Interviewed by Rae Pagliarulo

When Brenda Miller’s newest guide, Love You, Bye: A Daughter’s Journey in Essays and Poems (Skinner Home Books; April 2026) was launched, I instantly knew that I needed to cowl it for Hippocampus Journal. What I didn’t know was that I’d get a lot greater than an ARC of the guide — Brenda agreed to talk with me about all issues artistic nonfiction over Zoom from her house in Washington, and for me, it was a dream come true.

Brenda has been setting the tempo for discovery and experimental varieties in artistic nonfiction since she printed the pivotal textual content on CNF, Inform It Slant, together with her collaborator Suzanne Paola in 2001. Within the many years since, she’s printed extra craft books (The Subsequent Draft, A Braided Coronary heart), co-written collections (The Pen and the Bell with Holly Hughes, Phone with Julie Marie Wade), and her personal poetry and essays (The Daughters of Aged Girls, An Earlier Life, Listening Towards the Stone, Blessing of the Animals, and Season of the Physique).

So far as I’m involved, Brenda is likely one of the most prolific and influential voices within the style, and I’m greater than thrilled that I obtained to talk together with her. Take pleasure in!

---

Rae Pagliarulo: Brenda, it’s so extremely good to satisfy you. I’ve to say, I hope you understand how a lot it means to have the ability to speak to you. I reached out pondering I’d hear from a publicist and get an ARC of your new guide, however to have the ability to have this dialog with you, and to do it on behalf of Hippocampus Journal, the place so many people are simply such big followers of yours. Within the time I used to be making ready for this interview, you stored arising! Any individual talked about “Swerve” to me at some point, after which one other day somebody requested me about Inform It Slant, after which I awoke at some point and noticed that your essay “Typos” was in Brief Reads! It was like your spirit was following me whereas I used to be researching.

Brenda Miller: Oh, that’s so, so good to listen to. In fact, I observe Hippocampus, and also you guys are doing an incredible job.

RP: Thanks! Now, let’s chat about this new guide, Love You, Bye. My expertise of studying this guide was so attention-grabbing as a result of it looks as if we’ve a lot in widespread! Such as you, I had an actual Repair-It Dad, and my Dad handed first, AND my dad and mom additionally had birthdays that have been only one 12 months and at some point aside!

BM: No approach!

RP: So, how has the reception of this guide been up to now? I do know you’ve been bopping across the Pacific Northwest for some tour stops.

BM: It’s been a little bit loopy! I retired virtually two years in the past from my jobs. I used to be working at Western College and Pacific Lutheran College’s low-res MFA. And it’s been actually quiet round right here, so I’ve been simply writing a little bit novel and doing my factor. For some cause, this guide actually urged me to get on the market in a approach I don’t usually promote my work. It’s been actually busy and really forward-facing, and so nice. It’s chatting with lots of people, and all of my occasions have been with pricey pals and my former mentor, Terry Tempest Williams. It’s been fairly fantastic.

RP: Wow, that’s so good! You stated you’ve been on the market extra with this guide, so do you suppose that’s a perform of being retired and having the time to do extra promotion, or does it need to do with the character of the guide you’ve written?

BM: I feel it’s each. That is most likely probably the most intimate guide I’ve written. Now that it’s out, I don’t suppose I spotted that whereas I used to be placing it collectively. However now I understand, wow, in a protracted profession of writing very private issues, this nonetheless looks as if probably the most intimate and genuine guide. I feel the themes of dealing with end-of-life challenges, and my work as a hospice volunteer, our world wants these tales now, we have to convey them extra out into the open and be actually actual with each other. The guide itself is actually demanding that. I’ve taken inspiration from colleagues who’ve performed guide excursions who informed me, you really want to get on the market! It’s exhausting already, however I’m having fun with it, too.

RP: How way more promotion is on the way in which?

BM: I simply completed my Seattle launch. I did my native launch final weekend and interviewed Terry Tempest Williams in entrance of a crowd of 500 individuals. After which this weekend, I’m doing a yoga and poetry workshop at my yoga studio, which I’ve at all times needed to do! Then journeys to Nashville, Denver, a number of locations.

