Girl Gone Wild — Courtney Kocak on Her Debut Memoir, Sex Work & Reproductive Rights | Totally Biased Reviews

Emily Rapp black talks about her book I Would Die If I Were You | Totally Biased Reviews w Asha Dore

Our host, Asha Dore, talks with Emily Rapp Black about her 2026 book, Find it here: https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/i-would-die-if-i-were-you/ [https://www.counterpointpress.com/books/i-would-die-if-i-were-you/] About the book: Drawing upon her previous work and over two decades of teaching, New York Times bestselling memoirist Emily Rapp Black explores how art can move us through moments of grief and loss while celebrating the spirit-lifting potential of all creative acts To be disabled is to be exiled; to have a terminal illness is to be isolated in one's time-limitedness; to grieve is to be annihilated; and to live is inevitable: all of these, together and at once, form the core of the truth of being human. As most artists know, approaching their "hard" stories in a way that feels joyful, redemptive, and meaningful can be difficult to near impossible. With I Would Die If I Were You, celebrated author Emily Rapp Black has designed a guide that will help creative people working in any medium make meaning out of loss. For her entire life, she has been answering awkward questions in elevators: "What's wrong with you?" "What happened to your body?" And, in the case of her son's terminal illness and death, she's been told more times than she can count: "I would die if I were you." Rejecting such cruel and casual conclusions, Rapp Black posits that part of the human project is to experience grief and loss, and nobody gets out alive, and no writer—or person—survives anything alone. We need empathy, and for that we need community, and we need all the stories told within them to reach our fullest potential. I Would Die If I Were You is a bold and bracing blueprint—part memoir, part craft book—for how art making can lead us to our fullest truths. About the Author EMILY RAPP BLACK is the author of the New York Times bestseller book Poster Child, The Still Point of the Turning World, Sanctuary, and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg. A former Fulbright scholar, Guggenheim Fellow, and graduate of Harvard Divinity School, she is Professor of Creative Writing at University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches in the School of Medicine. Find Emily here: https://www.emilyrappblackauthor.com/ [https://www.emilyrappblackauthor.com/] Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com [https://www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com] www.AshaDore.net [https://www.AshaDore.net]

Girl Gone Wild — Courtney Kocak on Her Debut Memoir, Sex Work & Reproductive Rights | Totally Biased Reviews

Courtney Kocak reviews her debut memoir Girl Gone Wild with Totally Biased Reviews host Asha Dore. A candid conversation on 1990s girlhood, reproductive rights, and writing personal truth. Find Girl Gone Wild here: https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Gone-Wild-Courtney-Kocak/dp/1949487547 [https://www.amazon.com/Girl-Gone-Wild-Courtney-Kocak/dp/1949487547] GIRL GONE WILD is a collection of exploits and delusions about chasing your dreams with reckless abandon and what happens when their pursuit becomes a new kind of trap. In this memoir-in-essays, Kocak takes readers along on her heady metamorphosis from girl to woman and from dreamer to professional artist, as she is transformed in this unwitting feminist coming-of-age. It's a wild, cringeworthy, and often heartbreaking tale, but with Kocak's wry wit and clear-eyed accounting, it's nothing short of captivating. More about Courtney: https://www.courtneykocak.com/about [https://www.courtneykocak.com/about] Courtney Kocak is a writer, podcaster, and comedian who splits time between Austin and Los Angeles. She originally hails from a rural farming community in Minnesota, home to more cows than people. As a writer, Kocak wrote for Amazon's Emmy-winning animated series Danger & Eggs, voiced by Aidy Bryant, and Netflix's Know It All. Her bylines include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Cosmopolitan, Slate, HuffPost, The Sun, Catapult, BUST, Bustle, Business Insider, InsideHook, and more. She's a regular contributor to Descript's Creator HQ blog. Courtney reports on gender, sexuality, psychedelics, reproductive rights, sex work, and sustainability. Her debut memoir with Trio House Press was published April 2026. Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. www.AshaDore.net [https://www.AshaDore.net] www.parleyproductions.com [https://www.parleyproductions.com] Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com [https://www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com]

