Unlocking Creativity: Elissa Altman Reveals the Radical Power of Saying ‘Yes’ in Memoir Writing
MDH: When did you first realize that your experience of writing about and being disowned by your family could be the subject of a book? Did the focus or intention change from the time that you conceived of this book to the time that it reached its final form?
EA: That’s a great question. I realized it after I wrote those first two essays in 2016, and then when I started to teach. The subjects of permission and story ownership were front and center in my mind because I was living them in real time, day in and day out. But I also came to understand that in my workshops, this was the question on the minds of my students: what am I allowed to say?
