About this episode

Marion Winik discusses her memoir and the art of writing what you know.

Marion Winik is a writer and author whose memoir, First Comes Love , was originally published 30 years ago, featured on the Oprah Winfrey show and loved by reviewers and readers everywhere. Perhaps the words most often used for it were "pioneering" and "groundbreaking." The Kirkus review said of it, “Romance, comedy, tragedy, terrible truth, and extraordinary love, as straight woman marries gay man, bears children, and watches their world dissolve in the wake of AIDS.” Yes, all that, amid writing that is a master class in memoir. The author of nine books, including The Big Book of the Dead (Counterpoint, 2019) and First Comes Love (Pantheon, 1996; Vintage, 2025), her essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and elsewhere; her column at BaltimoreFishbowl.com has been running since 2011. A professor at the University of Baltimore, she reviews books for The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, and People, among others, and hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader. She was a commentator on All Things Considered for fifteen years. She is the recipient of the 2023 National Book Critics Circle Service Award. Listen in as the author and I discuss writing what you know…

People in this episode

Host: Marion Roach Smith

Guest: Marion Winik

Topics covered

• memoir writing
• personal narrative
• literary career
• AIDS
• love and relationships
• book reviews

Keywords

• Marion Winik
• memoir
• writing
• AIDS
• First Comes Love
• literature
• book reviews

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, BaltimoreFishbowl.com, The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, People, NPR, National Book Critics Circle

Products: The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life

Books & works: First Comes Love

More episodes of QWERTY: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life

• Ep. 166 Davin Malasarn · June 12, 2026 · 31 min
• Ep. 165 Scott Eden · May 29, 2026 · 25 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the QWERTY: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life podcast page.