Body of Work: The Journo Series — Jacqueline LeKachman & Andrea Javor on Journalism & Creative Nonfiction | Totally Biased Reviews

Jacqueline LeKachman and Andrea Javor discuss Body of Work: The Journo Series with Parley Lit — where journalism meets literary nonfiction. Welcome to our first episode where we focus on a body of work in journalism, featuring Andrea Javor and Jacqueline LeKachman talking about their incredible and prolific careers. Andrea Javor is a freelance writer based in Chicago whose work has been featured in Vogue, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The LA Times, Town & Country, USA Today, McSweeney's, and more. As a multi-decades marketing professional and amateur poker player, Andrea is an expert at telling stories using data, personal anecdotes, research, and even cards. Her memoir, Ace of Hearts: What Poker Taught Me About Love, is currently agented and seeking a publisher. Connect with her at https://www.andreajavor.com/ [https://www.andreajavor.com/] or on Instagram: @AndreaEJavor. About Andrea's work-in-progress, Ace of Hearts: In this voice-driven memoir I use the strategic language of poker to explore how women navigate risk, identity, and emotional labor in life and love. It's a multidisciplinary inquiry written to teach women how to wager our worth in a system stacked against us. Some of Andrea's work we talked about in this episode! * https://www.vogue.com/article/what-getting-divorced-in-my-20s-taught-me-about-love [https://www.vogue.com/article/what-getting-divorced-in-my-20s-taught-me-about-love] * https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/a68927383/high-stakes-poker-luxury-guide/ [https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/a68927383/high-stakes-poker-luxury-guide/] Jacqueline LeKachman is a New York-based writer and editor who writes about family, sex, and other things that keep her up at night. Her essays appear in The Washington Post, The Guardian, HuffPost, Women's Health, Business Insider, Newsweek, Salon, Slate, and more. Formerly a NYC public high school English teacher, she's now a freelance copyeditor for Penguin Random House and for individual writers. She has an MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School and a masters in journalism from the CUNY Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Connect with her via her website: https://www.jacquelinelekachman.com [https://www.jacquelinelekachman.com] About Jacqueline's work-in-progress: My nonfiction book explores how living with my mom's compulsive hoarding and losing my virginity to sexual compliance led me to become celibate for over two years in my twenties. During that time, I educated myself on the nuances of consent and investigated the long-hidden family secrets that made me desperate for control. In giving up sex, I found what I had lacked for most of my life: understanding and agency. Some of Jacqueline's work we talked about in this episode! * https://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-love/a63539594/sexual-compliance-personal-essay/ [https://www.womenshealthmag.com/sex-and-love/a63539594/sexual-compliance-personal-essay/] * https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mom-daughter-strained-relationship-photo_n_669959a0e4b0e9707971f108 [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mom-daughter-strained-relationship-photo_n_669959a0e4b0e9707971f108] Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. www.AshaDore.net [https://www.AshaDore.net] www.parleyproductions.com [https://www.parleyproductions.com] Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com [https://www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com]

Bitter, Sweet — Stephanie Weaver in Conversation with Asha Dore | Totally Biased Reviews

