I’m truly honoured to share this episode with Summer Brenner, fiction writer, poet, and the oldest guest on the show (Summer turned 80 this year)!
In this episode, we step back in time to the 1950s through her memoir, DUST. We discuss her encounters with racism and being Jewish in the South, caring for her brother who suffered from schizophrenia, dealing with her father’s suicide, other complexities with her family, and her thoughts on writing for over fifty years.
As I said on the show, this episode was as meaningful as I hoped it would be, and I hope you find it as meaningful too.
Show highlights
- Summer on turning 80
- On freedom and happiness
- Looking back after fifty years of writing
- The impact of encountering racism on her life and her writing
- On her father and his influence on her writing
- On leaving to live and caring for her brother later in life
- Writing about family complexities and the family’s response
- Her secret to staying on the journey of the art
“… There’s another death, a very tragic death that happens later in the book and that is with my son’s half brother. And [they] were disturbed by the way I presented those events and how they unfolded. I presented them with the truth that I knew about them. But everyone brings their own truth, especially to the most difficult moments in one’s life.”
Summer Brenner
DUST is available for purchase now, and you can buy it here.
Got any thoughts on this episode or want to suggest authors you’d like to see on the show? Send me a note here.
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About Summer Brenner
Summer Brenner has published a dozen works of fiction and poetry, and most recently, the memoir DUST. Her work includes short-story collections, youth novels with social justice themes, and noir crime.
About DUST
DUST is a memoir about growing up Jewish in the South in the fifties and sixties. Unpacking themes of racism and anti-Semitism and the challenges of caring for her schizophrenic brother and living with the aftermath of her father’s suicide, this gentle but honest retelling of family complexities offers an opportunity for us all to consider the strong ties of family love.
Guest’s links
Buy DUST: Amazon
Visit Summer’s website: http://summerbrenner.com
Host’s links
Book a one-on-one with Lola: https://wordcaps.com/coaching/
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