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 202nd installment, featuring Tracy Clark-Flory, author most recently of My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past. - Sari Botton
P.S. Check out all the interviews in The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series.
Tracy Clark-Flory is a journalist, essayist, and author of the memoir My Mother’s Daughter, which has gotten starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist. New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Traister says, “What a beautiful, immersive book… I cried!” Tracy is also the author of Want Me: A Sex Writer’s Journey into the Heart of Desire, an NPR Best Book of the Year.
She has written for Cosmopolitan, The Cut, Elle, Esquire, Glamour, Salon, The Guardian, Jezebel, Wired, Women’s Health, and many others. She also writes a weekly newsletter and co-hosts Dire Straights, a feminist podcast critiquing heterosexual love, sex, politics and culture. You can find all her links at tracyclarkflory.com.
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
I’m 42. I’ve been writing for most of my life—shoutout to the daily fan newsletter I wrote about Leonardo DiCaprio as a 12-year-old in 1997. Professionally, though, I’ve been writing for 19 years, ever since I got my first job right out of college as a feminist blogger at an online magazine.
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
It’s called My Mother’s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family’s Fractured Past, and it was published on May 5th by Gallery/Simon & Schuster.
What number book is this for you?
Number two!
My book is about how a DNA test connected me with my sister Kathy, who my mom placed for adoption at a home for unwed mothers in the sixties, twenty years before I was born. Kathy and I started asking questions about the past that our mom, who had died years earlier, could no longer answer. So, I set out to make sense of what had happened back in 1965.
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
I just call it a memoir, though it could be called “memoir plus” or a “reported memoir.” It weaves together my personal story with reporting, history, and feminist cultural criticism.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
My book is about how a DNA test connected me with my sister Kathy, who my mom placed for adoption at a home for unwed mothers in the sixties, twenty years before I was born. Kathy and I started asking questions about the past that our mom, who had died years earlier, could no longer answer. So, I set out to make sense of what had happened back in 1965.
I learned that our mom was one of over a million women who in the pre-Roe era were pulled into a coercive system designed to turn “bad girls” into proper women, wives, and mothers. It was meant to control women’s sexuality, promote marriage, and bolster the white nuclear-family norm. I realized that my own life had been profoundly shaped by my mother’s past. But I also uncovered a bigger story—about family secrets, shame, race, and the control of women’s bodies.
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?
There’s the practical explanation of how I came to be a writer: In college, I got an unpaid internship at an online magazine that segued into a paid job. But the more interesting explanation is that I grew up in a family with secrets—specifically, the secret of my sister, the adoption, and my mom’s trauma from losing her first daughter. Early on, I became a little detective, noticing all the clues that there was more to our story than I was being told, like the way my mom turned to stone whenever I begged for a sister. These were perfect circumstances for creating a journalist—someone who seeks out the truth.
But that’s just one small part of it. For most of my early career, I focused on writing about sex. In my 20s, I wrote viral personal essays about hookup culture that got me called vile names by misogynistic internet trolls and I reported on taboo topics, like the porn industry and sex worker rights. I recognized the parallels between my mom’s life and mine: she was sent away in shame and I turned shame into my career. I didn’t see a causal link; I thought it was a coincidence or poetic irony. That changed after I found my sister Kathy and started digging into our mom’s past. I came to understand that she had been pulled into a system defined by shame—and, in so many ways, she had been destroyed by it. Without even realizing it, I had been writing against what had been done to my mom.
In terms of how this book came into the world, I have to mention that every time I’ve gotten laid off, I’ve written a book. I wrote my first book after I was laid off from my full-time journalism job while 8 months pregnant. It was a terrifying and uncertain moment. I remember thinking, Who the hell is going to give me a job right before I have to go on maternity leave? Luckily, I was able to negotiate generous severance and I convinced myself that this was my best opportunity to finally write a book proposal. I wrote much of that proposal while my newborn napped on me—often in the dark by the glow of my laptop screen. I didn’t actually finish the proposal during my maternity leave, but I got enough foundational work done on it that I was able to wrap it up once I got a new job.
The second time I was laid off, I didn’t get generous severance, but it felt like a decision had been made for me. It’s one thing to leave a job to work on a book that may or may not sell. It’s another thing to lose a job and then try to make the most of it.
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
The hardest part of the writing process was the proposal, which is essentially a book’s business plan. You have to map it out, chapter by chapter, and summarize the story without having written it yet. You also have to hone the proposal so that it speaks to whatever might feel timely and salable to editors, knowing that this is highly subjective and that they are trying to look down the line several years to when your book will publish.
It was all completely worth it on the other side of selling the book. That chapter-by-chapter guide proved to be essential. There is no way I could have turned the book around within a year to meet my deadline if I hadn’t put in the early work of sketching out its shape. That early work included taping index cards and colorful sticky notes across the full length of a wall in my home just to figure out the various thematic threads and story arcs in the book.
As hard as that part was, as demoralizing as it could be at times, I love cracking the structure code. There is an ecstatic point where it all starts to come into view.
I realized that my own life had been profoundly shaped by my mother’s past. But I also uncovered a bigger story—about family secrets, shame, race, and the control of women’s bodies.
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?
