Memoir Nation

Strategies for Writing About Childhood Trauma, featuring Javier Zamora

Mar 4, 2024

This podcast delves into writing about childhood trauma, focusing on Javier Zamora's journey as an unaccompanied minor. It explores the healing process, diverse voices in literature, therapeutic benefits of writing, and the growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ romance books in publishing.

40:23

Creator website

Episode guests

Javier Zamora

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Writing about childhood trauma can serve as a healing process for authors.

Memoirs offer unique insights into the challenges and healing opportunities in conveying childhood trauma experiences.

Deep dives

The Evolution of Memoir: New Structures and Techniques

The memoir intensive course titled 'The Evolution of Memoir' beginning in March explores new structures and techniques in memoir writing. The focus is on evolving narrative forms, using time and space more creatively, and layering meanings to showcase the changes in the genre. The class aims to reflect the ongoing memoir revolution, incorporating recommended readings for in-depth exploration.

Introduction

2min

Navigating Childhood Trauma in Memoir Writing

20min

Advocating for Diverse Voices in Literature and Immigrant Representation

3min

Exploring Healing and Self-Discovery Through Writing About Trauma

5min

Analyzing Growth and Acceptance of LGBTQ+ Romance Books in Publishing

4min

This week Write-minded wades into the important topic of writing about childhood trauma. Trauma is at the heart of many of our stories, whether you’re writing coming-of-age or only touching upon childhood stories in the context of specific memoir scenes (or raw material for fiction). Javier’s memoir, Solito, is a stunning book about his nine-week journey from El Salvador to the US as an unaccompanied minor when he was just nine years old. The original journey nearly killed him, and in this generous interview he speaks to how the journey of writing about his experience saved him.

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