171. When Writing Constraints Liberate Our Work featuring Tom McAllister

Tom McAllister joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about finding the right container for our work trusting our writing to speak for itself, giving ourselves homework, writing constraints as guiding principles, his approach to teaching nonfiction, the challenge of self-promotion, strategies for creating companion pieces, stating things boldly and with confidence, the podcast Book Fight he co-hosts, and how he wrote a short essay for every year of his life and turned it into his new book It All Felt Impossible.:42 Years in 42 Essays.

Also in this episode:

-trusting the reader

-when the well feels dry

-handling rejection

 

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Largess of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

My Documents by Alejandro Zambra

A Childhood: The Biography of a Place by Harry Cruz

The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen

 

Tom McAllister is the author of the novel How to Be Safe, which was named one of the best books of 2018 by Kirkus and The Washington Post. His other books are the novel The Young Widower’s Handbook and the memoir Bury Me in My Jersey. His short stories and essays have been published in The Sun, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Black Warrior Review, and many other places. He is the nonfiction editor at Barrelhouse and co-hosts the Book Fight! podcast with Mike Ingram. He lives in New Jersey and teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers-Camden.

 

Tom's article in The Writer's Chronicle: https://writerschronicle.awpwriter.org/TWC/2025-february/preview/04_From-Anecdote-to-Essay-preview.aspx

Connect with Tom:

tom.mcallister.ws

https://www.instagram.com/realpizzatom/

https://bsky.app/profile/tmcallister.bsky.social

https://www.facebook.com/tom.mcallister.12

 

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. 

She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

Subscribe to Ronit’s Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank

Follow Ronit:

https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/

https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank

https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social

 

Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers