The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire 183: Deborah Sosin
"'Escape Velocity' sheds light on what it means to claim our true selves later in life without severing our close family bonds."
Since 2010, in various publications, I’ve interviewed authors—mostly memoirists—about aspects of writing and publishing. Initially I did this for my own edification, as someone who was struggling to find the courage and support to write and publish my memoir. I’m still curious about other authors’ experiences, and I know many of you are, too. So, inspired by the popularity of The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, I’ve launched The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire.
Here’s the 183rd installment, featuring Deborah Sosin, author of Escape Velocity: How One 70-Year-Old Push-Pulled Her Way Out of Her Too-Much-Not-Enough Family (70 Micro-Memoirs, 70 Words Each). - Sari Botton
P.S. Check out all the interviews in The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series.
Deborah Sosin is a writer, editor, psychotherapist, and GrubStreet instructor. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine, Salon, Cognoscenti, Brevity Blog, Oldster Magazine, Short Reads, The Manifest-Station, two anthologies, and numerous other publications. She is a volunteer reader for In Short: A Journal of Flash Nonfiction. Debbie also authored the award-winning picture book Charlotte and the Quiet Place and a clinical workbook, Sober Starting Today. Debbie has an MFA from Lesley University and an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work. She lives outside of Boston. More at: www.deborahsosin.com and Write It Like It Is Substack.
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
I just turned 72 last week. I started keeping a diary at age 8, so, that would be 64 years.
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
Escape Velocity: How One 70-Year-Old Push-Pulled Her Way Out of Her Too-Much-Not-Enough Family (70 Micro-Memoirs, 70 Words Each), with illustrations by Anna Hall. Just released on February 27, my birthday.
Escape Velocity, a linked set of 70 micro-memoirs of 70 words each, chronicles my decades-long quest to overcome my family’s gravitational pull and forge a separate self, capable of a loving, intimate relationship. Anna Hall’s evocative illustrations add depth and humor to the scenes, which include transformative therapy sessions, an empowering alpine road trip, a clothing-optional retreat, and some miserable midlife dates.
What number book is this for you?
Three. My first is a mindfulness-themed picture book, Charlotte and the Quiet Place, which I wrote as a side project in my MFA program at Lesley University—it went on to win several indie awards. My second is a clinical workbook, Sober Starting Today Workbook: Powerful Mindfulness & CBT Tools to Help You Break Free from Addiction, drawn from my past work as an outpatient therapist at a behavioral health clinic specializing in substance use disorders.
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
It’s a collection of 70 micro-memoirs, part creative nonfiction, part prose poem. And it’s illustrated with 70 line drawings by Anna Hall. Someone called it “genre-bending,” so I’ll go with that.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
Escape Velocity, a linked set of 70 micro-memoirs of 70 words each, chronicles my decades-long quest to overcome my family’s gravitational pull and forge a separate self, capable of a loving, intimate relationship. Anna Hall’s evocative illustrations add depth and humor to the scenes, which include transformative therapy sessions, an empowering alpine road trip, a clothing-optional retreat, and some miserable midlife dates. At 70, I face the loss of both parents and the challenges—and delights—of flying solo. Escape Velocity sheds light on what it means to claim our true selves later in life without severing our close family bonds.
What’s the back story of this book including your origin story as a writer? How did you become a writer, and how did this book come to be?
In the spring of 2024, my friend Holly asked me to contribute to her zine in response to the prompt “A Thing I Can’t Part With.” Exactly 50 words. I’ve always loved the challenge of concision and compression in flash prose—I’ve published short essays and a picture book, written a ten-minute play, and performed in a Moth-like storytelling event. I sent Holly a piece about my bedraggled Teddy bear, the precise word count a thrilling exercise. So thrilling, I had the crazy idea to write 70 micro-memoirs of 70 words each to mark my 70th birthday, a few weeks earlier. I wrote about the book’s origin story on Brevity Blog, “A Macro Micro-Memoir Challenge.”
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
Writing Escape Velocity was delicious torture from start to finish, which turned out to be just under two years. It was one thing to have an unusual idea and another altogether to wrestle it into something more than a series of unrelated snippets from my life. Initially, I searched for one story amid a flood of possible stories that I could’ve shaped. Finally, after periods of “Forget it, this is impossible” as well as periods of “Keep going, there’s something here,” I realized that the true arc of my life over seven decades has to do with finding my way out of my enmeshed family and establishing a separate self as a single woman.
