The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire #141: Mimi Zieman
"The question propelling my writing was: How and why did the daughter of refugees, raised in an Orthodox community in NYC, end up in Tibet at 25, caring for an all-male climbing team on Everest?"
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 141st installment, featuring , author of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure. - Sari Botton
P.S. Check out all the interviews in The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series.
Mimi Zieman is the author of an award-winning memoir, Tap Dancing on Everest, about the risks we take to become our truest selves, selected as the Best Memoir of 2024 by the American Writing Awards. She found her voice on the highest mountain and has used it ever since to champion other women’s rights to self-determination as an OB/GYN, writer, and advocate. Her recent play, The Post-Roe Monologues, has been performed in multiple cities and essays have appeared in USA Today, Newsweek, Salon, The Sun Magazine, Ms. Magazine, The Forward, NBC News THINK, and elsewhere. Her Substack newsletter, Medicine, Mountains & More, combines medical news with inspiration from art and nature.
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
I’m 62 and my first memory of writing was during a play date with my best friend in second grade when we wrote a story about a princess on a ship. In high school, I was the editor of the poetry and prose section of our yearbook, which reminds me that I had this interest for a long time. While writing my memoir, I read old journals filled with the desire to be a writer, but I only returned to creative writing six years ago. During my medical career, I wrote and edited scientific and educational pieces, but that’s completely different.
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
Tap Dancing on Everest, A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure (Falcon), published April, 2024.
What number book is this for you?
It’s my first creative book, but I’ve co-authored seventeen editions of a medical guide, Managing Contraception.
Tap Dancing on Everest is a coming-of-age memoir about the risks we take to become our truest selves, connecting being the daughter of a Holocaust survivor with becoming the doctor—and only woman—on a groundbreaking Everest climb in Tibet while I was a medical student. Serving in that role was “my Everest.” The book weaves feminism, medicine, spirituality, and adventure in a narrative of self-discovery.
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
Memoir, and the book ends when I’m 25-years-old.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
Tap Dancing on Everest is a coming-of-age memoir about the risks we take to become our truest selves, connecting being the daughter of a Holocaust survivor with becoming the doctor—and only woman—on a groundbreaking Everest climb in Tibet while I was a medical student. Serving in that role was “my Everest.” The book weaves feminism, medicine, spirituality, and adventure in a narrative of self-discovery. I pitched it as Wild meets Into Thin Air with a Jewish and feminist twist.
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?
Like many writers, I was a voracious reader growing up. I loved words—so I kept lists of new vocabulary in my journals, which I kept from high school through medical school. Many of the details in my memoir come from my journals.
In college, I had little room for literature courses, so I created my own reading curriculum, including many classics, with a particular passion for Russian literature.
Back then—before the internet—I also wrote long letters. That practice sharpened my observational skills and taught me how to share my thoughts and experiences.
I’d always wanted to tell the story of our Everest expedition—called “the best ascent of Everest in terms and style of pure adventure” by Reinhold Messner, arguably the greatest mountaineer of all time. I wanted to tell it from my perspective as the team doctor and the only woman. But as time passed, I thought it was too late.
Reading Cheryl Strayed’s Wild changed that. Framed around hiking, but about so much more, and written a while after her hike of the PCT. I realized I could still tell my story—and include not just Everest, but the solo trek through Nepal I’d taken at 22, which was transformational and led to the invitation to join the Everest team.
I started writing the book spontaneously the day after I resigned from a very demanding job. No outline, no plan, no idea what I was in for when it came to writing memoir. I sat at my desk and suddenly was finally telling my Everest story. But in my late 50s, the question propelling my writing was: How and why did the daughter of refugees, raised in an Orthodox community in New York City, end up in Tibet at 25, caring for an all-male climbing team on Everest?
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
Once I started, I felt possessed to complete it, to make it the best I could, no matter whether it got published. The hardest part was figuring out the structure because I didn’t want it to be straight chronological fearing it would feel too autobiographical. The final structure is more thematic with flash-forwards and flashbacks.
Finding an agent was tough. I didn’t have a social media presence and was advised to publish essays as a way to show potential agents my writing was publishable, so I did that.