RP: That’s fantastic! So, let me pull it again a little bit and begin from my first be aware. At this level, Inform It Slant is in its third version, and it’s thought-about a extremely pivotal textual content for lots of us on this style. Nonetheless, to at the present time, it’s a textual content that when individuals are pondering, I wish to write true tales, I wish to be taught extra about artistic nonfiction, they’re turning to this guide actively. So I’m questioning, how does it really feel to know that this factor you created is a part of the start of so many individuals’s journeys? I imply, years in the past after I thought, oh I’ve this diary filled with ideas, is that this artwork? Somebody stated, it may be, and Brenda will inform you how.

BM: It’s fairly an honor and a privilege to be in that place. When Suzanne [Paola] and I talked about writing the very first version again in 200, there weren’t any textbooks, which was a sort of symptom or signal of the budding nature of artistic nonfiction, particularly in tutorial worlds. It wasn’t essentially a full-fledged space of research but. However individuals have been hungry for it, proper? So there have been some anthologies, however no actual tutorial textual content. So we simply stated, let’s simply write one and use our educating notes on what we’ve been doing. I feel as a result of we each had such totally different strengths and views, it simply grew to become a fairly complete textual content at the moment. And we had that fantastic anthology. Have you ever seen the primary version?

RP: I’ve it! So retro.

BM: So sooner or later, we heard by way of the grapevine that it was out of print. That’s after we determined to do the commerce version, and it was geared extra in the direction of anybody, not simply college students within the classroom. After which the third version happened as a result of issues modified so shortly within the style. I used to be utilizing the guide in my lessons, and I spotted oh, we’re lacking plenty of stuff right here, and plenty of the references are fairly dated. It was enjoyable to place collectively a proposal for a 3rd version, and I used to be in a position to area take a look at the brand new materials with my college students, who taught me lots and gave me a number of good concepts. So, it feels just like the third version particularly is a collaboration with all of the artistic nonfiction writers and lecturers who’ve come up by way of the many years with us. It’s simply pure pleasure that it has legs. Even now, there’s so many extra textbooks, however it hangs in there as a very good one.

RP: It’s simply so attention-grabbing, as a result of nobody units out to create one thing that’s going to be such a foundational textual content, that’s going to final generations. What a cool factor to simply see a niche available in the market and suppose…

BM: Precisely! I had by no means written a textbook however I had plenty of concepts. And what thrills me most is the way in which the ‘hermit crab essay’ has grow to be only a phrase, a phrase individuals use as if it’s at all times been there.

RP: I do know! Additionally, I’m going to a convention this weekend to show an entire workshop on the hermit crab essay, so thanks for that. A lot of what’s in my presentation is pulled proper from A Braided Coronary heart, which is simply so invaluable. So many fantastic anecdotal tales in there about how one can let the hermit crab kind affect the method of writing. I is usually a little Sort A and a management freak, and the extra I’ve been studying about your strategy to that kind, it’s a continuing reminder to me that letting go and having enjoyable with issues which may not prove completely is sort of an integral a part of it.

BM: Writing is a apply like another artwork, and never all the pieces makes it into the completed product, however assured you’ll both give you materials you’ll use later, otherwise you’ve oiled the gears and also you’ve stored your writing thoughts going. Both one is a good end result.

RP: Properly, it’s like yoga that approach. You go, and generally you’ve got a crappy day the place you’re crunchy and your down canine sucks, after which there are some days that you just go, oh, I can really feel how straightforward it is because I’ve had so many days of struggling. Now I simply fly into Warrior Two!

BM: Sure! I do love my yoga studio, however there’s at all times a category the place I’m like, when is that this gonna be over? After which different lessons the place I feel wait, already? We’re performed?

RP: So true! Okay, so I learn this in A Braided Coronary heart, and I really feel prefer it explains the expertise of being a lit magazine editor higher than something I’ve ever learn. You have been speaking about while you get right into a room to evaluate submissions and make choices, and the quote is, “On this harsh, survival-of-the-fittest surroundings, virtually each subject can appear outdated hat. It’s the voice that issues–voice and kind. Once we got here throughout writers who mastered the artwork of signaling that their allegiance is firmly on the aspect of artifact over expertise, that’s an writer we’d be prepared to observe wherever.” Are you able to speak a bit extra about that feeling?

