The October Lineup is here!

And some random thoughts on Emily in Paris, just because.

Hello dear memoir lovers,

Last weekend was a slow one here in NYC, as I took time to recover from a head cold and catch up on some much needed rest. Besides the multiple boxes of tissues I took down and essay feedback I avoided, I also binge watched the entirety of Emily in Paris for the first time, in like three days.

Impressive, I know.

While we’re on the subject of Emily in Paris and not memoirs, I feel like sharing my thoughts — which mostly revolve around the problem that I can’t actually decide if I like the show or not. If I’m being honest, I’m not that into fashion or forced conflict.

Nothing gets my knickers in a twist more than a fictional character overreacting to fake drama (which can probably be blamed on the nonfiction writer in me). BUT I can say I’m anxiously awaiting season 5. Which either means the show is doing something right or my obsession with all things Paris knows no bounds.

OR I just want to make sure Emily finally comes to her senses and chooses Alfie.

Photo: STÉPHANIE BRANCHU/NETFLIX

Outside of my television habits, there’s always things going on behind the scenes here at Must Love Memoir. We are booked up for the rest of the year with some amazing writers and we’ll also be opening for submissions for the first time in just a few days! (Stay tuned for that post coming Monday!)

The first ever goal-setting workshop also took place last Wednesday and I want to take the time to thank those of you who came. Hope and I are so excited for this community to grow and your support and participation means so much to both of us. We are looking forward to meeting again in two months to check in and set new writing goals. These workshops will be taking place every few months and annual subscribers are always invited to join!

But onto the main reason for this week’s newsletter. Now that it’s officially Autumn, and no more “technically it’s still summer posts” are accepted online, it seems like the perfect time to announce next month’s lineup.

♥️,

Krystal (and Hope)

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October Readers

Samantha Hernandez is a poet and MFA candidate at the City College of New York. Her work explores the possibilities of the surreal within the mundane and takes inspiration from the Alice Notley quote: “poetry’s so common hardly anyone can find it.” Her work has appeared in Taco Bell Quartley, Endless Editions SPRTS Poetry, and The Marbled Sigh. 

Krystal Marie Orwig is a writer, editor, cat mom, and the founder and co-host of Must Love Memoir, a New York City reading series dedicated to nonfiction writers. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The City College of New York where she also teaches English Composition. Her writing has appeared in Everyday Health. In her free time she’s usually rewatching Gilmore Girls and Friends or finding places to store toilet paper in her New York apartment.

Aurora Wells is a queer femme writer of prose, film, and television that centers her badass communities. With essays published in The Cut and elsewhere, she attended the 2024 Tin House Workshop for creative nonfiction. MAKE THEM PAY, her drama pilot about an escort agency turned vigilante justice group, placed in many competitions and ranks in the top 4% on Coverfly. Now Aurora is writing a lyrical, BDSM-heavy memoir. She lives in Brooklyn with her perfect rescue pups, Petunia and Peach Julep.

Jonathan Corcoran is the author of the memoir No Son of Mine and a story collection, The Rope Swing, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and long-listed for The Story Prize. His work has been published and anthologized in Belt Magazine, Salvation South, Still: The Journal, and Best Gay Stories. He holds degrees in creative writing from Brown University and Rutgers University-Newark. Jonathan teaches at NYU and in the low-residency MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan College. He was born in a small town in West Virginia and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Wendy Barnes first full-length volume of poems, Landscape with Bloodfeud, was awarded the Juniper Prize for Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Press (2022). Her poems have appeared in publications like Narrative, storySouth, Painted Bride Quarterly, Spoon River Review, and Slice Magazine. Her art and literary reviews appear in publications like Frog magazine and The Adroit Journal. She received a Fellowship in Prose from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts for her memoir in progress. She is an associate professor of English at Union College and was recently Visiting Artist-in-Residence at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Stephanie Davies is a writer who worked in communications for Doctors Without Borders and now works as a speechwriter at UNAIDS. In 2024, she was awarded Lambda Literary’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction for Other Girls Like Me and her work-in-progress Other Queers Like Me. A UK native, Stephanie moved to New York in the early nineties, where she taught English Composition at Long Island University in Brooklyn and led research trips to Cuba. Before moving to New York, she co-edited a grassroots LGBTQ magazine in Brighton called A Queer Tribe. Today, Stephanie divides her time between Brooklyn and the Hudson Valley, New York where she lives with her wife, Bea, and rescue pitbull mix, Pongo.

Other Announcements:

Virtual write-ins will be back in October! Save these dates and times in your calendar now and come write with the Must Love Memoir community!

Sunday, October 13 at 5:30PM

Sunday, October 27 at 5:30PM

Sunday, November 10 at 5:30PM