#57 Demystifying Memoir Writing with Putsata Reang

About Our Guest:
Putsata Reang is an author and journalist whose writings have appeared in a variety of national and international publications, including the New York Times, Politico, the Guardian, Ms, The Seattle Times and the San Jose Mercury News. She is the author of a recent memoir Ma and Me, which talks about her leaving Cambodia at 11 months old, and moving to rural Oregon, and how coming out—and marrying a woman in her 40s—broke her relationship with her Mother.

Putsata was born in Cambodia, and raised in rural Oregon, surrounded by berry farms where she and her family hustled to earn their middle class existence. Her memoir explores the glades of displacement felt by children of refugees, and the overlay of emotional exile that comes with being gay.

Putsata has lived and worked in more than a dozen countries, including Cambodia, Afghanistan and Thailand. She is an alum of Hedgebrook, Mineral School and Kimmel Harding Nelson residencies. She is a 2019 Jack Straw fellow. In 2005, she received an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship that took her back to Cambodia to report on landless farmers.

She currently teaches memoir writing at the University of Washington School of Professional & Continuing Education. Her book recently won a PNW book award. 

Find Putsata Reang Online:
Website
MacMillan Author Page
Amazon Author Page
Twitter
 

Find out more about this episode's guest host, Professor Peter Laufer.

Suggested Readings:
Full Circle: Two journalists return to their native countries to help other journalists express dissent
My Family Fled Cambodia as the Americans Evacuated. Here’s What I Hope for Afghan Refugees
At Sea, and Seeking a Safe Harbor
Activism From the Streets to the Screen
Putsata Reang Finds Home with and Away from her Mom in Memoir Ma and Me
Journalist Putsata Reang Shares her Immigrant Story in Ma and Me
Author Putsata Reang Reflect on Ma and Me, Her Accidental Memoir, at Northwest Passages Talk

Download the transcript for this episode

Listen to Putsata's lecture (Coming Soon!)

Watch Putsata's Q&A Video 

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