The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #135: Gail Straub
"All my books have been hybrids defying easy categories. I love to read books that defy categories, and that’s also mostly what I write."
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 135th installment, featuring Gail Straub, author most recently of Home Inside the Globe: Embracing Our Human Family. - Sari Botton
P.S. Check out all the interviews in The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series.
Gail Straub is the author of eight award-winning books, including the best-selling Empowerment, coauthored with David Gershon; the highly praised The Rhythm of Compassion; her feminist memoir Returning to My Mother’s House; her celebrated nature writing The Ashokan Way; and most recently, her critically acclaimed Home Inside the Globe. Gail cofounded the Empowerment Institute in 1981. A leading authority on women’s empowerment, she cofounded IMAGINE: A Global Initiative to help women heal from violence and contribute to their community. IMAGINE initiatives have taken root throughout Africa, India, and the Middle East, where they have impacted several million lives. Gail lives with her husband in the Hudson Valley in New York.
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
I am 76 years old, and I have been keeping journals since I was 14. I have been writing part time since I was in my 30s, but I only became a full-time writer when I turned 73. Until then, I had to squeeze my writing in on weekends and retreats and the like. It’s heaven to write full-time!
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
Home Inside the Globe: Embracing Our Human Family, published June, 2025.
What number book is this for you?
This is number eight.
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
The book is a synthesis of memoir, travelogue, and life lessons. The interior landscape is memoir, and the exterior landscape of the twelve cultures is travelogue, and what results from the intersection of inner and outer is life lessons. All my books have been hybrids defying easy categories. I love to read books that defy categories and that’s also mostly what I write.
Home Inside the Globe got written from heaps and heaps of journals spanning age 16 to 70. The book started as travel essays, but my editor said, “Sorry kiddo this is not a book of essays, this is a memoir, a heroine’s journey around the world.” I did not come to memoir easily, and this book was very hard to write.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
“In a world run amuck with seemingly irreparable differences and conflicts, Gail Straub’s memoir offers an antidote. As a seeker on pilgrimage across the Sahara with indigenous Tuaregs, trekking off the beaten trail high in the Himalayas, the intrepid Straub seeks out all that is different so that she can become whole. As an activist, Gail becomes immersed in Gorbachev-era Russia and Deng Xiaoping-era China. She empowers sex-workers in India and Syrian refugees in Jordan. Here out beyond man-made political borders, she finds a boundless realm where we connect as human beings transcending nationality, skin color, gender, socio-economic status, and religion. Home Inside the Globe is an invitation to awaken as individuals so that we can fully participate in creating a better world for all people.”
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?
The real original story is that I have been a voracious reader since grade school. My teachers couldn’t believe how much I read. And David, my husband of forty-four years, still can’t believe how much I read. For me there is an inextricable link between reading books and writing books. I started keeping journals when I was 14 and I was editor of my high school paper, and my college teachers encouraged me to write.
As a life-long activist I didn’t have much time to write, but I did keep up with my journals. And that’s how Home Inside the Globe got written from heaps and heaps of journals spanning age 16 to 70. The book started as travel essays, but my editor said, “Sorry kiddo this is not a book of essays, this is a memoir, a heroine’s journey around the world.” I did not come to memoir easily, and this book was very hard to write.
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
The book spans my life from 16 to 70 and it covers twelve very different and profound cultures. The scope is both wide and deep and finding the form, the structure that could hold that scope, was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. The book took eight years.
When I landed on the three parts—Girl: Being Formed, Woman: Taking Form, and Crone: Passing on the Form—things fell into place. But, being a memoir, my wise editor kept inviting me to go deeper, and deeper into the excavation of my life and that was mighty hard. The chapter on the Himalayas deals with my father’s death and the many unspoken aspects of his life. It was perhaps the most difficult chapter to write and not surprisingly readers tell me it is one of the most moving chapters along with the chapter on crossing the Sahara which deals with my mother’s death.
The book spans my life from 16 to 70 and it covers twelve very different and profound cultures. The scope is both wide and deep and finding the form, the structure that could hold that scope, was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. The book took eight years. When I landed on the three parts—Girl: Being Formed, Woman: Taking Form, and Crone: Passing on the Form—things fell into place.
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?
My publisher Greenleaf required that I change almost every name in the book except for my husband David and a few other close colleagues. The people with real names had to sign a release form after reading the passages with their names. This did not cause any problems. Many important people in the book, including my parents, had died, and I could use their real names. But scores of other people in the twelve cultures that I write about do not have their real names, and in some cases are represented as composites. I found this process necessary but arduous and draining.
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.)
Since this was a memoir that was also a global travelogue, I took inspiration from these books:
-Far and Away by Andrew Solomon (I have read most his other books).
-Horizon by Barry Lopez (I have read most his other books).
- Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (I have read most his other books).
-Home Inside the World by Amartya Sen.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
I would say that if they write journals that’s a good place to start. If not, maybe they can use the idea of writing a journal to jumpstart their writing. Writing is a spiritual practice and discipline. If I want to learn to play the violin well, or to play tennis well, then I have to practice, practice, practice. Writing is no different. As with any practice I will have good days and bad days, but they are all practice.
In my view it’s essential to carve out certain hours every day, or as many days as possible, for writing. To me writing needs to be an embodied priority. And I am a writer who reveres her editors. I know that I can’t write well without the reflection and support of a good editor. So, I always encourage new writers to get as far as they can and then find a good editor to help them take the next steps.
What do you love about writing?
I love many things about writing: that it is solitary and quiet; that when I write all distraction drops away. I love that when I write it’s just like spiritual practice, instead of sitting on a meditation cushion, I sit at my desk. And just like spiritual practice, when I write I have good days and bad days, but they are all practice. I suffered from really debilitating long Covid and the only thing that could take my mind off that suffering was writing. Writing saved me during that time.
What frustrates you about writing?
I don’t find writing per se frustrating, but I find the publication process and the promotion phase of the book tiresome and draining. In an ideal world I would just write my books, be sure they were well edited, and then be done with it!
What about writing surprises you?
How I think that I am writing a book about one thing and it as I go deeper it turns out to be something completely different. How what seems unimportant with a book in process, can turn out to be very important, and vice a versa. And how the book has a mind of its own, a soul of its own that often knows better than I do about what’s good for the book.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?
I happily have a strict schedule where I write most days for four hours, from 11:00am to 3:00pm, and on a really good day even five hours.
The chapter on the Himalayas deals with my father’s death and the many unspoken aspects of his life. It was perhaps the most difficult chapter to write and not surprisingly readers tell me it is one of the most moving chapters along with the chapter on crossing the Sahara which deals with my mother’s death.
Do you engage in any other creative pursuits, professionally or for fun? Are there non-writing activities do you consider to be “writing” or supportive of your process?
I read voraciously. And I love music, film, and theater and I often get both inspiration and ideas for my books from these other art forms. Sometimes they just encourage me to keep the faith, to keep at my writing. I am a passionate outdoor person, and I find time walking in nature is the perfect counterpoint to writing. I am away from my desk, moving, and very often I get my writing breakthroughs on walks. And I also find that being in deep conversation about the creative process with friends who are writers, painters, poets, or musicians gives me both inspiration and courage.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
I am well into my next book tentatively entitled Odysseys: Going Away, Gaining Knowledge, and Returning Home. It’s a book of travel essays and little sister to my last book, Home Inside the Globe. And then I have two more big books waiting inside my head to be written. And I hope that I am blessed with enough years to write them!
Love books that defy easy categories! I write books like this, too. They’re the only kind that interest me, often.
Nice