A quick note to say I’m genuinely grateful for all the notes, comments, boosts, etc that last week’s episode with received. Thank you! I hope you continue to enjoy this season :)
In this week’s episode of The Book I Had to Write, I talk with Margo Steines, the author of Brutalities: A Love Story.
This memoir-in-essays documents Steines’s journey through a series of edgier experiences including her time as a professional dominatrix, a welder on a high-rise crew, her addictions to exercise, her interest in MMA fighting, and more.
We talk about her journey to discovering the power of the braided essay—in her case, a combination of memoir, essay, research, and reporting—that allowed her to write about several difficult experiencees “in conversation with one another.”
We also discuss other key issues for anyone engaged in memoir: about her commitment to truth in her writing, the challenges of self-exposure, finding confidence in one's writing, and how to write about difficult material without retraumatizing yourself.
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Some of my biggest takeaways:
How pain can reveal an authentic self: The concept of pain and its role in self-discovery is a central theme in Brutalities. Steines explores her own fascination with physical extremes, such as her enthusiasm with MMA fighting and her dedication (bordering on addiction) to intense physical exercise, even (most difficult for me) an early fascination with being hit in the face.
She says: "I have always been compelled to share the parts of my experience that were trained by culture not to talk about."
I admired Steines’s approach to truth-telling in her work. In an author's note at the beginning of Brutalities, Steines described the challenges of writing memoir and the limitations of memory.
She acknowledges the subjective nature of her experiences but strives to represent them as honestly as possible. She told me: “I don't want to make any more concessions away from objective truth than I can. Everything that I am in control of, I want to hew as close to what actually happened as I'm able.”
Writing about violence and physical extremes is hard work… Steines says mining her own experiences was emotionally and psychologically challenging.
…yet it was the emotional intimacy of her current relationship that proved even harder to render: “The parts that were the hardest to write were actually the memoir, interstitial pieces about my partner... It felt like it broke me open in a certain way,” she says.
Writing can be both a means of self-exposure and self-acceptance: “Once I tell the truth on the page, I can't redact it to myself anymore,” she says.
Steines’s needed the unconventional form of the braided essay to get closer to her own truth. She describes the braided essay as a hybrid of memoir, essay, cultural criticism, and immersion journalism. This form allows her to bring together multiple strands of thought and experience, creating resonance between seemingly unrelated ideas.
“It is the way to write that makes sense for me... that associative logic that takes you from one idea to another, on its face unrelated idea that is actually deeply related,” she says.
Speaking of structure, finding the final form for her book also proved challenging. Steines had to navigate the balance between narrative storytelling and idea exploration, ensuring that each essay contributed to the overall theme of the book.
“The hardest part of the craft was how to hang the whole thing together... the order was ended up being very important,” she says.
As a teacher, one of her jobs is helping writers find a sense of agency in their own writing. She tells me she believes that writers already possess the resources they need within themselves and that her role as a teacher is to provide hard skills and belief in their own convictions.
“I try to offer that experience to my students... to borrow my belief in the power of their own convictions,” she told me.
Writing about trauma without retraumatizing oneself is key for writers of difficult personal material. She’ll be broaching that subject at an AWP panel this February.
She acknowledges the importance of self-care and (somatic experiencing) therapy in navigating the emotional challenges.
“I go to therapy... finding a way towards healing my relationship with my body... unpacking these ideas of labor and suffering from the idea of a creative practice.”
Check out more of Margo Steines’s work
Buy Brutalities: A Love Story via Amazon | Bookshop | W. W. Norton
“Run Home,” The Sun, August 2023
“A Very Brutal Game,” The Sun, November 2020
“Depredations,” Brevity magazine, January 17, 2020
Show Credits
This episode was edited by Paul Zakrzewski and produced & mixed by Magpie Audio Productions. Theme music is "The Stone Mansion" by BlueDot Productions.
Brutalities: Crafting truth thru braided essays with Margo Steines