Shows
Let’s Talk Memoir161. Writing to Our Past Self featuring Megan WilliamsMegan Williams joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about being a new mother while training at the police academy, looking for validation, resisting the urge to punish ourselves, pushing back against the voice of patriarchal culture, writing to our past self, going too far and not going far enough, the loneliness of motherhood, setting boundaries in memoir, testing ourselves, what motherhood feels like now, moving elegantly through time in memoir, surrounding yourself with talented writers, frontloading a manuscript, and her memoir One Bad Mother: A Mother’s Search for Meaning in the Police Academy.
Also in t...2025-04-0334 min
The Perfectly Imperfect JourneyComing Home with Margaret Juhae LeeIn this week’s episode we sit down with Margaret Juhae Lee, author of Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, and explore what it truly means to come home—to a place, to a history, and to oneself. Margaret’s journey began as an exploration of her grandfather’s past, but along the way, it became something much deeper: a reclamation of identity, heritage, and belonging.
Originally conceived as a journalistic exploration, her book evolved into something far more personal. Margaret shares how tracing her ancestry helped her understand where she comes from, and is a gift for...2025-02-1938 min
GrottoPodPutting Yourself In The Story with Margaret Juhae LeeMargaret Juhae Lee, Doug Henderson and T. K. Rex discuss the differences between history and memoir, memoir and autobiography, research and worldbuilding, fiction and memory, plus generative writing, being a Taurus, internal reward systems, and putting yourself in the story.Stuff we talked about in the episode:Margaret's book Starry FieldWriting Day WorkshopsThe Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick2024-10-231h 04Let’s Talk Memoir122. Uncovering a Lost Family History featuring Margaret Juhae LeeMargaret Juhae Lee joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about searching for her family’s lost history, growing up as a first generation Korean American living in Houston, archival work and interviewing relatives, capturing family voice, why we search to understand painful things, knowing ourselves as writers, finding structure later, the time to digest material, reading historical fiction with a critical eye, generative writing workshops, curbing self-editing tendencies, what home means, not giving up, and her memoir Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History.
Also in this episode:
-conveying immediacy through prese...2024-10-0137 min
Writing Your Resilience: Building Resilience, Embracing Trauma and Healing Through WritingWriting about Intergenerational Trauma with with Margaret Juhae LeeSend us a textLike it or not, our family history shapes who we are. What if lost portions of your history are holding you back? What lengths would you go to recover this history, understand it, and then turn your discoveries into a memoir? Join me and author of the memoir Starry Field, Margaret Juhae Lee, as we explore the impacts of intergenerational trauma on our identity, the challenges of writing a researched memoir, staying motivated over the long haul, and the problem of getting an agent too soon.Margaret’s Bi...2024-09-1248 min
New ArrivalsMargaret Juhae Lee memoir a family search into her grandfather’s revolutionary lifeMargaret Juhae Lee lives in Oakland. Her book, Starry Field is about her family's search for information about my grandfather, who was a student revolutionary in colonial Korea.2024-07-2502 min
Litquake's Lit CastHow They Did It: High-Stakes Memoir: Litcast Episode #143Writing anything for public consumption is an act of bravery, but writing memoir and autobiography requires next-level courage. How can you share a true story that demands to be told—even if it might harm relationships, revisit trauma, unearth secrets—and portray your own life honestly and vulnerably, without the benefit of an Instagram filter? In the this “How They Did It” conversation, co-presented by Litquake and LitCamp and recorded at Page Street Co-Working, we’ll hear from five intrepid authors of recent memoirs, all of whom took the heroic step of committing their fascinating stories to the page. Ed...2024-07-181h 13
Memoir NationHow Secrets Fuel Memoir Writing, featuring Margaret Juhae LeeSecrets come in all forms, big and small. We inherit secrets, carry the secrets of others, and struggle with the burden of all they hold and how they sometimes fester within us. This week’s episode with guest Margaret Juhae Lee explores the difference between people who want to keep the past buried and those who want to set it free. We explore intergenerational trauma and how that’s often its own form of carrying secrets forward from the past. This week’s trend is about book festivals, so please follow the link to find a festival near you. 2024-07-1540 min
QWERTY: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing LifeEp. 124 Margaret Juhae LeeMargaret Juhae Lee has been been published in The Nation, Newsday, Elle, ARTnews, The Advocate, The Progressive and most recently in The Rumpus and Ploughshares Blog. She received a Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University and a Korean Studies Fellowship from the Korean Foundation in support of research for her recently published book, book, Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, published by Melville House. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more...2024-06-2827 min
The Korea SocietyStarry Field with Margaret Juhae Lee and Grace M. ChoMarch 27, 2024 - In her intimate and touching debut, Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History, journalist Margaret Juhae Lee uncovers her family’s lost history that had been buried in the darkness of Korea’s colonial decades. Growing up in Houston, Margaret Juhae Lee was never told about her grandfather, Lee Chul Ha. His memory was submerged in 1936 Korea, when Lee Chul Ha died a disgraced communist rebel, leaving Margaret's grandmother widowed with their two young sons. To his surviving family Lee Chul Ha was a criminal. As an act of unearthing her own identity, Margaret needed to unde...2024-03-2854 min