The hook of being the only book by a female Everest doctor—and the only woman on the team—didn’t seem to be enough. The climbers went through life and death struggles, and I needed to care for them, and that also wasn’t enough. I think these hooks should have been enough, but the business is tough! The book has many themes, which is why my agent loved it, but selling it was a different animal. Combining my family’s story with the expedition makes my book hard to categorize.
In college, I had little room for literature courses, so I created my own reading curriculum, including many classics, with a particular passion for Russian literature.
Back then—before the internet—I also wrote long letters. That practice sharpened my observational skills and taught me how to share my thoughts and experiences.
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 did all of the above, depending on who the person was. There were two characters who could be exposed in a new way, so I changed their names and identifying details – and I mention this in a disclaimer. Everyone else, I gave a chance to read the book. No one asked for changes. I approached one person with whom I have some tension in the book to ask whether she wanted her name changed. She read the passages and didn’t.
My husband was funny about the romances in the book. He said, “feel free to add sex scenes if it’ll sell books.” I didn’t and some readers I know complained they wanted sex scenes. Why would anyone I know want to read about my sex life?
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.)
There are so many! Since I pitched this book as Wild X Into Thin Air, I have to mention Cheryl Strayed and Jon Krakauer. They are both brilliant and I read some old work of Jon’s I hadn’t seen before. I used an editor at times who kept pointing me to Joan Didion as an example of a controlled narrator and I wanted to scream. “I see what she’s doing! I just can’t do it like her!” I derived inspiration from Kate Harris’ Lands of Lost Borders, Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments, Rebecca Solnit’s body of work, and Pema Chodron who I quote in two epigraphs.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
It is all terrifying and intimidating. There’s exposure and rejection. Every day I asked, “who am I to write a book?” Crafting this book while exposing my deep thoughts felt like “another Everest.” But we grow from facing our fears, so just put pen to paper and keep at it. My advice is that if you’re passionate about sharing your story, finish it, and decide later whether you want to publish it. My mantra while writing the book was ‘anyone can write a book; you want to write a good book.’ So that motivated me to keep working on craft.
What do you love about writing?
My background in dance makes me appreciate the rhythm and sound of words. I love crafting a good sentence. I’ll never feel a sense of mastery, but I do always feel like I’m growing. Since writing is solitary, I love working with my critique group, Writers Tears, because we support each other to produce the best writing we can.
What frustrates you about writing?
Polishing the writing to a point that I’m satisfied with it. I recognize when something isn’t working but sometimes don’t know how to fix it. I fantasize that an editor will sweep in and fix everything but that’s never happened.
What about writing surprises you?
Anytime it works! I’m overwhelmed with the response to my book from readers. It’s hard for me to believe that people love the story, the words, everything I worked so hard on. The surprise was that the book became a two-way conversation. People see themselves in my words and that was my goal. I didn’t want it to be about me. I wanted it to be about them.
I was always skeptical of the idea of a target audience. I doubt I would be categorized as Kiese Laymon’s target for Heavy, but his writing is so good that it’s one of my favorite memoirs. Similarly, I’ve heard form very disparate reader types who have made the effort to tell me they loved my book: a self-described “300-pound Black woman,” who said she saw herself in my writing about body shame, an elderly man who photographs rodeos for a living, an Episcopal priest. None of whom were in the “target audience.”
The hook of being the only book by a female Everest doctor—and the only woman on the team—didn’t seem to be enough. The climbers went through life and death struggles, and I needed to care for them, and that also wasn’t enough. I think these hooks should have been enough, but the business is tough! The book has many themes, which is why my agent loved it, but selling it was a different animal. Combining my family’s story with the expedition makes my book hard to categorize.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?
I like writing in the morning when my brain is fresh. I’m a disorganized person so nothing about my life involves routine.
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?
Dance is my other creative outlet, and movement – including walking, hiking and yoga – frees my brain to make connections that I bring to writing. I derive inspiration from art and nature which is why my newsletter, Medicine, Mountains, & More combines these things with medical news.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
I’m currently enjoying a poetry workshop, and I enjoy theater—loved writing my play—so I don’t know if I want to write another book or play. Memoir was so hard to write, I think I’ll turn to fiction.
Love! I have the same feeling of imposter syndrome but will not give up until my memoir is published. Stories like this make me realize it is very possible.
Great interview, Mimi!