BM: Oh, yeah. Properly, particularly with nonfiction, it’s when an writer forgoes the summarizing intro into their story — what we name ‘clearing the throat’ or ‘getting on the runway,’ proper? Simply drop me within the scenario, or give me a picture, one thing very vivid that attracts me in with out the author seeming to say, ‘Hey, hey, I wish to inform you about this factor! You’ll be actually , so simply come over right here with me! It’s my life story and it’s actually necessary!’ As an alternative, when it’s good, I’m simply floating on a river with any individual, and it often occurs within the current tense. Once we’re simply within the expertise with somebody. And a voice that’s exploring all of it together with us, reasonably than telling us about it.

I don’t know if that’s one thing a author can deliberately do in the course of the drafting course of, however it could be one thing to consider in revision. Particularly when you have a look at your first web page and suppose, am I simply telling you one thing, or am I actually in it right here? Am I actually expressing one thing within the second? After which you’ll be able to at all times return if that you must give extra info or abstract, however you’ve gotta allow us to be with you for a minute earlier than we get to no matter it’s you’re making an attempt to inform us.

I feel that usually, despite the fact that I feel the scholarly world round artistic nonfiction has come an extremely good distance within the final 30 years or so, I do suppose plenty of artistic nonfiction writers don’t actually get the apply they want in scene work, proper? In writing the scene, in writing dialogue, these in media res moments, the place you drop the reader in.

RP: Wow. Why do you suppose that even with all of the work that’s been performed to legitimize the style, writers are nonetheless leaning actually laborious on the emotional stuff? It’s fantastic, however it isn’t sufficient.

BM: I don’t know… I’m suspecting that folks aren’t studying as a lot and as deeply as we used to do as college students. You already know, studying with an eye fixed for very particular issues like this. What’s the author doing on this sentence? Let’s simply have a look at the primary sentence and work out why it really works.

RP: Properly, it’s the distinction between studying as a reader and studying as a author.

BM: Precisely. It may very well be that maybe writers or college students are being directed extra to simply write in a single style and class, too. Like, I began as a poet, so I’ve at all times been drawn to the picture, a metaphor, a connection that I’m making — and never essentially to the factor I wish to inform you. Maybe we should be encouraging our writers to department out, you realize, attempt poetry, attempt fiction, and simply see what you’ll be able to convey from all these genres into what you see as your major.

RP: So, what would you inform a budding author? Any individual who’s coming into it with all of the emotion? How do you assist somebody create sufficient distance so artifact does find yourself finally trumping emotion?

BM: I feel what we have to do is direct writers to the small reasonably than the big. The big is the large points I’m coping with, the large historical past I’ve had.

RP: Demise, habit, abandonment. All the large stuff.

BM: Which is actually necessary, and your story to inform. However, while you wish to translate it onto the web page for others, begin small. Begin with a really, very small concrete reminiscence, and see the place that leads. Be open to the concept that you don’t know the story but. You would possibly know all of the outlines within the story, however you don’t know all of the meanings but. You don’t know all of the connections you may make by way of the writing.

There’s a objective to telling your massive emotional story to others in sure venues, to possibly join with others and assist others. However when you’re turning it into literature, what’s the aim of that? I feel it’s extra so that you can perceive extra deeply and otherwise your story and what it means for others. That is the place a writing instructor may help, the place prompts may help. For those who’re open to prompts, they’ll at all times lead you in surprising instructions.

I’m at all times writing from randomness, it’s one of the simplest ways to shock your self. Going past the place you suppose the ending is in a brief piece, too. In a current Substack put up, I wrote about how I used to be writing the primary essay in Love You, Bye, “Elijah,” and the entire time I used to be like, I don’t know why I’m penning this, however I’m simply gonna write it and see. Why am I remembering this explicit reminiscence out of the million recollections I’ve from childhood.

However at a sure place, the reminiscence sort of stops. It involves its personal conclusion, and it may have been the conclusion to my essay, however as a substitute I discovered myself writing, “Years later, now that my father is gone…” So now I’m bringing within the wiser grownup narrator to have a look at the reminiscence and suppose, why am I remembering this proper at this second? Oh, possibly it’s as a result of I see my father and everybody else who’s gone because the ghost we invite into our lives and our house. It turns into about a lot extra. And it’s only a tiny little paragraph. If I ended the essay the place the reminiscence ended, it simply could be an anecdote.

