Listen now (30 mins) | Today’s episode features my interview with Jennifer Lang. Her memoir, Places We Left Behind, is a marvel of brevity and form. It’s the story of how one woman, a hybrid of American-French-Israeli identities, navigates cultural and religious differences with her husband over the course of three decades, as her family searches for what it means to find a sense of home.
Hi, Richard -- Absolutely...but standard or not, it doesn't tend to be the one writers reach for early enough. For me, I was fascinated by the evolution of Jennifer's book since I know from experience how hard it can be to re-envision projects. Thanks again for listening!
So interesting and I'm really curious about this trend towards "small." I wonder how they sell compared to more traditional, 80,000-90,000 word manuscripts.
It's a great question that I'm sure someone like Kathleen Schmidt would have insights into. The one thing that occurs to me is that smaller, experimental or structurally-innovative memoirs are most often published by smaller indy (or sometimes university) presses...whereas you don't tend to see these published by Big 5 or major indy presses. Meaning smaller print runs too. That said, these small books are often the more exciting and influential being published -- think Maggie Nelson, for example -- so there's a difference between sales and reach :)
You can always shrink down a sentence, a chapter, a book. Brevity is a standard tool, to be dispensed with at your peril : )
Hi, Richard -- Absolutely...but standard or not, it doesn't tend to be the one writers reach for early enough. For me, I was fascinated by the evolution of Jennifer's book since I know from experience how hard it can be to re-envision projects. Thanks again for listening!
I loved her memoir and reviewed it for Heavy Feather Review: https://heavyfeatherreview.org/2024/03/14/places-we-left-behind/
What a terrific review -- Thanks for posting here!
So interesting and I'm really curious about this trend towards "small." I wonder how they sell compared to more traditional, 80,000-90,000 word manuscripts.
It's a great question that I'm sure someone like Kathleen Schmidt would have insights into. The one thing that occurs to me is that smaller, experimental or structurally-innovative memoirs are most often published by smaller indy (or sometimes university) presses...whereas you don't tend to see these published by Big 5 or major indy presses. Meaning smaller print runs too. That said, these small books are often the more exciting and influential being published -- think Maggie Nelson, for example -- so there's a difference between sales and reach :)