Elissa Altman — Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create - with Brittany Kerfoot

Without fail, almost every writer--new or experienced--has faced dire questions of permission and story ownership: there is something that they want to write about, that they need to write about. Yet: they can't. They have been warned not to. They might be paralyzed with shame, threatened with shunning, chastened into silence. Even if what they need to write about has defined them and their worldviews.But what if they did? What if you did?After writing three critically-acclaimed memoirs and a decade of teaching memoir workshops at every level, Elissa Altman has helped students face the elephant in every writer's room: how to craft the stories that are most vital to them despite the voices that have told them not to. Permission is a master course, not only on how to craft memoir, but how to begin and keep going when you've been told you can't, and how to how to give yourself permission to transcend the fear that keeps vital stories from being written.We are the storytelling species; this book will inspire and guide all creatives to a place of transformation, of freedom from the constraints of shame and fear in all their forms, and to the understanding and recognition of the ethics of story-making, art-making, truth-telling, and creative soul-saving.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781567927634?ic_referral=9D0JjW9RVHPcndbQrij75vYD4TUtJ3SBvyBiXfvxVI0wM7nwCGR-NfffCzkd_Fm_c266_BanLjuwXXhq-qGVkTXdAn1XUVvV6X0WVamg1l9rD1Fcmi9LPK_F9Jr6E0IRaXIFzwElissa Altman is the award-winning author of the memoirs Motherland, Treyf, and Poor Man's Feast, and the bestselling essay substack of the same name. A longtime editor, she has been a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, Connecticut Book Award, Maine Literary Award, and the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, and her work has appeared in publications including Orion, The Bitter Southerner, On Being, O: The Oprah Magazine, LitHub, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, where her column, "Feeding My Mother," ran for a year. Altman writes and speaks widely on the intersection of permission, storytelling, and creativity, and has appeared live on the TEDx stage and at the Public Theater in New York. She teaches the craft of memoir at Fine Arts Work Center, Maine Writers & Publishers, Kripalu, Truro Center for the Arts, Rutgers Community Writing Workshop, and beyond, and lives in Connecticut with her wife, book designer Susan Turner.Altman is in conversation with Brittany Kerfoot. Kerfoot is the former Events Director for Politics and Prose. She holds a variety of positions including: writing and literature instructor for Politics and Prose Bookstore; advisory board member for the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center; and co-producer and host of Generation Women DC, a new storytelling series in the District that celebrates women and non-binary performers of all ages. Her writing can be found in various online literary journals and websites. She is at work on her first novel.*recorded 3/15/2025