davidquigg asked: Hi. This will contain unsolicited advice. So if you'd rather not get that from a stranger, please go ahead and delete it without reading more.
I will keep this short since I bet you have heard some version of this before. Basically, I just want to be sure you realize that your "Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me" series is functionally equivalent to writing a memoir. These conversations are explicitly about the idea that there are unflattering truths about your family. My mind immediately jumps to imagining the very worst about your parents and your childhood. Maybe nobody else has this reaction. If others do, however, please consider that any honest, specific memoir you write can lift this generalized fog of suspicion that shrouds your parents because of what you've already put out into the world with the interviews. As you've left it, these people could be anything from puppy-stranglers to pedophiles to embezzlers to, well, ANYTHING, really. This isn't something to feel guilty about. It is something to mend, and the way to mend it is with specificity and honesty. My bias is that the honesty should also take the form of rendering yourself not as your "sassy and outspoken" monologist persona but as that timid person "whispering my feelings into a tape recorder hidden in my closet."
I wish you the best.
- David
You make a good point, David. Although I will note that in several of the conversations - I think most notably with authors who have suffered abuse at the hands of their parents, like Shalom Auslander and Jillian Lauren - I make a point of saying that I was not subjected to the kinds of things they were. Thanks for the vote of confidence in the timid persona; I am partial to her, too. Maybe there’s room for both of them somewhere. I very much appreciate the feedback, and the good wishes!
