Two bestselling authors — Nicole Chung (A Living Remedy) and Lydia Millet (We Loved It All) — discuss the process and craft of writing a memoir with book critic Donna Seaman. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival.

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A Living Remedy: A Memoir by Nicole Chung — A searing memoir of family, class and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost.

We Loved It All: A Memory of Life by Lydia Millet — This lucent anti-memoir from celebrated novelist Lydia Millet explores the pain and joy of being a parent, child, and human at a moment when the richness of the planet’s life is deeply threatened.

NICOLE CHUNG’S A Living Remedy was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and a Best Book of the Year by over a dozen outlets. Her 2018 debut, All You Can Ever Know, was a national bestseller and finalist the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Time, the Atlantic, GQ, the Guardian, and Slate. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, she now lives in the Washington, DC area.

LYDIA MILLET has written more than a dozen novels and short story collections, including Dinosaurs (2022) and A Children’s Bible, which was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction and one of The New York Times Book Review’s Best 10 Books of 2020. Millet has won fiction awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and PEN-Center USA and has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; since 1999 she has also worked as a writer and editor at the Center for Biological Diversity. We Loved It All is her first work of nonfiction.

DONNA SEAMAN is Editor, Adult Books for Booklist. A recipient of the Louis Shores Award for excellence in book reviewing, the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award, Seaman is a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum, a frequent presenter at various literary events and programs, and an adjunct professor for Northwestern University’s MA in Writing and MFA in MFA in Prose and Poetry Programs. Seaman’s author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists.