Jill Christman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about contextualizing a memoir in a post-Roe world, what it means to make a choice as mothers, ending a pregnancy, knowing you will write about an experience while it is happening, writing about childhood sexual abuse, returning to a manuscript with your skirt on fire, writing to a point of discovery, putting down our self-defense and  having to be fully, fully vulnerable, getting clear on why we’re showing up to tell this story now, and her new memoir The Heart Folds Early.   Ronit’s in-person Fall Workshop - Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story     https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story   Also in this episode: -writing in present tense -not casting judgment on others -how an imaginary choice is not a choice   Books mentioned in this episode: Love Works Like This by Lauren Slater The Book of Knowledge and Wonder By Steven Harvey Crossed Over: A Murder, a Memoir by Beverly Lowry In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Maha A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken   Jill Christman’s recent articles on writing: 1. “Writing the Tooth—Or, How to Find Big Ideas in Tiny Things.” Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. https://www.assayjournal.com/jill-christman-writing-the-toothmdashor-how-to-find-big-ideas-in-tiny-things-assay-122.html 2. “Three Takes on a Jump.” https://riverteethjournal.com/river_revisted/river-teeth-classics-three-takes-on-a-jump/ 3. “Tacking: A Sailor’s Guide to Writing Against the Wind.” Writer’s Digest,https://www.writersdigest.com/tacking-a-sailors-guide-to-writing-against-the-wind   Jill Christman is the author of The Heart Folds Early: A Memoir (released March 2026 from the University of Nebraska Press). Christman’s other books include If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays (2023 Foreword INDIES Silver Winner), Darkroom: A Family Exposure (winner of AWP Prize for CNF), and Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies and in magazines such as Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, Iron Horse Literary Review, Longreads, and O, The Oprah Magazine. A 2020 NEA Literature Fellow, she teaches at Ball State University and serves as editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative and Beautiful Things (a weekly online magazine of micro nonfiction). Visit her at jillchristman.com.   Connect with Jill: https://www.instagram.com/jillchristmanwriter @jillchristman.bsky.social jillchristman.com Order for yourself and all your memoir-loving friends—directly from the University of Nebraska Press or your local independent or by using any of the handy links on my website. Use code 6AS26 for 40% off on any UNP book!   – Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.  She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitp

Let’s Talk Memoir

Ronit Plank

238. Being Clear on Why We’re Showing Up to Tell This Story Now featuring Jill Christman

APR 28, 202652 MIN
Let’s Talk Memoir

238. Being Clear on Why We’re Showing Up to Tell This Story Now featuring Jill Christman

APR 28, 202652 MIN

Description

Jill Christman joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about contextualizing a memoir in a post-Roe world, what it means to make a choice as mothers, ending a pregnancy, knowing you will write about an experience while it is happening, writing about childhood sexual abuse, returning to a manuscript with your skirt on fire, writing to a point of discovery, putting down our self-defense and  having to be fully, fully vulnerable, getting clear on why we’re showing up to tell this story now, and her new memoir The Heart Folds Early.   Ronit’s in-person Fall Workshop - Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story     https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story   Also in this episode: -writing in present tense -not casting judgment on others -how an imaginary choice is not a choice   Books mentioned in this episode: Love Works Like This by Lauren Slater The Book of Knowledge and Wonder By Steven Harvey Crossed Over: A Murder, a Memoir by Beverly Lowry In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Maha A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis The Light of the World by Elizabeth Alexander Safekeeping by Abigail Thomas An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken   Jill Christman’s recent articles on writing: 1. “Writing the Tooth—Or, How to Find Big Ideas in Tiny Things.” Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. https://www.assayjournal.com/jill-christman-writing-the-toothmdashor-how-to-find-big-ideas-in-tiny-things-assay-122.html 2. “Three Takes on a Jump.” https://riverteethjournal.com/river_revisted/river-teeth-classics-three-takes-on-a-jump/ 3. “Tacking: A Sailor’s Guide to Writing Against the Wind.” Writer’s Digest,https://www.writersdigest.com/tacking-a-sailors-guide-to-writing-against-the-wind   Jill Christman is the author of The Heart Folds Early: A Memoir (released March 2026 from the University of Nebraska Press). Christman’s other books include If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays (2023 Foreword INDIES Silver Winner), Darkroom: A Family Exposure (winner of AWP Prize for CNF), and Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies and in magazines such as Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, Iron Horse Literary Review, Longreads, and O, The Oprah Magazine. A 2020 NEA Literature Fellow, she teaches at Ball State University and serves as editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative and Beautiful Things (a weekly online magazine of micro nonfiction). Visit her at jillchristman.com.   Connect with Jill: https://www.instagram.com/jillchristmanwriter @jillchristman.bsky.social jillchristman.com Order for yourself and all your memoir-loving friends—directly from the University of Nebraska Press or your local independent or by using any of the handy links on my website. Use code 6AS26 for 40% off on any UNP book!   – Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.  She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.   More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social