Our guest on this week's Nieman Storyboard podcast, editor and bestselling author Sari Botton, is an expert in the art of personal storytelling. Through her popular Substack publications, Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in “Journalism,” and before that as essays editor for Longreads (where we worked together), Botton has shepherded hundreds of writers through the process of telling their own stories — and doing so with a thoughtful eye for what makes personal essays connect with readers without being sensational.
“People are so concerned about whether they're going to be a likable character if they tell the ugly truth,” she said. “[But] that's what makes you a likable character. It makes you someone that people can relate to. It means you're just human.”
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Even after publishing so many writers, Botton herself struggled with whether she should write her own memoir, and the impact it might have on her family. Eventually, she found an approach that allowed her to speak her truth while being mindful of family members' privacy, and her book, “And You May Find Yourself…Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen-X Weirdo,” was published in 2022.
Botton also was the editor of two bestselling anthologies, “Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York,” and “Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for New York.”
This week, her magazine Oldster celebrated its fifth birthday, sharing stories that "explore what it means to travel through time in a human body, at every phase of life.” Botton is now working on an Oldster anthology and podcast, and her newsletters now have more than 125,000 subscribers.
Show Credits
Hosted and produced by Mark Armstrong
Episode editor: Kelly Araja
Audience editor: Adriana Lacy
Promotional support: Ellen Tuttle
Operational support: Paul Plutnicki, Peter Canova
Nieman Foundation curator: Henry Chu
Music: “Golden Grass,” by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
Cover design by Adriana Lacy
Nieman Storyboard is presented by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard.
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