In a reading mood…
Quick announcement! As of today I’m accepting new essays or memoir chapters or any sort of first-person non-fiction for consideration of my second season of Daring to Tell.
What sorts of stories am I looking for? Well, as you may have heard if you’ve listened to episode one of my first season… I talked about when I was 12 years old, and how I felt as if I knew every book on the shelves of the children’s section of our town library. I’d read almost every Judy Blume book (the sophisticated ones… you know, like Deenie and Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself… I was so beyond those Fudge ones, I hadn’t delved into Forever yet either) every Laura Ingalls Wilder book multiple times over, and I was hankering for something else. Something I wasn’t finding on those shelves. But I wasn’t exactly sure what. So I decided to write the book I was wanting to read. Something a little salacious, but not TOO salacious… something fictional because I (so boldly) decided I’d write a book about a girl who had the life I wished I had. Someone who was popular and rich with sisters and a boyfriend.
When I stumbled across it in adulthood and reread the familiar old onion skin typing paper pages, oh geez! How embarrassing! I really let my heart out on those pages, textured from the pressure of the clanking manual typewriter keys! (God, was typing on a typewriter fun!) But I guarded the story fiercely and shared it with no one.
No one.
Now I’d never dare to write fiction (although never say never I suppose)… Since adulthood I mostly look for inspiration in real life stories. That’s how Daring to Tell came into being. I met a batch of wonderful, brave souls, all nearly finished with or already shopping their memoirs. The works were (mostly) as of yet unpublished, and boy did they deserve to be heard. And voila! That’s season one, now available for your listening pleasure!
But still very much like my childhood self, not only have I now created a podcast filled with the sorts of stories that I love listening to, I can’t wait to check out some new ones too. So now, I’m looking for the next batch of writers to record for season two. Maybe you know one. Maybe you are one.
Check out the submission guidelines, be sure to listen first, and then please do submit your essay or memoir chapter. In particular I’m curious to hear people’s stories about grandmothers. As the first born of the first born of the first born I actually had five grandmothers through my childhood, plus a next door neighbor I called Nana. And the story that I read in season one was about two other grandmothers who died before I was born, but who I met through an unearthed autobiography. So yeah, I love hearing about grandmothers. But that could just be one of many possible topics. I don’t know what season two will look like until I’ve read all the submissions. Not sure how many episodes it will be yet, or when it will launch but I’m hoping for sometime in mid to late fall.
I can’t wait to hear from you! Thanks for reading all the way down, and for Daring to Listen!