Soooo Many Great Personal Essays to Read this Week...
Plus: TWO events where I'll talk with Elissa Altman about her new memoir/craft book, "Permission," Narratively's True Romance contest, and a call for submissions for Literary Liberation.
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.
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’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.
*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 this and paying contributors, please consider becoming a paid subscriber…*
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Essays from partner publications…
There’s Something Unsettling About the Neighbors
by
“Days before, in a lawyer’s office, after we’d signed the papers and held the keys to our new house, our real estate agent told us these neighbors were nosy, but mostly harmless. Did she emphasize mostly? In our driveway, they introduced themselves with their hands out, walking closer and closer to us. Wes pointed at their yellow house and said, This is the house that was built for us, then Jim followed with, We know all the families who’ve ever lived in your house, and then one of them said, We gave Jerry that statue in your backyard. I didn’t realize we’d been walking backward. By the time they stopped talking, they had backed us up against our door.”
I Lived under the Shadow of My Dad’s Cancer. Then the Same Cancer Came for Me
by Claire Cameron
“When I was young, I thought I’d stop having nightmares. I imagined growing up was supposed to be about leaving childhood fears behind. But now that I’m older, I know that it doesn’t work that way. I’m still scared; it’s just the things that terrify me have changed.”
Contra
by
“I want to explain how they went about injecting the deer with birth control. The hunters from the Humane Society donned their orange vests, hopped in the car, and drove around in search of deer. Like cops in the suburbs, bored and looking for some action. The deer come out at dusk. The sky is purple. It’s hard to see quite right. People call it the magic hour.”
How Dance Can Save Your Life
by
“I was 55 and recovering from a year of treatment for breast cancer, the brutal side effects of which had recently been compounded by an improbable broken ankle. The port jutting from my sternum was covered by a long-sleeved t-shirt and my left pectoral muscle pulled and ached at the surgical site, stiff and scarred despite months of gentle therapy. But the seasons were changing: my bones were healing, the exhaustion of radiation and chemo was lifting, and my hair was growing back.”
Essays from around the web…
Finding My Way Back Home: A Visitor’s Reflection on Topanga
by
“When news of the wildfires reached the east coast where I live, the horror of it all emotionally paralyzed me. The TV coverage, the videos, streaming, newspaper reports, texts, emails, phone calls, the constant ‘Watch Duty’ app alerts on my phone….I could barely survive the fires and the devastation from 3000 miles away—in complete safety mind you—much less imagine what it was like to actually be {there}, to bear witness, to be awash in fear of life, limb, and property as the winds propelled the flames further and further afield. Fire everywhere. Where she lands nobody knows. No place was safe.”
Teaching in a Sanctuary City Under Siege
by
“I love receiving students from all over the world; it is a tremendous privilege to welcome them, to learn their cultures and their stories. But will they all disappear in the next four years? Will they die if deported to countries that may no longer want them?"
First Friends, Once Removed: In immigrant families, sometimes your cousins can be your earliest friends.
by Diana Ruzova
“‘You don’t seem like an only child,’ people often tell me after I reveal to them that I was raised without siblings. Unsure if this comment is a compliment or a backhanded remark, I usually shrug and reply with something like, ‘Well, I grew up with cousins…’ But what I don’t often say is my cousins didn’t quite feel like siblings, either. They felt like something else.”
Breastfeeding During a Heatwave
by
“My milk-drinker, my baby, my darling girl. In my arms, at my breasts, in your name, I thrum with the desire that you will grow and flourish alongside your human and nonhuman kin. To be your mother, your food source, to obliterate my sense of self in the name of milk-making, is to hold on to a treacherous hope for a better future not just for you, but for every and all. I name you with the fervent wish not just that you will live, but that the earth will live alongside you.”
The Nazis Made A Horrifying Move In 1933. I'm Terrified Trump Is Now Doing The Exact Same Thing.
by Ali Moss
“Parenting a trans kid right now means walking through the world with the weight of his health and safety on my shoulders — a much more arduous load than I carry for my cisgender daughter, than I carried for E. mere months ago. The intensity of this burden — the visceral fear that bares its fangs throughout my days — has awoken in me the intergenerational trauma that is my legacy as the granddaughter of a woman who fled Nazi Germany as a teenager.”
