Turning Family Members into Characters w. NICOLE CHUNG
Author photo by Erica B. Tappis.
Episode 38
Nicole Chung‘s debut memoir, All You Can Ever Know, is out now from Catapult Books. Nicole’s essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, the Times Magazine, GQ, Longreads, Shondaland, BuzzFeed, and Hazlitt, among others. She is the editor-in-chief of Catapult magazine and the former managing editor of The Toast.
Discussed In This Episode
The difficulty of selling an adoption memoir and the lack of adoptee narratives. Writing as refuge. Keeping a daily journal. Turning family members into characters. Taking the adoption story beyond where it usually ends in pop culture. Structural issues and chronology versus narrative conflict. Editing insight via dreams. The value of routines. Writing and motherhood. The internet pace and finding your community online. Pour one out for The Toast. The limits of empathy and good intentions. Art and our political reality.
Recommended Reading
All You Can Ever Know, Nicole Chung
”How to Write a Memoir While Grieving,” Nicole Chung, Longreads
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