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Life Stories #58: Gary Shteyngart
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Brigitte Lacombe Welcome to the first Life Stories of 2014! In this episode, I talk to Gary Shteyngart about Little Failure, his memoir of emigrating to the...
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Life Stories #59: Katie Heaney
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Louisa Podlich This episode of Life Stories features Katie Heaney, the author of Never Have I Ever, in which she describes, as the subtitle says, “my life (so...
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Life Stories #60: Scott Stossel
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Michael Lionstar This episode of Life Stories is a slight deviation from the usual format of talking to memoir writers about their lives and the art of...
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Life Stories #61: David Stuart MacLean
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Heather Edison In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I talk to memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, David Stuart...
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Life Stories #62: Rebecca Mead
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Elisabeth C. Prochnik This episode of Life Stories, offers a slight change of pace, as Rebecca Mead’s My Life in Middlemarch is more than a memoir. In...
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Life Stories #63: Leah Vincent
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Ned & Aya Rosen My guest for this episode of Life Stories, Leah Vincent, grew up in Pittsburgh’s Yeshivish community, an ultra-Orthodox sect of Judaism...
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Life Stories #64: Janet Mock
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Aaron Tredwell I recorded this episode of Life Stories with Janet Mock the morning after a particularly contentious interview with Piers Morgan, who just...
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Life Stories #65: Su Meck
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Jared Leeds If you enjoyed last month’s interview with David Stuart MacLean about his recovery from amnesia, you’ll definitely want to give this week’s...
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Life Stories #66: Kelly Corrigan
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Betsy Barnes It’s been a few weeks since I posted a new episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I talk to memoir writers about their lives and the art of...
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Life Stories #67: Arlo Crawford
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Kristen Fortier In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I talk to memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, I’m talking with...
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Life Stories #68: Megan Hustad
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Tom Schierlitz In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I talk to memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, my friend Megan...
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Life Stories #69: Misty Copeland
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Gregg Delman In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I talk to memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, Misty Copeland, a...
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Life Stories #70: Julia Angwin
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Deborah Copaken Kogan Most of the time, Life Stories features interviews with memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, but this episode...
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Life Stories #71: Katherine Bouton
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Joyce Ravid In this episode of Life Stories, I chat with Katherine Bouton, who draws heavily upon her personal experience of hearing loss in Shouting Won’t...
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Life Stories #72: Ophira Eisenberg
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Jan Cobb Photography In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I talk to memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, NPR host...
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Life Stories #73: Annabelle Gurwitch
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Jeanne Cole I’ve known Annabelle Gurwitch for years, so I was delighted to have her as a guest on Life Stories to talk about her new collection of personal...
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Life Stories #74: Damian Barr
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Daisy Honeybunn On this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, my guest is...
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Life Stories #75: Rayya Elias
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Lisa Ross In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, Rayya Elias tells us...
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Life Stories #76: Kelly Cogswell
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo via Kelly Cogswell In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, I’m joined by...
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Life Stories #77: Elaine Lui
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Angela Fama/The Grid In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, Elaine Lui...
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Life Stories #78: Jen Doll
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Sarah Shatz In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, Jen Doll talks...
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Life Stories #79: Molly Wizenberg
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Kyle Johnson When Molly Wizenberg’s husband told her that he wanted to open a New York-style pizzeria in Seattle, she encouraged him—even though, as she...
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Life Stories #80: Ava Chin
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo via AvaChin.com In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I interview memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, Ava Chin...
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Life Stories #81: Nicole C. Kear
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Justine Cooper Nicole Kear was 19 when she was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative condition that, at the time it was discovered, was chipping...
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Life Stories #82: Maria Venegas
Subscribe to Life Stories in iTunes photo: Ricco Long In this episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I talk to memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, Maria Venegas talks...
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Life Stories #83: Val Wang
In her memoir, Beijing Bastard, Val Wang writes about growing up as a Chinese-American and then moving to Beijing in the late 1990s: “I think a lot of people think I was looking for my roots; that’s a...
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Life Stories #84: Emily Winslow
In the winter of 1992, Emily Winslow was a young theater major getting ready for her next semester when she was followed into her building by a stranger who then forced his way into her apartment and...
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Life Stories #85: Kim Addonizio
I didn’t realize until well into my conversation with Kim Addonizio that she’d written (but never published) a full-length memoir, a straightforward narrative about the breakup of a longterm...
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Life Stories #86: Matteson Perry
After Matteson Perry broke up with his “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” he realized that he’d never really not been in a serious relationship since high school, and decided it was time to get casual....
