At one point, over the many years that I wrote, I decided to embrace my right to write. However, there was something within me that knew I had an experience that others could relate to. I mean, I hadn’t published a book so I felt intimidated at times. One hurdle I had as I kept writing was to believe that I had the right to write. And over more time I started to realize that I had a story to tell. But after time I started to see that my many essays could hold together. I wrote, over many years, just for the love of writing. Well, at first I didn’t set out to write a memoir. What prompted you to write this memoir and feel that you had something special or relatable to say? I wanted to interview Hoffert to share those meaningful discoveries about herself and her writing that I knew every nonfictionist could relate to. This book went on to win the 2014 Minnesota Book Award in the Memoir and Creative Nonfiction category. I was immediately drawn in to her genuine personality and insightful writing tips and conversation, as well as the fact she was a Concordia alum. She had just published her first book, Prairie Silence, about growing up on a North Dakota farm, learning from the secrets she kept, and coming home years later to confront those silences. I first met Melanie Hoffert during an author visit while in my last year of college, at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.
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