Showing, Telling, and the Shimmer: Finding the Scenes That Bring Your Memoir to Life with Marianna Marlowe

Send us Fan MailWhich memories shimmer inside you? Which ones refuse to let you go? Those luminous, haunting moments are often the raw ingredients of the story you’re truly meant to tell. In this episode of Writing Your Resilience, I sit down with newsletter follower and memoirist Marianna Marlowe, author of A Portrait of a Feminist as she shares how she used shimmering memories to craft her memoir-in-essays that explores memory and identity through a feminist lens. Together, we talk about her writing process, what feminism really means, how to write from a feminist perspective, and the surprising ways feminist self-care shows up in a writer’s life.Episode Highlights2:20: Writing as Both Pleasure and Contribution 11:17: Constructing a Memoir-in-Essays Through a Feminist Lens15:21: The Role of Identity in Storytelling17:58: The Power of the Gaze23:00: The Difference Between Memoir and Academic Writing 28:37: Feminist Self-Care Resources for this Episode: Safekeeping by Abigail ThomasShimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir by Lisa Dale NortonWhat They Don’t Tell You About Menopause with Dr. Mary Claire Haver on The Marie Forleo podcast Buy Portrait of a FeministMarianna’s Bio: Marianna Marlowe is a Latina writer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. After devoting years to academic writing, her focus now is creative nonfiction that explores issues of gender identity, feminism, cultural hybridity, intersectionality, and more Her short memoir has been published in Narrative, Hippocampus, The Woven Tale Press, Eclectica, Sukoon, and The Acentos Review, among others. She’s the author of Portrait of a Feminist and Portrait of a Mestiza, which will be published in March, 2026.Connect with Marianna: Facebook: marianna.marloweInstagram: mariannamarlowe_memoirWebsite: mariannamarlowe.comBuilding Better Memoir Scenes: https://janefriedman.com/building-better-memoir-scenes-with-lisa-cooper-ellison/Connect with your host, Lisa:Get Your Free Copy of Ditch Your Inner Critic: https://lisacooperellison.com/subscribe/Website | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | LinkedInProduced by Espresso Podcast Production