I couldn’t have stuck with that process if not for the wisdom and encouragement of my developmental editor, Michael Lowenthal, who willingly entered the torture chamber with me. With his guidance and deep understanding, I wrote well over 100 micros of 70 words and eventually chose those that best told my story. Even at the very end, I had to cut some favorites and write new ones as new layers of the story made themselves known. More delicious torture.
The publishing journey lasted only about eight months—I researched dozens of indie and small and hybrid presses, many of which were closed to submissions. The length (4,900 words!) was a tough sell for some publishers but I pressed on and got some form rejections. At some point, I realized if I got a bite, I probably wouldn’t even see the book for two or three years and the existential clock was getting louder. What to do? I knew my material hit a chord, because ten excerpts published last May got over 59K views on Oldster Magazine!
Then, I saw Anna Hall’s marvelous illustration for another excerpt called “Bosom Buddies,” which appeared on Short Reads. I began to envision a different book and talked with Anna about its potential. So I decided to take creative control and self-publish through IngramSpark. Turns out Anna’s 70 line drawings form an unexpectedly powerful arc of their own.
Despite the challenges and expense of self-publishing, I couldn’t be happier with my decision. It’s been an intense six months of collaboration with Anna and…here we are. Launched! I would like to note, too, that I ran a small crowdfunder for friends and family to contribute toward the creative and production costs and met my goal in less than two weeks. I’m so grateful for the incredible support.
Initially, I searched for one story amid a flood of possible stories that I could’ve shaped. Finally, after periods of “Forget it, this is impossible” as well as periods of “Keep going, there’s something here,” I realized that the true arc of my life over seven decades has to do with finding my way out of my enmeshed family and establishing a separate self as a single woman.
How did you handle writing about real people in your life? Did you use real or changed names and identifying details? Did you run passages or the whole book by people who appear in the narrative? Did you make changes they requested?
Escape Velocity centers on my relationship with my family of origin and issues of separation and individuation, if you will. My parents are gone, so the only family member alive who has a role in the story is my brother. I showed him a couple of drafts. While he worried about revealing such personal information about myself and our family, he also came to understand that this is what memoirists do and that it’s more about shaping a decent story than disclosing ancient family history.
For non-family members, I used only first names. I occasionally used real names for people who have died or people I know will never read this book, but mostly I created pseudonyms. The only person I consulted was my college boyfriend, Steve, who appears in a sequence of scenes early on. We’ve been friends for over 50 years now. He was totally fine with what I wrote and even offered a better adjective—”hunky,” not “muscular,” to describe his boyfriend (umm, it’s complicated).
Who is another writer you took inspiration from in producing this book? Was it a specific book, or their whole body of work? (Can be more than one writer or book.)
Abigail Thomas’s Safekeeping, obviously, was an early influence in terms of how the “snippet” form could succeed—and all of her other books! I love her directness, her authenticity, her humor. Before I began this project, I read Beth Ann Fennelly’s Heating & Cooling. Once I was immersed in my work, I studied it more closely to analyze her use of titles and pacing. H&C was not conceived as a linked set of micro-memoirs; many of her pieces had been published before. Can’t wait to read her latest micro-memoir collection, The Irish Goodbye.
I had trouble finding a linked set of micro-memoirs conceived and constructed as such, much less one with a specific word count. I did find a book by Dan Rhodes, published over 20 years ago, called Anthropology: 101 True Love Stories, comprised of 101 pieces of exactly 101 words each. Even though it’s fiction, it inspired my vision for my own book’s format—small volume, title on the left page, text on the right. And my book has not just the title now but an original illustration for every piece.
I also became familiar with Darien Hsu Gee’s work (Allegiance and numerous flash essays). She writes and teaches micro-memoir as a unique genre and grasps the craft aspects of this special form better than anyone I’ve encountered. I subscribe to her Substack and have taken her webinars. I also attend Allison K Williams’s and Sharla Yates’s “Craft Talks,” which have featured Dinty W. Moore, Heather Sellers, and Bethany Jarmul on flash and micro-memoir writing. I watched Estelle Sobel Erasmus’s and Darien Gee’s interviews with Beth Ann Fennelly. I felt like these wonderful writers and teachers were speaking the same language. I love craft talk! I was one of those geeky late-life MFA students who loved doing short craft analyses almost more than the writing. Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer helped on that count, as did Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story and Sven Birkerts’s The Art of Time in Memoir.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
Flash nonfiction and micro-memoir are hugely popular right now, perhaps because our attention spans have shrunk so much during the Covid and post-Covid years (I know mine has). I would encourage people to study the craft. Sign up for Darien’s Substack, subscribe to Brevity and In Short and Short Reads and In a Flash and many other nonfiction mags that feature flash. Find a trustworthy writing group. Take classes. Hire a skilled editor if you can. And read, read, read. Study how others are telling their tight, powerful, carefully constructed tales. It’s a difficult but supremely rewarding art form. And, remember, it’s not about cutting down a longer essay. It’s about building the micro from the ground up.
