For Love of Memoir

Beyond the Surface with Christie Green

In this episode of *For Love of Memoir*, Christie Green joins me to discuss her memoir *Moonlit Elk*.Part memoir, part exploration of instinct, identity, and the natural world, *Moonlit Elk* follows Christie’s movement into hunting, solitude, and a way of living that challenged many of the expectations she once carried about herself and the world around her.Guided in part by her dreams, Christie reflects on learning to trust a different kind of knowing and what happened when she began paying closer attention to instinct, the natural world, and the parts of herself that didn’t fit neatly into modern life.In our conversation, we talk about writing from the body instead of the intellect, stepping into spaces traditionally dominated by men, the relationship between humans and animals, and the search for a more honest way of being alive.Follow Christie and learn more about her work at:christiegreen.net

The Power of Story

In this episode of For Love of Memoir, Dan Williams joins me for a conversation about storytelling, memory, and the stories that shape identity across generations. We talk about the role of oral storytelling in family life, the memories that stay with us, and why certain stories continue to matter long after the moment itself has passed. Dan reflects on the people who taught him how to tell a story, the meaning carried inside family narratives, and what gets preserved when stories are shared instead of forgotten. This conversation explores memory not just as recollection, but as inheritance.

Finding Your Inner Glow with Angie Hawkins

In this episode of For Love of Memoir, Angie Hawkins, author of Running in Slippers, shares the story behind her book and the experiences that shaped it.Running in Slippers traces what it looks like to keep moving through life when things don’t unfold the way you expected. In our conversation, Angie talks about the moments that forced her to keep going, what it meant to live through those experiences in real time, and how writing the book changed the way she understands them now.This is a conversation about endurance, perspective, and what it takes to keep showing up to your own life.

Janine Warfield on Becoming a Medium

In this episode of For Love of Memoir, I’m joined by Janine Warfield, author of Becoming a Medium.Janine wasn't born a medium. She set out to learn it deliberately, treating it as a discipline rather than a belief system or an identity she stumbled into.We talk about what it means to pursue something unconventional with seriousness and restraint. Janine shares how she approached learning mediumship with curiosity, skepticism, and responsibility, and how writing this memoir required careful decisions about what to include, what to leave out, and how to avoid turning lived experience into persuasion.This isn’t a conversation about proving anything. It’s about intention, discernment, and authorship. About choosing a path that doesn’t come with permission, and writing honestly about the process of becoming.Follow Janine here:www.janinewarfield.comand purchase Becoming a Medium here:https://a.co/d/0bsVXtzs

Christian Austin on Rewriting Life, One Note at a Time

In this episode of For Love of Memoir, Erin Swanson speaks with Christian Austin about his memoir Resilient: Childhood Adversity to Cambridge University.Christian shares his journey from abuse, trauma, addiction, and incarceration to academic achievement at Cambridge. But this conversation is not about inspiration as spectacle. It is about responsibility, education as a turning point, and the long process of rebuilding identity after early harm.We discuss what it means to grow up without stability, how systems can both fail and support, and the discipline required to break patterns that once felt inevitable. Christian reflects on the difference between surviving adversity and integrating it, and on the quiet work of becoming someone new without denying who you were.This is a conversation about resilience without romanticizing suffering, and about the courage it takes to change direction when your story has already been written for you.