Is It You? Or Is It Just Me?: Versions of the Self in Personal Shopper
by Abigail Oswald
“I’m always aware on some level when fantasy is being used to sell me things; I know when I’m being manipulated. Yet at the same time, I’ve always been a sucker for new beginnings. I can’t help but wonder how many selves I’ve brushed up against in department store fitting rooms. How many different people have I almost become?”
Desperate for Botox
by
“When Botox hits, it’s so good. You look in the mirror and you’re, like, ‘Hello, you beautiful doll.’ It seems significant that the most popular anti-aging intervention works at one’s own line of sight. Does Botox make you look younger to the average viewer, who sees you from all angles? Possibly not. But, to the viewer in the mirror (you) who looks mostly at your eyes, Botox seems like a miracle. We walk around with an image of our faces in our minds. As we get older, the mental image grows further apart from the reality. Botox brings the two slightly closer together again.”
From Married to Single Broke and Broken in 24 Hours
by
“I’ve made some of the worst decisions of my life at the most desperate times. I was never one to ‘sleep on it’ before jumping into something I might regret. Common sense, patience, risk assessment, and foresight were never my strong points. I took suggestions and advice as gospel if I asked someone’s opinion. Everyone knew better than me. The one thing I should’ve trusted above all else was the one thing I ignored — my gut.”
This home in Trivandrum knows its people by heart
by Akshaya Pillai
“The internet had everything. Too much of everything. The kind of plenty that flattens want. But to wander a city looking, sifting, hours of nodding and sighing, the pleasure of turning to each other and knowing, this one! To stand under bad lighting with dust on our hands, to find it not in a list but in a moment. There was something in that, something that made it ours before it was even pulled out of display and laid down.”
How I Realized I'm Asexual
by Mar
“I had my first sexual experience simply because it felt like something I needed to check off before university. It was lukewarm at best, so I convinced myself my disinterest in sex was just temporary—that with the right person, everything would click. Comforted by my narrative and having successfully shelved sex for the time being, I went about my life, ready to find The One.”
Bad Body
by Allison Kirkland
“My doctor, a tall white man, a friend of the family, looked at me before he checked a box at random and scrawled his cramped signature in black pen. ‘I just want to note that you’re asking me to lie by filling out this form,’ he said. I thought at first he was joking, and I looked up at him to laugh but saw that he wasn’t smiling. He made sure I heard him correctly. ‘You understand what I’m saying? If I get called in by the Board I’m going to tell them that you made me lie so that I don’t lose my license.’”
Purgatory in Two Parts
by
“I knew when to kneel, when to stand, and when to say, ‘and also with you.’ But when my head was bent over my clasped hands, I didn’t pray for Julia. I didn’t know what to pray for. Should I pray for her to live even though she’d be crippled with brain damage? Or ask a God I didn’t believe in to let her die as she wanted?”
🚨Announcements:
📢 TWO Remaining Events Where I’ll Talk with Permission author …
Readers,
’s new memoir/craft book Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create sits so squarely in my wheelhouse—and, honestly, that of most who write memoir and struggle to feel permitted to do it—that I’ve been doing a number of events with her about it. I hope some of you can make it to one of these remaining two!Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 8th from 8-9pm, is an in-conversation at Bookclub Bar in the East Village. Be sure to RSVP if you’re coming!
📢 x Belletrist True Romance Writing Prize
Narratively is accepting submissions for their Narratively x Belletrist True Romance Writing Prize. They are looking for remarkable memoir and reported stories that offer new perspectives and defy all odds, completely shifting our understanding of romance and relationships. The guest judges are star actor Emma Roberts and acclaimed producer Karah Preiss of Belletrist. Awards will be given in two categories: longform (1,000-5,000 words) and shortreads (up to 999 words); for longform, one grand prize winner will be awarded $3,000 and two finalists will be awarded $1,000 each; and for shortreads, one grand prize winner will be awarded $500 and two finalists will be awarded $250 each. For more information and to submit a story (or stories), head here. Note: There is a $20 entry fee for longform and a $10 fee for shortreads — which are waived for paid Narratively subscribers! (one in each category per person). The deadline to submit is Thursday, May 1, 2025.
📢 Call for Submissions for a Collaboration Between Memoir Land and Literary Liberation
Memoir Land and
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.
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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Thank you so much for including me, Sari! Such a fan of the work you do, and excited to check out this week's essays!
Look forward to this every week. Loved the piece about the neighbours - truly creeply - and also the short piece from WOW about the sister's suicide.