Memoir Nation
Memoir Nation: Weekly Inspiration for Writers is an extension of the Memoir Nation community hosted by Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner, two friends and colleagues who bring a community-minded sensibility to the writing journey. Originally launched as Write-minded in 2018, this is a weekly writing podcast that focuses on memoir and personal writing, as well as industry trends and tips and resources for writers and authors. Memoir Nation features a segment called Substackin’ at the end of each episode to talk about topics, ideas, trends, and writerly inspirations that Brooke and Grant are tracking in their weekly Substacks (Writerly Things and Intimations). Brooke and Grant bring to this weekly podcast their deeply held belief that everyone is a writer, and everyone’s story matters. Discover more about Memoir Nation at memoirnation.com.
Episodes
July 21, 2025 • 48 mins
Join us for a conversation about all the ways our creativity is fueled by our stories—the stories of who we are and what we have to tell. Guest W. Kamau Bell tells stories through so many mediums, and this episode explores his approach to creativity, conversation, and advocacy. We have a couple links we mention in the show that we’re dropping here: 1) a link to Kamau’s Substack, specifically a post from earlier this year about Gavi...
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July 14, 2025 • 48 mins
This week Memoir Nation ventures into waters rarely touched except when speaking “about” the topic. Yep, it’s celebrity memoir.
Jeff Hiller, author of the new memoir, Actress of a Certain Age, is a celebrity, but only so newly so that we feel he’s an appropriate ambassador of the genre—someone who straddles that otherworldly space and the real world. Grant and Brooke laughed a lot on this show, and we’re happy to report that we ha...
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July 7, 2025 • 47 mins
Memoir Nation has a touching episode this week with fashion designer Prabal Gurang, who shares about his relationship with his mother, who, in allowing him to pursue his joy, encouraged him also to pursue his dreams of fashion design. We discuss the power of reading a memoir aloud and the emotions that evokes, and about authenticity on the page when you set out just to write the best story you can write—not necessarily coming to yo...
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June 30, 2025 • 40 mins
Molly Jong-Fast’s new memoir, How to Lose Your Mother, is celebrity memoir meets real literary merit. As fans of Molly’s podcast and political commentary, and also because we had Molly’s mother, Erica Jong, on the show back in 2023, we were eager to connect with Molly to talk about mother-daughter dynamics, the buzz and controversy this book is getting, and—importantly—opening a vein on the page (in the tradition of Erica Jong). Th...
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June 23, 2025 • 45 mins
This week Grant and Brooke consider images as enhancements to memoir. Historically publishers have tended to regard images in memoir with reservation, but that’s been changing in recent years. Guest Jennifer Croft’s recent memoir, Homesick, is accompanied by her own Polaroids. When should photos be included, or central? And what are some other memoirs that have been improved by the addition of images? Whether to include images invo...
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June 16, 2025 • 42 mins
This week’s Memoir Nation show is an exploration of Hawai’i, heritage, and land—part of the story told in guest Sara Kehaulani Goo’s new memoir: Kuleana. Kuleana is a word that means “responsibility” in the most broad terms, but as you’ll hear in this interview, Kuleana can be anything that you are safeguarding for the world. As such, you’ll hear about Sara’s story of Kuleana, and be invited to ponder your own Kuleana, whether that...
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June 9, 2025 • 43 mins
Victoria Chang has been one of the country’s most prolific poet-writers of the past few years, with a series of books exploring universal topics of grief, shame, silence, legacy, and identity. This week Brooke and Grant chose to explore silence and its impact on families, on selfhood, and of course on our writing. Victoria’s insights and disclosures will leave you feeling validated and inspired in your own explorations of even the ...
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June 2, 2025 • 54 mins
All memoirists at some point in the writing process will grapple with what’s theirs to tell. This week's show focuses on this all-important topic of permission. When do you need it? Who gives it to you and when and for what purpose? And do you need permission at all—from anyone but yourself? Centered around topics in guest Elissa Altman’s latest book, which is titled Permission, this is an empowering, deep-felt, and permission-givi...
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May 26, 2025 • 49 mins
This week’s show is a fun and fascinating consideration of all the ways we’re shaped by technology and how we are technological beings, more and more with each passing year. Grant and Brooke share their earliest internet, email, and social media interactions, and connect with guest Vauhini Vara, whose new book, Searches, explores our online footprints, how technology shapes us, and how we both exploit and get exploited by big tech—...
