AWP Offsite Reading This Friday, Plus Your March Event Recap

We hope to see you in Los Angeles!

Hello dear memoir lovers,

This newsletter is coming to you from 36,000 feet, as I make my way across the country to Los Angeles for AWP. After months of agonizing over every detail of our offsite Must Love Memoir event, it feels a little surreal that it’s just days away.

If you’re also heading to AWP this week, we hope you’ll check out our incredible lineup for our even on Friday. We are gathering at The Love Song Bar for a night of nonfiction readings and support for fire victims. If you haven’t gotten your ticket yet, you should do it now — like right now!

In addition to our exciting week at AWP, we are still buzzing from our NYC reading just a few weeks ago! If you were at our March event, you can probably attest that there was a special kind of energy in the air. We were all eager for the taste of Spring and real stories and a full room showed up to support our readers—a lineup of authors who did not disappoint!

Ruthie Ackerman, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Paulette Perhach, Krystal Marie Orwig (host), Toby Millstein, Sarah Gormley, Hope Elizabeth Kidd (co-host), Jenny Higgins

In case you missed it, here’s a recap of the night:

Starting off the evening was Ruthie Ackerman, reading from her forthcoming memoir The Mother Code: My Story of Love, Loss, and the Myths That Shape Us (out in May!) In a sneak peak, Ruthie read an excerpt about deciding whether or not to have children, wrestling with acknowledging that she didn’t need a man in order to have a family, but also wanting a teammate and partner in parenthood. As she asked herself the question, “Do I actually want to become a single mother by choice?” she contemplated how there are so few models of self-actualization for women to follow.

Following Ruthie was Toby Millstein, who shared a vulnerable essay about drug and alcohol use. He wrote about attending AA meetings and becoming sober from alcohol, while also doing heroin with friends, trying to find a “liquid sense of well-being.” While wondering about people’s true selves, Toby also read about the tragic time a friend had died from an overdose.

Paulette Perhach was next, and we were excited to welcome her back to the Must Love Memoir stage! She read an essay about being single. Paulette remembered a time her mother apologized for “misleading” her when she’d told her that the right man would come along. She talked about not giving up hope of finding a partner, but giving in to the idea that some people go through life without one. Now she tries to live her life by asking, “What would I do next if I accept that it might just be me?”

After a short break, we started back up with Sarah Gormley, who had the room weeping as she read from her memoir The Order of Things, a book about going back to her family farm to care for her dying mother. Sarah used humor to write about the hard things, like how annoyed she was with the person who came unannounced to visit the house, and buying both chocolate and vanilla pudding for her mother, while knowing she wouldn’t live long enough to eat both packages.

Following Sarah was her very good friend Jenny Higgins, who read a humorous essay about her fear of flying. She talked about the superstitious practices she does when flying, such as touching the outside of the plane from the jetway, and placing both feet on the ground for takeoff and landing. On this particular flight—where she was coincidentally flying home for Sarah’s mother’s funeral—the turbulence was so severe, Jenny’s seatmate held her hand, attempting to distract her with questions and prayers. She made it through the flight only to find out the kind man was actually pastor of an almost cult-like church.

Our final reader of the night was Rachel Kramer Bussel, sharing an essay about how she was almost on the show Hoarders: Buried Alive. She talked about hiding her hoarding for years by not letting anyone come over, and using professional organizers, only for their work to be soon undone. She wrote that hoarding is a true mental health issue, and that ultimately, she decided not to be featured on the show but to have professional junk removers come over instead.

We’re also very excited to about next month’s NYC lineup, which will take place Tuesday, April 8 at the usual time and place. Here’s a sneak peak at the lineup:

We hope to see you there!