Navigating Personal Stories in a Memoir

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The chapter explores the ethical and legal considerations of sharing personal stories, especially those involving family members, in a memoir. The speaker reflects on seeking permission, interviewing family members, and sharing their upbringing in a cult with their adult children. They discuss attachment theory, the impact of their upbringing on trust issues, and the challenges of transitioning in life after children leave home.

Michelle Dowd was born into an ultra-religious cult, “The Field,” started in the 1930s by her grandfather, who convinced generations of young male followers that he would live five hundred years and ascend to the heavens when doomsday came.

Michelle Dowd is a professor of journalism at Chaffey College and contributor to The New York Times, Alpinist, The Los Angeles Book Review, Catapult, OnlySky, and other national publications. She founded The Chaffey Review, an award-winning literary journal, advises student media, teaches poetry and critical thinking in the California State prisons, and has been recognized as a Longreads Top 5 for The Thing with Feathers, on the relationship between environmentalism and hope. Her memoir is Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult.