Tamara Jong, "Worldly Girls" (Book Hug*Press, 2020)

Nov 3, 2025

Tamara Jong, a Montreal-born writer with Chinese and European roots, explores her poignant memoir, Worldly Girls. She delves into the complexities of her fractured family, illuminating struggles with faith, addiction, and mental health. Jong candidly discusses her emotionally distant parents and the impact of her strict upbringing as a Jehovah's Witness. The narrative weaves through themes of grief, infertility, and forgiveness, ultimately revealing a journey toward healing and self-discovery.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Fiction As A Safe Memoir Start

Tamara Jong began by writing autobiographical fiction as a safer way into memoir.
Switching to nonfiction courses helped her realize memoir suited her voice and truth.

ADVICE

Protect Privacy And Own Your Flaws

Change names or ask permission when writing about living people to protect privacy.
Write honestly but include your own flaws to avoid a revenge-driven portrait.

INSIGHT

Truth-Telling With Compassion

Memoirists often justify honest depiction by noting others' behavior.
Tamara acknowledges truth-telling can coexist with empathy and complexity.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with author Tamara Jong about her memoir, Worldly Girls (Book*hug Press, 2025).

Tamara Jong’s powerful memoir documents the slow unravelling of her connection to her faith and the tragic history of her fractured family, shining a light into the dark corners of memory that have haunted her well into adulthood.

With clear-eyed honesty and written in sparse yet searing prose, Jong collects the fragments of her unconventional childhood, with her busy schedule of Jehovah’s Witness meetings, Bible study, and door-to-door ministering. She also details her emotionally distant father and alcoholic mother’s tumultuous marriage, her deep yearnings to become a mother after the loss of her own, and her struggles with mental health.

After corporate and spiritual burnout, and a suicide attempt at the age of thirty-two, Jong comes to understand that the strict religion she had long believed would protect her prevented her from pursuing her true sense of self. In a story that traverses a wide range of potent themes—including addiction, estrangement, grief, infertility, and forgiveness—the ultimate message of Worldly Girls is one of hope as Jong finds her own path to healing and belonging.

About Tamara Jong:

TAMARA JONG is a Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) born writer of Chinese and European ancestry. Her work has been published in the Humber Literary Review, Room Magazine, and The Fiddlehead, and has been both long and shortlisted for various creative non-fiction prizes. She is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, and a former member of Room Magazine’s collective. She currently lives and works on Treaty 3 territory, the occupied and ancestral lands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabewaki, Attiwonderonk, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation (Guelph, ON). Worldly Girls is her first book.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network