Your life is waiting for just one thing: your life story.
Brooke Warner and I launched Memoir Nation in 2025 with a deep belief that our stories change our world for the better, and a desire to support writers to write and finish their memoirs.
Memoir Nation is a free community for writers of personal story, memoir, or essay. When you join our community, you’ll benefit from courses rooted in both craft and inspiration; from our podcast and bonus content; from our newsletters; and our introductory free download, “Crafting Your Memoir,” which you access by joining the Memoir Nation Community.
If you’re ready to start your memoir, continue your memoir, or get guidance and inspiration for the journey that is writing your memoir, we’ve got all your bases covered. In our community, you’ll find access to events, like our free monthly Feedback Fridays, where community members read their work aloud, occasional parties, and challenges like our annual JanYourStory, designed to help you start, commit, or continue your story, and Memoir Showers, which is a month of free prompts each April.
Our history—starting with our podcast
Brooke Warner and I launched the Write-minded podcast in September 2018, and then in 2025, when we launched Memoir Nation, we rebranded the podcast to focus on memoir writing.
We are a podcast for writers craving a unique blend of inspiration and real talk about the ups and downs of the writing life.
Brooke and I bring a community-minded sensibility to the writing journey. Each theme-focused episode of Memoir Nation features an interview with an author or publishing industry professional.
We’ve now recorded more than 400 episodes with a number of great writers, including Pulitzer winners Viet Thanh Nguyen, Jayne Anne Philliips, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Forrest Gander.
We’ve also featured Roxane Gay, Annie Lamott, Edwidge Danticat, Amanda Knox, E. Jean Carroll, R.O. Kwon, Deesha Philyaw, Xochitl Gonzalez, Dani Shapiro, Tayari Jones, Rachel Cusk, Nicole Chung, Cory Doctorow, Maggie Smith, Jacqueline Woodson, Mary Karr, A.M. Homes, Elizabeth Acevedo, Gish Jen, Pico Iyer, Myriam Gurba, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah,Roy Wood Jr., Jeff Hiller, and Ruth Reichel, among many others.
We bring to this weekly podcast our deeply held belief that everyone is a writer, and everyone’s story matters.