Award-winning journalist and author, Matti Friedman has worked as a reporter in Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Moscow, the Caucasus, and Washington, DC. A former Associated Press correspondent, his work has appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. He's currently writes from Israel for The Free Press. The author of five nonfiction books that have been translated into a dozen languages and have so far been awarded The Sami Rohr Prize, the Natan Prize, the ALA’s Sophy Brody Medal. His new book is Out of the Sky, Heroism and Rebirth in Nazi Europe, just out from Speigel and Grau. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Shelley Noble is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. Well-known for her gripping historical novel, The Tiffany Girls, in which the author unearths the previously little-known true story of the women artists responsible for much of Tiffany’s glasswork, as well as for her historical mysteries, Shelley Noble is a former professor, dancer and choreographer. Her new historical novel could not be more timely. Titled The Sisters of Book Row, it digs into early 20th century American book banning during a time in our country when even classic literature or fine art could send a person to jail. The Sisters of Book Row is just out from William Morrow. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Antonio Michael Downing is the author of the memoir Saga Boy, My Memoir of Blackness and Becoming, in which he show us how he had become, like his father and grandfather before him, a Saga boy, a Trinidadian playboy and almost loses everything of value himself until he rescues himself and becames the musician and writer he was born to be. In his new book, a novel entitled Black Cherokee, we meet the unforgettable Ophelia Blue Rivers, a mixed-race Black girl fighting for her identity in a South Carolina Cherokee community. Listen in as he and I speak about writing into identity, and so much more. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars, instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.