the memory generation

Phuc is an award-winning author, high school Latin teacher and tattoo artist based in Portland, Maine. His memoir Sigh, Gone was published in 2020 and is a coming-of-age story that explores growing up in rural Pennsylvania as a punk rock Vietnamese refugee. In this conversation, we talk about his realities being the only Vietnamese family in an all-white town, family abuse, sensitivities around retelling stories of trauma, and about tattoos and how they can be the manifestation of memories.

Rachael and Phuc recorded this conversation on November 21, 2022 in Portland, Maine.

For more: www.memorygenerationpodcast.com/16-phuc-tran

Mira Ptacin is a writer, educator and activist who lives on an island in Maine with her husband, two children and a whole bunch of rescue animals. She teaches creative writing at Colby College, leads memoir workshops to incarcerated women at the Maine Correctional Center, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times. She has written two books - The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna as well as the award-winning memoir Poor Your Soul.  She describes herself as writing about ‘the uterus and the American Dream’ and has written extensively about grief, motherhood and family storytelling. In this conversation, we dig into Mira's 2016 memoir Poor Your Soul. The book weaves together the story of the loss of her brother when she was just a teenager and then the loss of an unborn child when she was in her twenties. 

Mira & Rachael recorded this conversation on October 9, 2022 in Portland, Maine.

More here: www.memorygenerationpodcast.com/15-mira-ptacin

In this episode of The Memory Generation, we explore memory through a contemporary queer experience. Dubbs Weinblatt is the founder of Thank You For Coming Out which is an improv show, podcast and soon-to-be book that aims to create a space of belonging for the queer community by uplifting and celebrating stories of coming out and coming into oneself. During this conversation, we talk about Dubbs wrestling with their Jewish identity, the closing off of oneself to family history during times of pain and how loved ones may struggle with witnessing the growth that happens during self discovery.

We recorded this conversation on October 3rd, 2022 through Zoom. Rachael was in Portland, Maine and Dubbs was at their home in Brooklyn, New York.

For more: www.memorygenerationpodcast.com/14-dubbs-weinblatt

On this episode of The Memory Generation, Rachael is joined by actress Alina Zievakova who is originally from Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine but now lives in Kyiv. Since Russia invaded Ukraine this past February, Alina has been using theater as an act of resistance and as a way to help others process their trauma and wartime experiences. Alina (who speaks 7 languages) shares with us her experiences during this period of war -- everything from the first day of the invasion, her choice not to leave, love during wartime and her hopes for the future. She also shares her experience collecting testimony from her fellow Ukrainians and working as a fixer with foreign journalists. She talks about bearing witness to the war while struggling to survive herself and about how she insists on sharing what she’s seen, even when her own family doesn't believe her.

For more: www.memorygenerationpodcast.com/10-alina-zievakova

Join Rachael Cerrotti in conversation with Julie Lindahl. Julie is a multi-national author, educator, and democracy activist living in Sweden. Following a six-year journey in Europe and Latin America in which she discovered her grandparents' role in the Third Reich, she wrote her memoir, The Pendulum: A Granddaughter’s Search for Her Family’s Forbidden Nazi Past.  Her work demonstrates how facing dark historical truths and taking responsibility for them, whether at a family or national level, can lead to a brighter future.

For more: www.memorygenerationpodcast.com/julie-lindahl