 

 

RP: I feel lots about beginnings and endings, particularly in flash, as a result of plenty of occasions I’ll learn a submission and suppose, that might have ended two paragraphs in the past, and you’ll have been simply wonderful! There’s a bent to over-explain, like, are you positive you bought my level? So how will you inform when you’re going previous the tip to unearth extra materials versus going previous it since you simply don’t perceive the story but?

BM: My college students have grow to be very used to me chopping off their final paragraphs! As a result of these final paragraphs wrap all of it up and say, ‘then I spotted’ or no matter it’s.

RP: I name it the Large Purple Bow.

BM: Sure! So, ending on a robust picture or some imagistic phrases, that’s a very good signal. With “Elijah,” I simply felt like there was one thing lacking. It virtually felt like rhythm. Like music. ending is sort of a coda that comes again round or one thing. I feel that you must hear, that you must learn your work out loud, to listen to the place the robust phrases are falling. Are they coming on the ends of paragraphs, on the finish of sentences? These are all actually technical issues, and a starting author received’t wish to take into consideration this whereas drafting, as a result of that can simply rip you up.

RP: It type of jogs my memory of that Sam Shepard quote: “Probably the most genuine endings are those that are already revolving in the direction of one other starting.”

BM: Completely. And generally if I’m having bother ending an essay, I’ll return to the start and keep in mind the place I began. Is there a approach I can organically convey that starting again in, even when it’s simply an echo of a phrase? You’re sort of continually doing this round transfer. Then, while you put all of them collectively in a guide, it comes collectively. After I was interviewing Terry [Tempest Williams], she stated, “I see this guide as doing cartwheels.” In order that’s sort of it. Your essays are doing cartwheels and shifting ahead.

RP: So, let’s discuss Love You, Bye, which has plenty of essays cartwheeling into one another, however I wish to speak concerning the poems, too. It felt a little bit bit such as you would write an essay, after which on the finish, there was a voice in you that stated, I’m not performed speaking about this, however prose can’t do it the way in which poetry can. I don’t know when you deliberate it that approach?

BM: I used to be not seeing the poems and essays collectively in any respect. It was the editor who did that. So, initially, I used to be engaged on two totally different initiatives. A variety of occasions in the course of the caretaking journey that I went by way of with my dad, you’ll be able to solely write a line or two. I’d stroll over to the nursing house, and as I used to be strolling house, sure photos would stick with me from my go to, and I felt compelled to put in writing them down. I needed to recollect what occurred that day, as a result of nobody else was going to. So these little items grew to become a little bit manuscript all on their very own. Then, the essays about caring for my mother got here later, so I additionally had a full essay manuscript. I had been fascinated about the editor Mary Bernard, who I’ve labored with at Skinner Home a number of occasions, and as I used to be fascinated about all this, Mary emails me out of the blue, asking if I had something new she may have a look at.

RP: Properly, thanks Universe!

BM: Sure! So I stated, I’ve obtained a guide of essays and I’ve a guide of poetry. She stated, simply ship them each. And he or she’s the one which got here up with the thought of doing a hybrid assortment.

RP: Wow.

BM: So you’ll be able to think about, it was extra than simply squishing the items collectively, proper? That may have been straightforward. Let’s simply shuffle the deck and put all of them in. However now, each essay and each poem didn’t match, and I actually needed to create a extra cohesive assortment. I did a few of that work with Mary, and in addition with a developmental editor later. They have been additionally those who determined to place the images in, as a result of I had shared a number of as cowl concepts.

RP: That was one other query I had! I really like photos minimize with textual content a lot. The picture of your mom on the finish of the essay known as “Peaches”? My coronary heart simply went, oof. So lovely. And it made me surprise — did you place them in for your self, or in your dad and mom, or for the readers?

BM: I feel I did it for them — my dad and mom — and for you, too. A lot of this guide is concerning the laborious stuff on the finish. And I needed individuals to see them as the entire individuals they have been. They have been married virtually 62 years, and so they have been devoted to one another to the tip. I’m positive you seen the essay by my mom in there, too.

RP: I really like that you just did that! And in addition — what an extremely properly written essay! She was actually good.

BM: I solely edited it a bit! I obtained the thought due to course, I’ve an entire bag of her writings, and I had simply gotten performed writing an essay about my mom’s handwriting. I assumed, I’m wondering if they’d go for having a bit of my mother’s in there? And so they did. I couldn’t consider it. As I’ve been doing guide occasions, I made a looping PowerPoint slideshow of all the images within the guide. At one of many occasions, a pal caught a photograph of me studying from the guide with an enormous smile on my face, and proper above me is my mother smiling down at me.

