Josh Barkan: Writing a Memoir Before You Know Its Ending

Today, we’re talking to Josh Barkan, an author of three books of fiction, who has turned at last to memoir writing. We discuss his experience in writing about a particular moment in his life before his subject gave him his ending. Ten years later, he revised the book again in the aftermath. How did the writing change him and his subject? How did those years benefit his book and his understanding of what happened?Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for a few weeks. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.I don’t charge for subscriptions, but if you’d like, you can support my work with with a small donation here.To find Barkan’s books as well as many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page.Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.JOSH BARKAN won the Lightship International Short Story Prize and was runner-up for the Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, the Paterson Fiction Prize, the Juniper Prize for Fiction, and the Eric Hoffer Award for memoir. He is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and his writing has appeared in Esquire. He has taught creative writing at Harvard, NYU, the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Hollins University and MIT. His books include the novel Blind Speed and short story collections Before Hiroshima and Mexico (Hogarth/Penguin Random House)—named one of the five best story collections of 2017 by Library Journal. His latest book is the memoir Wonder Travels. He lives in Boston.Photo by abshky on Unsplash This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com