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Life Stories #87: Barry Yourgrau
Barry Yourgrau actually lives just around the corner from me in Queens, so it was absurdly easy for us to get together to chat about his memoir, Mess—and the fact that this episode was recorded in my...
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Life Stories #88: John Kaag
I spoke to John Kaag about his memoir, American Philosophy, shortly after the 2016 presidential election, so although we did spend a fair amount of time talking about his personal story, and how a...
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Life Stories #89: Jamie Brickhouse
I’ve known Jamie Brickhouse for a long time; in his former life as a book publicist, he was someone to whom I’d frequently reach out when I wanted to talk to… well, people like him in his current life...
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Life Stories #90: Barbara Schoichet
Barbara Schoichet got hit with a triple whammy just before her fiftieth birthday—she lost her job at a movie studio in Los Angeles, her girlfriend left her, and then her mother died. Don’t Think Twice...
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Life Stories #91: Danielle Trussoni
I spoke to Danielle Trussoni about her second memoir, The Fortress, in late 2016, just a few days after the news had broken about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s marriage falling apart. The timing was...
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Life Stories #92: Thomas Dolby
As I mention at the beginning of this episode, my inner 13-year-old was thrilled at the opportunity to talk to Thomas Dolby about his memoir, The Speed of Sound, because I’d been a big fan of “She...
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Life Stories #93: James Rebanks
Like many people, I first became aware of James Rebanks through his Herdwick Shepherd Twitter feed, where he posts pictures of his flock and talks about life as a farmer in England’s Lake District....
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Life Stories #94: Okey Ndibe
When Okey Ndibe came to America at the end of 1988 at the invitation of fellow Nigerian Chinua Achebe to edit a magazine about African culture, nobody thought to tell him about winter. He’d read about...
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Life Stories #95: Lauren Collins
Back in 2016, I had a fantastic conversation with Lauren Collins, a staff writer with The New Yorker who had just published When in French: Love in a Second Language, which is simultaneously a...
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Life Stories #96: James Rhodes
In the early months of 2017, I met the British concert pianist James Rhodes, who had come to the United States to discuss Instrumental, “a memoir of madness, medication, and music” as the subtitle...
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Life Stories #97: Andrew Forsthoefel
As I was talking with Andrew Forsthoefel in the spring of 2017 about his 4,000-mile walk across the United States, which he writes about in Walking to Listen, I asked a kidding-but-not-kidding...
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Life Stories #98: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich
When Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich was in law school, she did a summer internship at a Louisiana law firm. She was firmly against the death penalty, and then they asked if she would be prepared to work...
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Life Stories #99: Lauren Marks
Lauren Marks was an actress in her late twenties when she went to Edinburgh in 2007 to direct a friend’s play in the city’s annual Fringe Festival. One night, they went out to a bar, and she was in...
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Life Stories #100: Kat Kinsman & Andrea Petersen
For the 100th episode of Life Stories, the podcast where I’ve been talking to memoir writers about their lives and the art of writing memoir, I wanted to do something special. So, in the spring of...
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Life Stories #101: David Hallberg
I met David Hallberg at the midtown offices of the American Ballet Theater, where they’d set aside a conference room for us to talk about his new memoir, A Body of Work. It’s about his relentless...
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Life Stories #102: Elizabeth W. Garber
I spoke with Elizabeth W. Garber the Monday right after Father’s Day, an apt time to be discussing her memoir, Implosion. It’s a story about growing up in Cincinnati in the 1960s and early ’70s in a...
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Life Stories #103: Michelle Stevens
I first met Michelle Stevens in 2014, back when I was an acquiring editor for a startup book publishing company. We took a meeting with her and her agent after reading the proposal for her book, which...
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Life Stories #104: Minna Zallman Proctor
I met with Minna Zallman Proctor a while back, shortly after the publication of Landslide, a collection of autobiographical essays that orbit around her relationship with her mother. One of the things...
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Life Stories #105: Glen David Gold
I first met Glen David Gold when he was on a reading tour for his second novel, Sunnyside, which happened to be the name of the neighborhood where I lived at the time; that wasn’t the only reason we...
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Life Stories #106: Rick Moody
In The Long Accomplishment, Rick Moody takes readers through the first year of his second marriage. It was a moment in time where he’d gained significant control over his addictions, and had...
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Life Stories #107: Chavisa Woods
Chavisa Woods’ 100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism is a book that, as our British friends say, does exactly what it says on the tin—chronicling 100 separate incidents of sexist behavior that Woods has faced...
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