“I went from a household where I was not enough to a marriage where I was not enough.” Jane Pollak talks about the dissolution of her marriage and the writing of her memoir – Too much of not enough. “What I talk about in the memoir is how I came to value myself so much Read More

“The tough stuff is the stuff you need to write about, ’cause that’s where the conflict is; that’s also where the challenge is, to figure out how to write about it.” Mitchell S. Jackson shares his insights on writing and his own life, talking about his “memoir in essays” – Survival Math. “And then for Read More

“How do you get people to listen to a story tha, I think, we are socialized to ignore?” Sandy Allen talks about her memoir of her uncle’s life – A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise. – A True Story about Schizophrenia. “I really wanted people to be able to hear just what Bob had gone through Read More

“Why didn’t anyone remind me that this was going to be published?” Monica talks with Eva Hagburg Fisher about the making of her book – How To Be Loved – a memoir of a lifesaving friendship. ” When I was writing the book, I really was just in the world of the book. The book Read More

“I think human beings have to deal with a lot of weird things regardless of race/class/gender; and a lot of things that are like terrifying. So as an artist I just want to explore these things.” Kiese Laymon talks to Writers Voices about his new memoir – Heavy, an American memoir. ” My mom just Read More

“This book was the story I had to write before I could write other things.” Writers Voices talks with Allie Rowbottom about her family memoir – Jell-O Girls. “She ( my mother) was especially vulnerable to the really damaging messaging of living in a patriarchy as a woman, especially at that point in history….Jello was Read More

“We are born, somehow with some basic wiring, to understand story.” Tim Wendel on his book – Cancer Crossings. A brother, his doctors and the quest for a cure to childhood leukemia. “If you can put it in a story it makes it much more palpable, it makes it entertaining,…. If I put it out Read More

It began with a photo album, looking at pictures of the past brought it all back, the thoughts, the feelings, the perspective of that time, “The book just flowed out of me from there.” Rhoda Orme-Johnson speaks with Monica about her new book Inside Maharishi’s Ashram. A memoir about the early days of the TM Read More

Mark Lukach talks with Monica and Caroline about the writing of his new memoir – My Lovely Wife in the Psych Ward. Composed by sifting through the pages and pages of emails he sent to their parents during her episodes. “The writing about this actually became a way for us to appreciate the differences of Read More

“It’s a landscape that has imprinted itself on me.” Marc Nieson shares his vision of Iowa and the world talking about his memoir- Schoolhouse: Lessons on love and landscape. “How much do you take something for granted because you see it everyday, or not see what is there, because you’re speeding by at seventy miles Read More

“Everybody has some kind of trauma. Everybody has some kind of wounding. That’s part of planet Earth.” Nancy Swisher talks about her memoir – The life that woke me up was my own – What can you do when you can’t speak your truth. “I didn’t want to write from a stance of blame. We Read More

“Mr Rodgers, before you die, you must write about this lovely woman; otherwise you will be unhappy in heaven.” Paul Brinkley-Rodgers memoir – Please Enjoy Your Happiness. “(The) attraction of Kaji Yukiko was her mind, her intelligence, her unusual verve and passion for life…..If they read the letters out loud they will hear her voice… Read More

We cover a lot of ground in this interview with debut author and memoirist Saeeda Hafiz. Her book, “The Healing: A Memoir of Food, Family and Yoga” is not your typical “I found the right diet/exercise regime/spirtial path and now my life is perfect.” The reality is always a bit more complicated and Saeeda was Read More

I really can’t say enough about our guest today, Dr. James R. Doty, MD and his book “Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart.” The story leads us from Doty’s impoverished childhood, with an alcoholic father and extremely ill mother, to his Read More

When Clara Bensen decided to write a book about her adventure traveling to Turkey, Eastern Europe and the British Isles with Jeff, a university professor she had met just weeks before, on the internet dating site, “OKCupid”, taking with them absolutely NO BAGGAGE, (not even a small backpack), the first thing she did was Google Read More

How does a young, idealistic man from a privileged background become the headmaster of a private school dedicated to providing opportunity to students from all backgrounds, and from there dedicate his entire life to progressive education?  In “Confessions of a Headmaster,” Dr. Paul F Cummins tells the story behind the founding of Crossroads in Los Read More

Judy Batalion’s mother was a pathological hoarder. That’s not the most interesting thing to know about Judy, but it is at the heart of her memoir, “White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daugherhood, and the Mess In Between.”. In our conversation with Judy we learn the root of this pathology, which extends back at least Read More

If you only listen to one Writers’ Voices interview this month, this is the one. Michael Gruenbaum was born in Prague in 1930. At the age of 11 Michael was sent, with his mother and sister, to the Terezin concentration camp. Miraculously, they all survived, although his father, a lawyer, was killed by the Nazis. In Read More

If you’ve ever had the experience of having someone close to you die, you may recall feeling overwhelmed; not sure what to do. Gloria Dixon, an Iowa CPA and experienced business owner, thought she was prepared for her husband Charles’ death after a lengthy illness, but even so she soon found herself faced with a Read More

