394 Natasha Williams "The Parts of Him I Kept"

Today on the show, I speak with Natasha Williams.  She has an MA from the University of Pennsylvania and attended the Bread Loaf School of English and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her memoir and debut book, THE PARTS OF HIM I KEPT (Apprentice House. 2025), is an intimate account of a daughter’s coming of age in the face of her father’s schizophrenic unraveling. Williams investigates the limits of our medical and cultural understanding of schizophrenia while chronicling the shared burden and benefits of caring for a mentally ill family member. In the tradition of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous and Robert Kolker’s Hidden Valley Road, this is one family’s story that asks us to consider the ways mental illness is as much a social issue as a biological condition and illuminates ways we find hope, and even thrive in the face of the extraordinary challenge of mental illness.Excerpts and essays have been published in the Bread Loaf Journal, Change Seven, LIT, Memoir Magazine, Onion River Review, Writers Digest, Writers Read, Post Road, and South Dakota Review.Today Natasha shares about her childhood and the special if not sometimes challenging relationship she had with her farther. We get a glimpse into the stories she shares in her book and the reasons for writing it. It's more than a personal story, it's a window into what we're lacking broadly in society when it comes to what we value and how we care for each other.She'll be in PROVINCETOWN, MA, Saturday, October 4, 2025. Event details HERE. Then in HIGH FALLS, NY, Sunday, October 26th, 4pm, 2025 at Blue Heron Books, 1209 NYS Route 213. Event details HERE.The book is available at local bookstores as well as online, and if you're shopping online and what to support your local book sellers, check out Bookshop.org.Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.Our show music is from Shana Falana!Feel free to email me, say hello: [email protected]** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IThttp://iwantwhatshehas.org/podcastITUNES | SPOTIFYITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/i-want-what-she-has/id1451648361?mt=2SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/77pmJwS2q9vTywz7Uhiyff?si=G2eYCjLjT3KltgdfA6XXCAFollow:INSTAGRAM * https://www.instagram.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast/FACEBOOK * https://www.facebook.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast