The Hickory Stick Bookshop is delighted to welcome author Elissa Altman who will be here discussing her new book “Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create” with Kerri Arsenault (author of “Mill Town”) on Saturday, March 1st at 5 pm. The discussion will be followed by a book signing.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Who am I to tell my story? And how can we grant ourselves permission to write the stories we’re compelled to tell when we’ve been told we shouldn’t?
Without fail, almost every writer–new or experienced–has faced dire questions of permission and story ownership: there is something that they want to write about, that they need to write about. Yet: they can’t. They have been warned not to. They might be paralyzed with shame, threatened with shunning, chastened into silence. Even if what they need to write about has defined them and their worldviews.
But what if they did? What if you did?
After writing three critically-acclaimed memoirs and a decade of teaching memoir workshops at every level, Elissa Altman has helped students face the elephant in every writer’s room: how to craft the stories that are most vital to them despite the voices that have told them not to. Permission is a master course, not only on how to craft memoir, but how to begin and keep going when you’ve been told you can’t, and how to how to give yourself permission to transcend the fear that keeps vital stories from being written.
We are the storytelling species; this book will inspire and guide all creatives to a place of transformation, of freedom from the constraints of shame and fear in all their forms, and to the understanding and recognition of the ethics of story-making, art-making, truth-telling, and creative soul-saving.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Elissa Altman is the award-winning author of the memoirs Motherland, Treyf, and Poor Man’s Feast, and the bestselling essay substack of the same name. A longtime editor, she has been a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, Connecticut Book Award, Maine Literary Award, and the Frank McCourt Memoir Prize, and her work has appeared in publications including Orion, The Bitter Southerner, On Being, O: The Oprah Magazine, LitHub, the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, where her column, “Feeding My Mother,” ran for a year. Altman writes and speaks widely on the intersection of permission, storytelling, and creativity, and has appeared live on the TEDx stage and at the Public Theater in New York. She teaches the craft of memoir at Fine Arts Work Center, Maine Writers & Publishers, Kripalu, Truro Center for the Arts, Rutgers Community Writing Workshop, and beyond.
An avid gardener, cook, and musician, Elissa lives with her wife, book designer Susan Turner, and their small herd of animals, in southwestern Connecticut.
Kerri Arsenault is a literary and cultural critic, director and co-founder of The Environmental Storytelling Studio (TESS), and author of Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains. Her writing has been published in the Boston Globe, The Paris Review, the New York Review of Books, Freeman’s, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. She is also part of the teaching ensemble at The New School of the Anthropocene.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
“Elissa Altman’s marvelous, passionate and charming new book, Permission, is going to breathe freedom into your life. It is a clarion call for writers to tell their hard, lifelong truth, no matter how many decades they have agreed to stay silent. Lies and cover-ups won’t save you. This book just might.”
— Anne Lamott, author of Somehow
“I can’t think of a better book on the craft of memoir. Erudite, wise and deeply personal, Permission burrows into the complexity of telling our own stories. This is a masterclass.”
— Katherine May, author of Wintering
“With Permission, Elissa Altman has given us a profound and generous gift. She candidly addresses the slipperiest questions behind making art from life: Can I tell my story? What are the risks and rewards? How do I care for myself–and others–in the process? There are only a handful of books I recommend every time I teach, without fail, and Permission will be one of them. This insightful, empowering book should be on every writer’s shelf.”
— Maggie Smith, author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful
This event is free and open to the public. If you are unable to attend this event, you may reserve signed copies of “Permission” by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525, or shop our website 24/7 at www.hickorystickbookshop.com.
The Hickory Stick Bookshop
2 Green Hill Rd
Washington Depot, CT 06794
https://hickorystickbookshop.com/event/2025-03-01/elissa-altman-conversation