That said, I would never, ever recommend setting an insane goal of writing a set amount of micros of the exact same length. Well, maybe ten total?! But my mother always said I was “stubborn.” (I prefer “persistent.”) So once I set that 70x70 goal, that was it. My obsessive self had to see it through no matter what. And now it’s a book.
What do you love about writing?
Here’s a good example: When I wrote that 50-word piece about “a thing I can’t part with” for my friend Holly’s zine, I worked hard at it, trying to make each word work and not “cheat” with filler words or fudges. Holly and I went back and forth a couple of times and it became a literary challenge. She noted that most of the other contributors weren’t crafting theirs, just sharing their first thoughts—that’s the difference. I sweated each word—there’s that delicious torture again. How can I make this the tightest, strongest piece it can be? What can stay? What must go? What can be hinted at without confusing the reader? That is my happiest place—being in a flow, totally absorbed, searching for the right word, the right pace, tone, balance, going deep, being honest, pushing for perfection.
What frustrates you about writing?
Like most authors, working my butt off on a piece that means a lot to me—it could be an essay or a picture book project—for hours, days, weeks, maybe months, then looking for a home for it and not finding one. The creative process is rewarding but publishing a piece of writing I really care about is extremely gratifying and validating, so the rejections (or silences) are hard. Also, second-guessing myself is frustrating—that moment when the “Oh, I think I have something here!” switches over to “This is crap.” But I’m getting much better at noticing that inner dialogue and accepting it as part of the process.
What about writing surprises you?
More often than not these days, when I sit down to write, I can get into a flow fairly quickly. This is surprising because for many years I wouldn’t even approach the page without having a vision of what I wanted to say or a clear publishing goal in mind. In my MFA program at Lesley, which I entered at age 60, my first mentor, the wonderful Jane Brox, said: “Just write, don’t analyze. You don’t have to know the answer.” I use that as my mantra all the time now and pass it along to students and colleagues. So freeing! And I know that even if something is a mess to begin with that I now have the skills to see the problems and revise until it’s ready to go.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?
No. I used to keep a regular diary but stopped sometime in my 50s. I go with the flow—or the deadline in some cases. With Escape Velocity, I would sometimes write for hours and hours a day and forget to eat half the time. Or I’d wake up in the middle of the night and my brain started churning out phrases and words, so, of course, I’d have to scribble them down.
Despite the challenges and expense of self-publishing, I couldn’t be happier with my decision. It’s been an intense six months of collaboration with illustrator Anna Hall and…here we are. Launched! I would like to note, too, that I ran a small crowdfunder for friends and family to contribute toward the creative and production costs and met my goal in less than two weeks. I’m so grateful for the incredible support.
Do you engage in any other creative pursuits, professionally or for fun? Are there non-writing activities you consider to be “writing” or supportive of your process?
Since 2009, I’ve offered Write It Like It Is freewriting groups—now online. I give prompts. People write, then share. No critique, no editing, no workshopping. Purely generative. Right now, I have two ongoing morning groups per week that have been together since the beginning of Covid. The groups are incredibly gratifying and can be quite powerful. Another Brevity Blog I wrote talks about the experience.
Making music has always been a part of my life. A former cellist, I’m also a lifelong choral singer, currently a member of the New World Chorale in the Boston area. In the process of learning a piece of music as a group, I experience a similar, soul-level sense of purpose and collaboration. All those black dots on the pages, if we get them lined up, add up to something beautiful, something we have the privilege of sharing among ourselves and for our audiences, whether it’s French art songs or Broadway tunes or Beethoven’s 9th. The best.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
Right now, I’m immersed in activities related to the release of Escape Velocity and hope to ride this train (rocket?) as long and as far as I can. I’m writing some related essays to promote the book. A new Brevity Blog about my choice to self-publish posts in on March 11. Hoping to do more events, podcasts, panels, etc. I doubt I’ll do another linked set of micro-memoirs, but I love the form so much, I’ve already got some one-off flash pieces in the works and on submission. We’ll see what happens. For Boston locals, my launch event in conversation with Michael Lowenthal; will be held at Newtonville Books, Monday, March 23, 7 pm, and I’ll be in conversation with Nicole Graev Lipson at Porter Square Books / Cambridge on Wednesday, April 15, 7 pm.
Order the book here.
Inspiring creativity!
Love this so much!