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May 19, 2025 • 56 mins
This week, Amanda Knox granted us a special interview that delves into the power of memoir to reclaim your own narrative. This episode touches upon themes that run through Amanda’s new memoir—about what it means to be free, how we live with the stories that are told about us, and how memoir can be a vehicle to release yourself from the stories others tell to center the story you need to tell. There’s so much insight in this intervi...
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May 12, 2025 • 47 mins
On the heels of Mother’s Day, tune into Memoir Nation this week for a conversation about *mother as character*—among many other potential characters any one of us might be on the page. Guest Nicole Graev Lipson explores the idea of where fiction ends and truth begins when you’re a woman through this fascinating conversation prompted by her recent memoir-in-essays Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. If you’ve ever thought about ...
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May 5, 2025 • 37 mins
This week on Memoir Nation, Jill Ciment joins us to talk about what it means to reconsider a previously written memoir, and what that says about the nature of truth. We’re diving into the unreliability of truth, how we see things differently over time, and the nature of memoir as a flawed container for our stories. We’re also two weeks into the rebrand of this podcast, and Brooke and Grant invite you to check out Memoir Nation at w...
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April 28, 2025 • 22 mins
We’ve been waiting a long time to make this announcement, and the day is finally here. Write-minded is rebranding as Memoir Nation—and along with Memoir Nation the podcast comes Memoir Nation the community and website, and an annual event we’ll be kicking off in January called JanYourStory. On this week’s episode, Grant and Brooke share the news, and talk about why they’re going this direction, and why they’re both so moved and ins...
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April 21, 2025 • 46 mins
Writers, authors, you do not want to miss these great insights about reading on stage, taking up space, and generally being yourself—only amplified—when you read your work in public. Guest Jorah LaFleur brings a wealth of encouragement and permission, along with some great tips to improve your presence when you perform or read aloud.
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April 14, 2025 • 45 mins
This week we’re featuring longtime agent and publishing pro Betsy Lerner on her debut novel, Shred Sisters. We talk about being an industry insider and whether that gives you a leg up, as well as the old adage to write what you know. Betsy shares with us how her lived experience shows up in this book, noting that Freud would have a field day—and before it’s all over, she offers generous and tactical marketing tips for authors. This...
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April 7, 2025 • 32 mins
A few weeks back, Grant suggested Write-minded dedicate a whole episode to All Fours, by Miranda July—and we decided to do it. This week Brooke and Grant explore All Fours as a novel of a generation, and talk about who Miranda July is, why the book has hit such a zeitgeist moment, and whether publishers can anticipate or make these kinds of successes. Brooke has suggested that All Fours is the Fear of Flying of this generation, and...
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March 31, 2025 • 44 mins
Write-minded delves into publishing again in this week’s show, specifically focused on traditional publishing and the feelings that are part of the journey. Brooke and Grant connect with literary Kate McKean about her new book, Write Through It, which really is a roadmap to everything you want to know about how to stay the course on your publishing journey, and how to work through your feelings. There’s tons of good advice and chee...
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March 24, 2025 • 43 mins
This week we invite one of our favorite authors, Lidia Yuknavitch, back to Write-minded to discuss her new book, Reading the Waves, as well as how we can re-envision and reimagine our past experiences through the practice of asking questions and reconsidering what we think we know. “Shapeshifting” is Lidia’s word, and the book (as well as this conversation) considers ways we can re-enter our own memories and rearrange the pieces so...
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March 17, 2025 • 41 mins
This week’s episode tells the story of a dramatic and traumatic story, and how writing played a central role in recovery and changing the outcome of one author’s life. This week’s episode is an epic tale as much as it is interview, and it will change the way you think of the power of writing to charge your neurons and heal your mind—not to mention the way you think about willpower, writers’ block, and why writing is both personally...
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March 10, 2025 • 46 mins
If part of why you write is because you have some things to share from a life well- or hard- or fully lived, then you’re in good company. Personal writing is about connection, and making sense of our experience, and this week’s guest, Sari Botton, knows a thing or two about what brings writers to the page. She is a champion of personal writing and memoir, and is going to share about contributing, about her own writing process and w...
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