I knew that I would never write this book if my sister wasn’t OK with it. In fact, I wouldn’t have even touched it unless she was enthusiastically on board, which she was. As our story was unfolding, Kathy was one of the first people to tell me: “This is a book. You have to write this book.” I shared a full copy of the manuscript with her for her feedback. She didn’t request any changes, but it has given us a lot to talk about. She never got to meet our mom and reading the book has been a way for her to get to know her more fully—beyond what I was already able to share in conversation.
With some other key folks in the book, I either shared full scenes or paraphrased certain sections for fact-checking purposes. Most everyone is identified by their real first name. That is my general inclination unless someone requests otherwise.
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.)
I looked to some of my favorite memoirists for guidance along the way: Kiese Laymon, Leslie Jamison, Melissa Febos, Chloe Cooper Jones, Natasha Tretheway, Dani Shapiro, Roxane Gay, Carvell Wallace, and Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Their books are often within reach, and littered with stickies and margin notes. When I forget how to write, I pull one off my shelf and flip to a random page. That got me unstuck many times during the process of writing this book.
I was hugely influenced by histories of these pre-Roe homes for unwed mothers, including Anne Fessler’s The Girls Who Went Away, Rickie Solinger’s Wake Up Little Susie, Gabrielle Glaser’s American Baby, and Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh’s The Baby Scoop Era. I also relied on books written by adoptees and birth moms, like Rebecca Carroll’s Surviving the White Gaze, Nicole Chung’s All You Can Ever Know, Jeanette Winterson’ Why Be Normal When You Could Be Happy?, and Margaret Moorman’s Waiting to Forget.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
The hardest part is maintaining faith in your project, especially before it’s sold. You have to believe in its value and importance, even when no one else does. That faith will get shaken when you’re met with professional rejection—whether it’s from an agent or editor. Even without rejection, it’s easy to talk yourself into doubt.
In those moments, it all comes down to obsession. Are you obsessed with your book—or, at least, obsessed with the feeling or seed of an idea behind it? Follow your obsession. Allow yourself to be carried by it. Without obsession, I don’t know how to write a book. I am simply not that good of a student.
What do you love about writing?
I love that writing takes me out of the conventions and performances of day-to-day life. It’s the opposite of those standard pleasantries: “How are you?” “Good, you?” Good, thanks.” It’s where you have to be honest, say the unsayable, and get vulnerable, because otherwise what else is there to say? Nothing worthwhile!
What frustrates you about writing?
I am deeply frustrated by how dependent I am on social media for book promotion. I can’t just write the book, I have to also try to turn myself into an influencer? Still, I went for it with this book by experimenting with Reels and TikTok videos for months on end. I’m not sure if it will actually translate into book sales, but I’ve learned a lot about what does and doesn’t go viral in the books realm.
What about writing surprises you?
Every book is different. Just because you’ve written a book before doesn’t mean you know how to write this book. I am surprised by how often I feel like I am beginning all over again.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?
I often write with my dog in my lap, sometimes with the laptop perched on top of him, because he demands it. It’s extremely ergonomically incorrect, but it’s cozy and we make it work. He’s my co-author. I also like to write outside whenever possible.
When I’m doing my journalistic writing, I tend to not listen to music, but while writing books I will seize on anywhere from one to five songs that I listen to on repeat for weeks on end until I tire them out. Usually, they are Top 20 dance-y pop songs that are totally emotionally out of step with my writing, but they help me get into flow. You wouldn’t believe the number of weighty emotional scenes that I’ve written while listening to Kesha and Dua Lipa.
For most of my early career, I focused on writing about sex. In my 20s, I wrote viral personal essays about hookup culture that got me called vile names by misogynistic internet trolls and I reported on taboo topics, like the porn industry and sex worker rights. I recognized the parallels between my mom’s life and mine: she was sent away in shame and I turned shame into my career.
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?
I’ve gotten deep into reading about Zen and Taoism, and I’m often running into ideas around flow and spontaneity that apply to writing. I’m especially compelled by ideas around the illusion of the self—as a memoirist whose book subtitle includes the phrase “finding myself,” no less.
Is there a contradiction here? Yes and no. I think we often lose ourselves in that finding process, in the sense that we tap into a sense of interconnectedness. The best memoirs show how a person emerges within a bigger social, cultural, familial, and maybe even cosmic picture. They also make the specific universal.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
Oh god, no. I need some time to replenish myself first! After the initial chaos of book promotion, I’m going to teach some virtual writing classes on memoir. I’m developing one class on writing about your mom and another on memoir as a route for both self-discovery and losing the self. I’m also taking on private writing clients, because I love the work of shaping a book—whether it’s the earliest stages of an idea, the crucible of the proposal, wrangling an early draft, or polishing a manuscript.
I have a close friend who had a similar experience with DNA testing, and am looking forward to reading this book! Great interview, thanks so much!
Follow your obsession. Allow yourself to be carried by it.' – I needed to read that tonight. I started writing from a kitchen in the south of Chile, at midnight, while my children sleep. I'm not laid off – I'm awake for the first time in years. And the doubt is already here, whispering that maybe nobody wants to read what I have to say. But the obsession is louder. It wakes me up at midnight and keeps me writing until my tea goes cold. Thank you for this. The faith comes before the proof.