Beth Ann Fennelly on The Micro Memoir

About this episode

This episode explores the micro memoir with guest Beth Ann Fennelly, discussing its unique form and the impact of Substack on book tours.

If you’re a regular listener of Memoir Nation, you know we love to cover memoir in all its changing and emerging forms. The micro memoir is a form all its own—different from the fragmented style that’s been so popular of late. In this week’s show, we’re going micro, exploring how writers can boil the essence of what needs to be said into the fewest number of words. We’ll talk about the form, its benefits for all writers, and how memoir keeps pushing the boundaries with our guest, Beth Ann Fennelly. And in this week’s book trend, we cover how Substack is changing the way we think about book tours. Beth Ann Fennelly was Poet Laureate of Mississippi from 2016-2021 and teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi where she is a four-time teaching award winner. She has published three poetry books: Open House, Tender Hooks, and Unmentionables . She’s also published a book of nonfiction, Great with Child, and a novel she co-authored with her husband, Tom Franklin, called The Tilted World. Her sixth book, Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs, was named an Atlanta Journal Constitution Best Book, a Goodreaders Favorite for 2017, and the winner of the Housatonic Book…

People in this episode

Hosts: Brooke Warner, Grant Faulkner

Guest: Beth Ann Fennelly

Topics covered

• micro memoir
• writing techniques
• memoir forms
• Substack
• book tours
• Beth Ann Fennelly

Keywords

• micro memoir
• Beth Ann Fennelly
• writing
• memoir
• Substack
• book tours
• poetry

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Mississippi

Books & works: Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs, The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs, Great with Child, The Tilted World, Open House, Tender Hooks, Unmentionables

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