Marion Winik is a writer and author whose memoir, First Comes Love, was originally published 30 years ago, featured on the Oprah Winfrey show and loved by reviewers and readers everywhere. Perhaps the words most often used for it were "pioneering" and "groundbreaking." The Kirkus review said of it, “Romance, comedy, tragedy, terrible truth, and extraordinary love, as straight woman marries gay man, bears children, and watches their world dissolve in the wake of AIDS.” Yes, all that, amid writing that is a master class in memoir. The author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (Counterpoint, 2019) and First Comes Love (Pantheon, 1996; Vintage, 2025), her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011. A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award. Listen in as the author and I discuss writing what you know for a fine,long career. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Writer and author Huda Al-Marashi writes for both children and adults. She is a coauthor of the middle grade novel Grounded, which won the Walter Dean Myers Honor award, and the author of the memoir First Comes Marriage: My Not-So-Typical American Love Story. Her other writing has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and al Jazeera. She is a fellow and mentor with the Highlights Foundation Muslim Storytellers Program. Her short story “Not Only an Only,” was featured in the celebrated anthology ONCE UPON AN EID. Her new book is a middle grade novel titled, Hail Miriam, just out from Penguin. Listen in as she and I discuss turning one of her own life events into fiction, and so much more. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Award-winning journalist and author, Matti Friedman has worked as a reporter in Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. A former Associated Press correspondent, his work has appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. He's currently writes from Israel for The Free Press. The author of five nonfiction books that have been translated into a dozen languages and have so far been awarded The Sami Rohr Prize, the Natan Prize, the ALA’s Sophy Brody Medal. His new book is Out of the Sky, Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe, just out from Speigel and Grau. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Shelley Noble is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Well-known for her gripping historical novel, The Tiffany Girls, in which the author unearths the previously little-known true story of the women artists responsible for much of Tiffany’s glasswork, as well as for her historical mysteries, Shelley Noble is a former professor, dancer and choreographer. Her new historical novel could not be more timely. Titled The Sisters of Book Row, it digs into early 20th century American book banning during a time in our country when even classic literature or fine art could send a person to jail. The Sisters of Book Row is just out from William Morrow. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Antonio Michael Downing is the author of the memoir Saga Boy, My Memoir of Blackness and Becoming, in which he show us how he had become, like his father and grandfather before him, a Saga boy, a Trinidadian playboy and almost loses everything of value himself until he rescues himself and becames the musician and writer he was born to be. In his new book, a novel entitled Black Cherokee, we meet the unforgettable Ophelia Blue Rivers, a mixed-race Black girl fighting for her identity in a South Carolina Cherokee community. Listen in as he and I speak about writing into identity, and so much more. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Father and son, Ruchin and Neil Kansal, are co-authors of the new book, The Kansal Clunker: The Car That Rebuilt Us, just out from Khoeler Books. It is getting rave reviews, including one from Kirkus proclaiming it “"An endearing and thought-provoking road odyssey." And it is just that – and odyssey, and more, that received a number one rating as a new release on Amazon in family travel guides. But it’s not like any other travel guide, I assure you. Listen in as we discuss what a clunker car brought to a father and son team. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Writer and author Tarpley Hitt is a New York journalist and an editor and contributor at The Drift magazine. She has previously reported on culture and money for The Daily Beast and Gawker. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Bookforum, The Paris Review, The Guardian, Air Mail, Deseret Magazine, and Miami New Times. Her debut book is Barbieland, The Unauthorized History, just out from Simon & Schuster’s One Signal imprint. The New York Times called it “rollicking.” Amazon named it a “Best Book of the Month” and an “Editors’ Pick.” Her work is full of humor, joy and vibrant language, in no small part because of the eye she has developed. Listen in as we discuss that eye, and so much more. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Melissa Fraterrigo is the author of the novel Glory Days (University of Nebraska Press), as well as the story collection The Longest Pregnancy (Livingston Press). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies from storySouth and Shenandoah to Indiana Review and The Millions. She teaches fiction writing at Purdue University and is the founder and executive director of the Lafayette Writers’ Studio where she offers online classes on the art and craft of writing. Her new book is The Perils of Girlhood, just out from the University of Nebraska Press. Listen in as she and I discuss how to choose a point of view when writing memoir, and so much more. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.