Jocelyn Jane Cox joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about the challenges and guilt around caretaking, her childhood experience as a competitive figure skater, telling a story in the structure of a day, using the directed “you” in a book, writing about what has shaped us and played a role in the story we are trying to tell, using Post-It Notes, ordering our backstory, listmaking a low pressure way to get material on the page, as the process of adding and subtracting, exploring divisions within ourselves, developing and exploring metaphor in our narratives, and her new memoir Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice.
Also in this episode:
-reducing page count
-relying on Beta readers
-the silver tsunami
Books mentioned in this episode:
-Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Wolf
-On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
-The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
-Fast Draft Your Memoir: Write Your Story in 45 Hours by Rachel Herron
Jocelyn Jane Cox joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice.
Jocelyn Jane Cox holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Sarah Lawrence College. She competed in the United States Figure Skating Championships with her older brother Brad four times (twice in pair skating and twice in ice dance). She has been coaching kids, teenagers, and adults in both skating and writing for over 25 years. Her creative nonfiction was included in the anthology Awakenings: Stories of Body Consciousness, edited by Diane Gottlieb (2023). Among other publications, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Slate, Newsweek, Good Men Project, WIRED, Belladonna Comedy, The Offing, HAD, Cleaver, Litro Magazine, Literal Latte, and Colorado Review. Her fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives with her son and husband in the Hudson Valley of New York.
Connect with Jocelyn:
Website: https://www.jocelynjanecox.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jocelynjanecoxwriter/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JocelynJaneCoxWriter
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/jocelynjanecox.bsky.social
–
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
Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography
Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Cardiac Cowboys
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.