Jessica Wilbanks, memoirist

Jessica’s Writing We Discussed

When I Spoke in Tongues: A Story of Faith and Its Loss

“From Essay to Book: On ‘Mirrorings’” in Essay Daily

“On the Far Side of the Fire: Life, Death and Witchcraft in the Niger Delta” in Longreads

Suggested Reads and Honorable Mentions from Jessica

Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje

Bluets by Maggie Nelson

Cameron Dezen Hammon’s upcoming memoir, This is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession

“Shitty First Drafts” from Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

The Body Papers by Grace Talusan

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

“Mirrorings” by Lucy Grealy in Harper’s Magazine

Claudia Rankine

Roxanne Gay

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (English translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

The Third Bank of the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty-First-Century Amazon by Chris Feliciano Arnold

The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick

“Me Talk Pretty One Day” from Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Charles D’Ambrosio

Bonus: Nick Flynn is telling us all to write at least 50 knockout pages

Suggested Reads and Honorable Mentions from Our Very Own

Jesus Land: A Memoir by Julia Scheeres

Half a Life by Darin Strauss

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Educated by Tara Westover

The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

Also Discussed

The episode of “Bullseye with Jesse Thorn” (podcast) focused on Brian Raftery’s book, Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen. You can find the episode on the Maximum Fun network here.

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance