What’s inspiring you these days?
Inspiration is so important when you’re writing a memoir.
What’s lighting you up these days? Any wonderful memoirs you’ve read recently? Any particularly helpful resources you’ve encountered?
Here are two things that are inspiring me right now:
Row House Publishing
Founded by Rebekah Boruki, Row House Publishers is a relatively new publishing house “Raising the Volume on Voices That Matter” and publishing books at the intersection of literature and social justice.
I’ve been following Row House since its inception in 2020 and absolutely love what they’re doing. In a space still dominated by white publishers, they’re changing the landscape—and it’s about time!
From their website:
“Row House offers an equitable publishing model that represents the values and diversity of the authors and audience we embrace.
“From the outset, Row House has been a revolutionary model building a community of authors from diverse backgrounds committed to supporting each other and imprints that celebrate a wide range of genres: award-winning non-fiction titles at Row House, children’s literature at Wheat Penny Press, spirituality and magic at Spirit Bound Press, humor and fantasy at 100 Block, inclusive romance at Generous Press, and tools for small businesses and entrepreneurs at small.”
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo
My favorite memoir that I’ve read in a long time! This gem comes to us from Malaysia-born American radio journalist, producer and author Stephanie Foo.
Here’s the back cover copy:
By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.
Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.
In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it.
Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.
What My Bones Know is a New York Times Bestseller and was voted one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads and Publishers Weekly. (Content warning: the abuse in the first section of the book can be pretty intense.)
What’s Inspiring You?
Now it’s your turn — I would love to hear what’s inspiring you! Email me at tanja[at]tanjapajevic[dot]com and I’ll compile a list of your resources to share with our community.
Memoir Support
In other news, I have one manuscript review slot available for August, and one for September if you’re looking for support. Please reach out if you’re interested.
I also wanted to let you know I’ll be offering my flagship Memoir Mastery course again in September.
If you’re interested in joining us, sign up for the advance notice list here. Otherwise, stay tuned – more info will be coming soon.
Have a wonderful week!
Warmly,
Tanja
P.S.: Know someone who might benefit from these notes? Please invite them to join our community here and I’ll send them my Story Starter Kit as a thank you.
