84. Guilt, Infertility, and Documenting Reproductive Rights in Memoir featuring Ellen Weir Casey

Ellen Weir Casey joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about infertility and becoming the mother of one of the world’s first IVF babies in the earliest days of assisted reproductive technology, the role guilt plays in women’s lives, being part of medical and women’s history, forgiving ourselves, reproductive freedom, and her memoir Unstoppable: Forging The Path To Motherhood In The Early Days Of IVF.

Also mentioned in this episode:

-The Aspen Institute

-giving our work time to settle

-researching back in the days of microfiche

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by

Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeuer

Educated by Tara Westover

Mad Man in the Woods by Jamie Gehring

Ellen Weir Casey is the mother of one of the world's first IVF babies. Her memoir, Unstoppable:Forging The Path To Motherhood In The Early Days Of IVF, is a best seller and Zibby Book Award finalist. She speaks nationally and internationally about her unique experience in the earliest days of assisted reproductive technology. 

Ellen has graduate and undergraduate degrees from Colorado College. She studied memoir writing at the Aspen Institute Summer Words program. Ellen lives in the shadow of Pike's Peak, in the foothills of Colorado Springs.

Connect with Ellen:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellen2956

Get Ellen’s Book: https://www.amazon.com/Unstoppable-Forging-Path-Motherhood-Early/dp/1632994976

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Ronit’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts’ 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches memoir workshops and is working on her next book.

More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com

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Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography

Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll’s Fingers