R153. A Bag Full of God: Female Memoirists with Daddy Issues

Room LL5, Western New England MFA Annex, Lower Level
Thursday, February 27, 2014
10:30 am to 11:45 am

 

Every daughter must bury her father – marble-heavy, a bag full of God – as Sylvia Plath wrote. These daughters did so in the form of memoir. The task of authoring the man who authored you is necessarily fraught, with the need to find a balance between deification and bitterness. Female memoirists discuss how they confronted the long shadows cast by their fathers, with a special focus on the craft of memoir, how to find the truth of a true story, and writing to make the personal universal.


Participants

Moderator:

Sarah Tomlinson has ghostwritten eight books, including two un-credited New York Times best sellers. Her journalism and essays have appeared in publications including Marie Claire, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, the Huffington Post, and Salon. Her father-daughter memoir is forthcoming.

Alysia Abbott is the author of Fairyland, A Memoir of My Father. Her essays have appeared in Real Simple, Salon, Marie Claire, Vogue, and TheAtlantic.com. She was a contributing producer at WNYC radio.

Jennie Ketcham is an author, public speaker, graduate student, and former porn star who tackled her daddy issues on VH1 shows with Dr. Drew and in her book, I Am Jennie.

Tracy McMillan is a screenwriter, author, and television and radio personality. Her television credits include Mad Men and United States of Tara. She is the author of Why You're Not Married... Yet, and I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway. She recently appeared on the NBC show, Ready For Love.

Alison Wearing is an award-winning writer and performer. Her most recent project, Confessions of a Fairy's Daughter: growing up with a gay dad, is both a one-woman show and a memoir.

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