Stephanie Weaver reviews her book Bitter, Sweet with Totally Biased Reviews host Asha Dore — a literary conversation about the stories behind the writing. In this episode, our host, Asha Dore, chats with author Stephanie Weaver about her estrangement memoir, Bitter, Sweet. Find the book here: https://stephanieweaver.com/bitter-sweet [https://stephanieweaver.com/bitter-sweet] More about Bitter, Sweet: In Bitter, Sweet, Stephanie Weaver blends her personal journey of healing from childhood sexual abuse, family estrangement, and narcissistic dynamics with research and actionable strategies. At 30, memories of her abuse surfaced, forcing her to confront betrayal, gaslighting, and emotional wounds. Weaver turned her pain into empowerment and now offers readers tools to reclaim their identity, set boundaries, and heal. A lifeline for survivors of trauma and estrangement, Bitter, Sweet is poignant, unflinching, and hopeful, reminding readers that healing is not just possible—it's transformative. For anyone seeking resilience, this book is a powerful guide forward. About Stephanie Weaver: I'm a writer, TED talk coach, and speaker. My drive is to find the meaning behind things and then explain it clearly. If it's an experience, I'll try to improve it as well. The old-world tailors and engineers in my family tree played a hand in my path, whether or not I realized it. Measuring. Styling. Recreating. I was destined to redefine myself and my career from health educator to exhibition developer to experience consultant and wellness advocate. I don't choose the stories I write. They choose me, born out of deeply personal experiences. I believe we all have stories to tell. Know yourself and you'll understand yours.https://stephanieweaver.com/about/ [yours.https:/stephanieweaver.com/about/] Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. www.AshaDore.net [https://www.AshaDore.net] www.parleyproductions.com [https://www.parleyproductions.com] Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com [https://www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com]

No Contact — Jenny Bartoy on Her Book, Estrangement & Finding Your Way Back | Totally Biased Reviews

Jenny Bartoy joins Asha Dore to review her edited anthology No Contact — a candid discussion on estrangement, family, and the writing life Tune in for a lively conversation about estrangement, trends, and how to parent kids differently when you have separated from a family member. Find the book here: https://books.catapult.co/books/no-contact/ [https://books.catapult.co/books/no-contact/] About No Contact: Estrangement presents an essential existential question: who are we without our family? What kind of person cuts the proverbial umbilical cord and why? And who do we become, once untethered from our kin? Families fall apart and individuals cut ties for myriad reasons—abuse, politics, mental illness, and addiction, among others—and reunification often is not in the cards. Estrangement can be a positive change, as Emi Nietfeld explains in her essay about finding relief and logic after cutting off her mother. It can be a journey: noam keim rebuilds their sense of self by learning Arabic in their ancestral homeland of Morocco, while Nicole Graev Lipson searches for answers in literature and motherhood after her brother ghosts her. Other writers explore how estrangement complicates life's big shifts—Domenica Ruta traces the repercussions of severing ties while battling cancer; Hannah Bae reels from the prospect of cultural alienation when she cuts off her Korean parents; and after twenty years of separation, Soni Brown reluctantly becomes her mother's caretaker as dementia erases her memory. Through thirty-two intimate, first-person accounts, No Contact counters the prevalent trope of reconciliation as a happy ending, focusing instead on the complex grief, healing, and authenticity found in the rupture from family. Featuring work by Hannah Bae, Eben E. B. Bein, Soni Brown, Lorne Daniel, Lindsey Danis, Michelle Dowd, Nick Flynn, Stephanie Foo, Gabriela Denise Frank, Susan Ito, Danielle Jernigan, noam keim, Erika Krouse, Monique Laban, Cassandra Lewis, Kate Lewis, Nicole Graev Lipson, Tiffany Aldrich MacBain, Jamal Mahjoub, Onita Morgan-Edwards, Emi Nietfeld, Geneva Phillips, Deesha Philyaw, Anna Qu, Domenica Ruta, Oslyn Serratos, Alyson Shelton, Cheryl Strayed, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Raksha Vasudevan, Jane Wong, and Kristen Millares Young. About the Author: https://jennybartoy.com/ [https://jennybartoy.com/] JENNY BARTOY is a French American editor and critic. Her writing appears in several anthologies and in such publications as The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Under the Gum Tree, Room, Chicago Review of Books, CrimeReads, and The Rumpus, among others. She holds a master's degree from Columbia University and lives in Tacoma, Washington. Totally Biased Reviews is a Parley Lit production in collaboration with Parley Productions. Hosted and Edited by Asha Dore and Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth. www.AshaDore.net [https://www.AshaDore.net] www.parleyproductions.com [https://www.parleyproductions.com] Music by Nuclear Peasant. Find more at www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com [https://www.TotallyBiasedReviews.com]