Travel memoir lab: On blending travel narrative with a broader memoiristic life-narrative

“We do a lot of writing alone, in our own space. But writing is not a solitary practice. The business of writing requires a community.” –Angelique Stevens

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Angelique talk about what her writing life is like in the decade since she first took Rolf’s Paris class, with the ambition of becoming a travel writer, and how her travel book transformed into something different (2:00); how Angelique gave herself permission to write about herself in an honest way, and what craft lessons have helped her writing (8:00); and Angelique’s reading habits as a writer, her writing process, and how she came to think of herself as a writer (23:00).

Angelique Stevens‘ is creative writing professor whose nonfiction has been published in Best American Essays two years in a row (2022, edited by Alexander Chee and 2023 edited by Vivian Gornick), Granta, LitHub, The New England Review, and a number of anthologies.

Notable Links:

• Paris Writing Workshops (Rolf’s annual writing classes)
• Zapatistas (political group in in Chiapas, Mexico)
• Bootstrapping myth (narrative about self-starting process)
• Haudenosaunee (Iroquois indigenous people from the Northeast U.S)
• Zora Neale Hurston (American writer)
• Toni Morrison (American novelist)
• Melissa Febos (American writer)
• Honor, by Thrity Umrigar (book)
• The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick (book)
• A Little Devil in America, by Hanif Abdurraqib (book)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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