Sukey Forbes comes from a classic “stiff-upper-lip” New England family. When her six year old daughter died suddenly from a rare genetic disorder, she was left without a clue how to get through it. In “The Angel in My Pocket: A Story of Love, Loss, and Life After Death,” Sukey shares the heart-wrenching story of Read More

Since founding Ice Cube Press in North Liberty, Iowa, Steve Semken has been busy publishing other authors.  Still, he finds time to write.  His seventh book,is titled “Soul External: Rediscovering the Great Blue Heron.”   Orion Magazine’s late environmental book reviewer  Peter Sauer, called this hard-to define book “mythological natural history.”  We’re including it in our memoir section because Read More

In this inspiring segment of Writers’ Voices, we meet Magnus MacFarlane- Barrow, named in 2015 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. We caught up with Magnus, who lives and works in Scotland, just before his visit to Iowa to promote his book, “The Shed that Fed a Read More

Is technology good, bad or indifferent? How does it impact our lives, relationships, health? For some people, technology can become all-consuming. Writer Christina Crook decided to take a 31 day break from the internet. Instead, she wrote 31 letters to a friend on a manual typewriter. This experiment quickly turned into both a book (“the Read More

“I’ve always loved words. I’ve always loved telling stories. I’ve loved just the magic of ( that) you can put letter together and they make words.” Monica talks to award winning author Jacqueline Woodson about her new memoir -Brown Girl Dreaming. “I wanted to find the stories before I didn’t have access to them anymore….Discovering Read More

Writers’ Voices introduces two first-time Fairfield authors this week. First up, the long-time proprietor of Fairfield’s sorely missed 21st Century Bookstore, Tony Kainauskas. Tony’s cousin Viktoras is known as the Father of the Raw Foods Movement, and Tony was intimately involved in the development of both that and the Transcendental Meditation movement. After retiring from Read More

“The problem is we see death and dying as an event. I’ve come to believe that death and dying are really a path way.” Katy Butler talks about her memoir – Knocking on Heavens’ Door – The path to a better way of death. “There is allot of emotional and I believe moral and spiritual Read More

The subject of today’s book, Leon Leyson, stayed mostly silent about the struggles of his early life in Poland during the Holocaust. But after Steven Spielberg made the movie “Schindler’s List,” and an LA Times reporter convinced him to tell his own story as one of the youngest workers on the List, Leon began speaking publicly Read More

From serious journalist to seriously funny, New York Times bestselling author A.J. Jacobs has written it all. In this interview with Writers’ Voices, Jacobs discusses his recent experiment and the book that came out of it, “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.” The “humble” Read More

Norman Zierold has led a most interesting life, from his birth in the Amana Colonies of Iowa in 1927 clear to the present day in Fairfield, also Iowa. But in between, he traveled the world in the Navy, studied political science at Harvard University, taught in France, and then became an editor and writer in Read More

Author of the best-selling memoirs “Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time”, “Truck: A Love Story,” and “Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting”, Michael Perry discusses his newest book “Visiting Tom: A Man, A Highway, and the Road to Roughneck Grace”. He’s written for Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Read More

Author, editor, blogger, and humorist, Wendy McClure is the author of “The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie”; also a recently released e-book, “Don’t Trade the Baby for a Horse and Other Ways to Make Your Life a Little More Laura Ingalls Wilder”, that explores her fascination Read More

Join Cheryl Fusco Johnson for a delightful conversation with Iowa native, Beth Howard. Beth has recently written “Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Pie”. A journalist for more than 25 years, Beth recounts the sudden loss of her husband and her healing journey that took her across the country and back to her Read More

Village in Nepal. Growing up in poverty, Khakendra dreamed of coming to America for a better life. His dream came true in 1991, arriving in San Francisco and embarking on an entirely new journey. In his book “Nueli Cried in the Himalayas”, Khakendra tells the story of his life, describes the life of his people, Read More

Diane Wilson, fourth-generation shrimper who made a living along the Texas Gulf Coast, was driven to activism when she discovered her area was number one in the nation for toxic waste disposal. Through determination and hard work, Diane convinced local plastic manufacturers to sign a zero-discharge agreement. She has become a strong and vocal determined Read More

Listen in for a very touching conversation with Marianne Dietzel. Marianne has written “Laughing in a Waterfall: A Mother’s Memoir”. The book shows examples of how to create a new culture around the threshold of death and keep a living connection to those on the other side. The memoir tells Marianne’s emotional and spiritual journey Read More

On this Writers’ Voices, we’ll be speaking with Stephen Hopson. Stephen was born deaf, but had the dream at a young age to become a pilot. He made aviation history, as an adult, by becoming the world’s first deaf instrument-rated pilot. For 15 years, he also had a very successful career on Wall Street. In Read More

Writers’ Voices explores spirituality and other cultures this week. Author and poet Susan Klauber discusses her newest book “Sound of the Sacred Beads: A Poet’s Journey into India”. The book follows Susan’s journeys through India and its holiest places. She explores the culture, people, ancient wisdom, and mystery that she found there. Since 1983, Susan Read More

“This whole stroke took me straight into my heart – consciousness,” Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor talks with Monica and Caroline about the memoir of her illness – My Stroke of Insight. “We have so much more say over who we are and how we perceive ourselves and what we allow to go on inside our Read More