Smoking Diary #28: Writing About People You Love

by Sarah Hepola

The people I love.

Let’s talk about personal writing, the specter of betrayal, other people’s need for privacy, how to broker trust, and dragging people you love into a spotlight they never asked for — unless they’re my brother, in which case they’ve been asking for that spotlight for years. Today’s long (LONG) audio ramble takes us through a fight at a Korean spa, that time my ex-boyfriend didn’t like the details I chose for a personal essay, how he responded to the blog post I wrote AFTER we broke up (very differently), the thorny phrase “my truth,” the challenges of writing a memoir (again), and what it feels like to have narrative control taken out of your hands.

Shout-out, Norm. (Correction: This is NOT Roz Chast, it’s Dan Piraro.)