Diana Raab joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about connecting with ancestors and tuning into their guidance, books that need to be written, when publisher requests don’t resonate with us, adding prompts for readers, unwanted daughters and intergenerational trauma, how books we don’t like help us, adding prompts for readers, tapping into authentic voice, and her new book Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors.

Also in this episode:

-reading broadly

-surviving cancer multiple times

-how trauma manifests later in life

Book mentioned in this episode:

This Boys Life by Tobias Wolff

Paula by Isabel Allende

Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick

Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo

Poet Warrior by Joy Harjo

Diana Raab, MFA, PhD, is a poet, memoirist, workshop leader, thought-leader and award-winning author of fourteen books. Her work has been widely published and anthologized. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She frequently speaks and writes on writing for healing and transformation. Her 14th and newest book is Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors, A memoir with reflection and writing prompts (2024).Raab writes for Psychology Today, The Good Men Project, Sixty and Me, Thrive Global, and is a guest writer for many others.

Connect with Diana:

Website: https://www.dianaraab.com

Forthcoming poetry anthology:

https://gunpowderpress.com/product/women-in-a-golden-state/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dianaraab/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-raab-phd-a1850911/

Facebook (Author): https://www.facebook.com/DianaRaab.Author/

Facebook (Diana M Raab): https://www.facebook.com/diana.m.raab/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/512931.Diana_Raab

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/dianaraab1

Diana’s monthly newsletter: https://dianaraab.com/signup/

–

Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.

She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers