About this episode
Laura Davis discusses her decision to publish her memoir and the impact it had on her family.
Episode Title: Hard Choices: How I Decided to Publish Another Book and Risk Losing my Family. Episode Description: In this deeply personal episode, acclaimed author and writing teacher Laura Davis shares the essay she published in Publishers Weekly about her wrenching decision to publish her award-winning memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars , nineteen years after publishing her last book. Laura takes listeners inside the private calculus every memoirist faces: What happens when telling the truth might cost you the people you love? And as an exclusive for her Substack readers, she shares the actual letter she wrote to her family before the book came out — a document of rare candor and courage. What Laura Covers in This Episode The unexpected aftermath of publishing The Courage to Heal (co-authored with Ellen Bass in 1988) — and the family fracture it caused How Laura spent two decades as a writing teacher, keeping her own most urgent stories unpublished The moment she realized she had a new book growing inside her — and why she kept telling herself she'd never publish it The line she had to cross before she could seriously consider putting The Burning Light of Two Stars into…
People in this episode
Host: Laura Davis
Topics covered
- memoir writing
- family dynamics
- publishing decisions
- personal storytelling
- truth and consequences
Keywords
- memoir
- publishing
- family
- writing
- truth
- personal essay
- courage
- storytelling
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Publishers Weekly
Books & works: The Burning Light of Two Stars, The Courage to Heal
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