your calendars for this on Thursday, August 7th from 4-5pm ET. Again, its exclusively for paid subscribers, so if you’re interested, subscribe…
📢 Trauma Writing Workshop at
Starting on Saturday, August 9, Rebecca Evans leads a 3-part workshop, Untangling the Traumatic Narrative: Using Words to Access Our Wounds.
📢 Yearlong Creative Nonfiction Manuscript Program with September 2025 - August 2026
Are you working on a book-length memoir, collection of essays, or hybrid nonfiction project? Do you seek more support in committing to a regular writing practice, engaging with diverse readings and prompts, outlining your book’s structure, understanding the world of publishing, and connecting with literary community? Then this Yearlong Creative Nonfiction Manuscript Program for 8 women and nonbinary writers may be for you.
Together, cohort members will embark this fall on a journey of sharing their writing, stories, feedback, and questions with each other in community. We will hold generative and craft-based workshops twice a month on Zoom, and share writing, resources, and feedback weekly on Slack. One-on-one coaching calls, seasonal intention-setting, accountability check-ins, and examining our own deep-seated patterns and processes are also fundamental parts of the program, as well as a manuscript review of up to 80k words.
You might not finish a full draft in a year, but you will understand more deeply what your book is about, why you need to write it, and what it will take to stay the course. At least half of the spaces are reserved for BIPOC. Payment plans are available. Learn more at anneliukellor.com, then reach out to Anne you the application or to set up a discovery call. Applications are due by August 4, with the first workshop on Saturday, 9.27.
📢 “Nuts and Bolts” Seeking Sinéad O’Connor essays…
To celebrate the July launch of the anthology Nothing Compares to You: What Sinéad O'Connor Means to Us (One Signal), with contributions from notable essayists including Lidia Yuknavitch, Porochista Khakpour, Rayne Fisher-Quan, Megan Stielstra, and many more, anthology editors Sonya Huber and Martha Bayne will be running a series of additional essays about Sinead on the Substack "Nuts and Bolts." To celebrate and explore the legacy and impact of Sinéad O'Connor's music, protest, spirituality, and example of living her truths. Please send pieces of 2,000 words or fewer to sineadanthology@gmail.com, with a deadline of August 31, 2025. Pieces selected will appear in Summer 2025. All rights revert to the author after publication, and previously published essays are acceptable as long as the author holds the rights. Compensation for those chosen for publication will be one copy of the hardcover anthology.
📢 Eliciting Stories: how to talk to your loved ones about the past with Margaret Juhae Lee via Corporeal Writing
Workshop Sunday Aug. 17, 2025, 11 am to 1 pm (PST) over Zoom (a recording will be made available to all registrants for a limited period)
In this workshop, we will explore how to approach and speak to loved ones about the past, especially when painful memories are involved. Designed for writers in all genres, we will delve into creative approaches to opening up real (and imagined) conversations with family members, in particular, reticent elders—and even those who are no longer with us. A combination of writing exercises and practical advice from a seasoned journalist, this offering focuses on eliciting stories from those who might not want to remember, including ourselves.
📢 Call for Contributors to an Anthology about Infidelity
Tentative title: Stepping Out: Writings on Infidelity
Editors: Susan Ostrov Weisser, author of LOVELAND: A MEMOIR OF ROMANCE AND FICTION and Nan Bauer-Maglin, editor of GRAY LOVE and LOVING ARRANGEMENTS
This essay collection explores the enduring and complex issue of infidelity in romantic relationships, a topic that remains taboo and emotionally charged despite the evolving norms around love, commitment, and sexuality. The book will feature personal essays from those with direct or thoughtful insights into infidelity, whether as participants, victims, or observers. Analytic essays approaching the topic through psychological, sociological, historical, or literary lenses are welcomed. Reprints will be considered. Please send inquiries or a 1–2-page description to both Susan at weisser@adelphi.edu and Nan at Nan.Bauermaglin99@ret.gc.cuny.edu by August 31st. Be sure to include a short note about your previous writing, your profession, and any other relevant information about yourself.
📢 Call for Submissions for a Collaboration Between Memoir Land and Literary Liberation
Memoir Land and Literary Liberation will co-publish an essay series called “Writing A Liberatory Practice.” Rate: $150. For submissions guidelines, deadlines and more, visit Literary Liberation.
📢 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.
Your name and Substack profile link, if you have one, so I can tag you in the post.
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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Oh, thanks for including my toothless piece, appreciate it! :)
Thank you SO much for including my piece, "My Midnight In Prague." I feel honored to be in the company of such distinguished writers. This seriously made my day!