RP: Oh my god, I adore it a lot. Okay, to wrap up our dialogue about Love You, Bye, I wish to speak concerning the essay, “Singing on the Threshold.” It absolutely destroyed me. Like, made me log on instantly to see in the event that they’re opening a Philly chapter. One of many issues I discovered so exceptional about this essay is your description of the ‘work’ or the ‘labor’ of dying, as you place it. I’m wondering how your skill to see the labor of dying by way of each of your dad and mom and thru your hospice work has modified the way in which you have a look at issues?

BM: Properly, I’ve my very own dying plan, which everybody ought to have.

RP: Right here right here, sister.

BM: Together with my energy of legal professional, I’ve additionally obtained my ‘companions’ of dying — two, possibly three girls in my life who will likely be in control of what’s taking place in the direction of the tip. You already know, I need there to be a window open, and I need the Threshold Singers, and I wish to be in my very own mattress, you realize? These are issues we write down, however I’m additionally changing into an enormous advocate for medical support in dying, and dying with dignity, largely due to what I skilled with my father within the nursing house. I imply, individuals are residing previous their expiration dates. It sounds harsh, however that’s the reality. They’re residing, however they’re not likely residing. It may be torture. So, the novel I’m truly writing takes place within the close to future, the place everybody can do it.

RP: BRENDA!

BM: Yup, and my principal character is that this girl whose job is to facilitate the end-of-life expertise by way of the senses. So everybody will get a final style, a final sound, a final odor, a final contact. And writing a novel is a lot more durable than writing an essay. I needed to take a category! And within the class the instructor made me get these characters to do issues, and have conflicts. I used to be like oh, they need to do stuff? Oh, and so they need to speak?!

RP: That sounds wonderful. Put me on the pre-order listing, please.

BM: Finished!

 

 

RP: So, it seems like the method of getting Love You, Bye out into the world was very collaborative, and your voice was not the one one concerned. Now that it’s on the market, is there something you want you’d performed in another way? Or something that you just’re actually glad you probably did?

BM: That’s a very good query. Now it simply looks as if the guide it’s presupposed to be, so I don’t have any regrets. I imply, there are items that didn’t make it in, and items that aren’t fairly as robust as others, and naturally I did discover a typo…

RP: We at all times do! All proper, I’ve obtained another query earlier than we wrap up, though I may speak to you all day lengthy. Contemplating how lengthy you’ve been doing this and the way lengthy you’ve been educating and writing and sharing on this style, what would you say to those that are simply beginning now? Wanting forward?

BM: Gosh. Properly, that is going to sound cliche, however I feel it nonetheless is a golden age for artistic nonfiction and the private essay. We’d like very particular and private tales greater than ever, and we want new varieties to maintain creating and evolving. So be taught out of your predecessors, however create your personal varieties. Create new methods of expressing issues that can appeal to individuals’s consideration amidst the noise and craziness that we’ve occurring. That’s the largest problem we face now, that I didn’t have again within the day. There’s a lot coming at us, and we don’t even know what’s actual anymore. So we want the realness, the authenticity. We’d like the younger people to have the ability to inform their tales. So yeah, create new frontiers.

RP: Hell sure. Are you an AWP particular person?

BM: Oh, not anymore.

RP: Properly, this 12 months [2026 in Baltimore], there was a sense of like, artistic nonfiction and flash simply having an enormous second. There have been extra panels about it than I’ve ever seen. You could possibly really feel the rising curiosity and the likelihood and the power going into that. Extra presses are on the lookout for it, extra panels are speaking about it.

BM: Good!

RP: I really feel so fortunate to work on this area, or I suppose to volunteer on this area, as a result of I do have a day job however that is all I actually wish to do. Simply discuss writing with writers.

BM: Properly, you’re good at it. This hour glided by like nothing.

RP: What a freaking delight. Thanks for what you’ve got performed for lots of us. Exhibiting us what’s attainable. Exhibiting us how one can do it. Opening doorways to new discoveries. I’m personally insanely grateful to you, as a result of your work has performed a lot for me. This chat was such a pleasure for me.

BM: Thanks a lot. And… love you, bye!

RP: Ahh! Love you, bye!

---