About this episode

Laura Davis shares a deleted scene from her memoir and discusses the challenges of cutting cherished material from writing.

PODCAST SHOW NOTES: Episode Title: The Summer I Dropped Acid with My Father: A Deleted Scene and What I Had to Let go Episode Description: Some scenes are written perfectly and still have to go. In this special episode of The Writer's Journey , acclaimed author and writing teacher Laura Davis opens her archive of cut material from her award-winning 2021 memoir, The Burning Light of Two Stars , and shares a piece she fought hard to keep — a single afternoon in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her father that changed something between them permanently. Woven through the storytelling is an honest, behind-the-scenes look at one of the hardest decisions in memoir writing: how to release even your most cherished work when it doesn't serve the book's core arc. What Laura Covers in This Episode: Why even the most beautifully written scenes sometimes have to be cut — and how a memoirist knows when that moment has come The backstory of Laura's relationship with her father, and the years of silence that preceded this afternoon A fully rendered deleted scene set at a Back to the Land weekend party in the Santa Cruz Mountains, June 1980 What happens when carefully constructed emotional armor…

People in this episode

Host: Laura Davis

Topics covered

• memoir writing
• father-daughter relationship
• deleted scenes
• emotional armor
• writing process
• personal growth

Keywords

• memoir
• writing craft
• deleted scenes
• father
• personal narrative
• emotional connection
• Santa Cruz

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: The Burning Light of Two Stars

Places: Santa Cruz Mountains

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