5. Doing Whatever it Takes to Get Yourself to Write featuring Andrea Ross

Andrea Ross joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about battling memoir imposter syndrome, choosing scene over exposition, doing whatever it takes to get yourself to write, and how she used the wilderness to help tell her story and convey the particular brand of loneliness that adopted people experience.   Also in this episode: -what new writers sometimes forget -promoting your book  -publishing with a small press   Memoirs in this episode: Unnatural Selection by Andrea Ross Wild by Cheryl Strayed The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes   Bio: Andrea Ross's memoir, Unnatural Selection, about her years as a wilderness guide searching for her biological family, was published by CavanKerry Press in 2021. Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Huffington Post, Terrain The Conversation,  Mountain Gazette, and many other outlets. During the 1980s and 1990s, Andrea worked throughout the American West as a wilderness guide, a National Park Service Ranger, and a backcountry Search and Rescue leader. She is a faculty member in the University Writing Program at UC Davis.    Links: website: andrearosswriter.com link to buy book: https://www.cavankerrypress.org/product/unnatural-selection/ twitter: https://twitter.com/Andrea_M_Ross insta: https://www.instagram.com/andrearosswriter/ facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/rossandream   Ronit’s essays and fiction have been featured in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, 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 both the 2021 Best Book Awards and the 2021 Book of the Year Award and a 2021 Best True Crime Book by Book Riot. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and will be published in 2022. She is host and producer of the podcasts And Then Everything Changed and The Body Myth. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com More about WHEN SHE COMES BACK, a memoir: https://ronitplank.com/book/ Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd   Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank   Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers