Award-winning journalist Alisyn Camerota’s astonishing and witty memoir, Combat Love, details her dicey childhood, less-than-ideal upbringing, outlier friends, homelessness, and fascination with punk rock.

We discuss her reasons for writing it now, how her mother's past experiences affected how she was raised, and her family’s - especially her mother’s - reaction to it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alisyn_Camerota

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Actress and writer Hadley Boyd’s entertaining micro fiction recounts an evening in which a recent divorcée throws a far-too-expensive party in her new rental home, before realizing that the house is haunted by the woman who lived there before her.

Hadley speaks of her own experience as a divorcée, finally finding a home so she can be with her children, only to find… uch.

hadleyboyd.com

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In her newest book, Diaspora Daughter, Julie Sarkissian writes about a Gen X teen learning about her family’s harrowing escape from the Armenian Genocide in 1915.

Julie based her story on her great grandmother’s and great uncle’s devastating loss in the genocide, and ultimate rescue after four years of aimlessly wandering around Europe.

We discuss the difficut family anecdotes which comprise her great grandmother’s history and who, surprisingly, revealed them.

westportwriters.org/profile/jsarkissian

Have any great writing? Send 2-5 minutes of it to WhyTheHellDidIWriteThis@gmail.com.

And thanks for listening!