We recently connected with Elizabeth Kleinfeld and have shared our conversation below.
Elizabeth , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.
I had been an academic for 27 years and tremendously happy as one. I actually never considered leaving academia and even wondered how I would function if/when I retired without an academic job to do. In 2020, just a couple months after the pandemic started, my husband had a massive stroke and I became his 24/7 caregiver. I surprised both of us by enjoying being his caregiver. I began writing regularly on a blog about his recovery and my experience as a caregiver and that writing became very important and motivating ot me.
A year later, he died unexpectedly. At that point, I took the big risk–I sent out for publication a short memoir essay I had written about being his caregiver. Sending my personal writing out into the world felt like a huge turning point for me. I had published scholarly work for years and felt confident about that but the memoir essay was different. It was about my husband and me, my emotions, and it hinted at his death. That piece meant more to me than anything I had ever written. My heart was beating out of my chest as I hit the “submit” button.
Within a few days, the piece had been accepted for publication. I was thrilled and it helped me feel like I could claim the mantle of “writer” for myself. Since then, I’ve received many rejections, but as I tell my own students, every rejection puts you one step closer to publication.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I began blogging about grief, caregiving, death, and other topics many people shy away from when my husband had a stroke and I became his caregiver. After he died, I was hungry to talk about death and grief and my blog gave me that outlet. Now, two years after his death, I feel like I’m on a mission to normalize death and grief and help people communicate better about topics like that. The less we talk about them, the harder it becomes to talk about them, and the opposite is also true: the more we talk about them, the more comfortable we become talking about them and thus, the easier it is to talk about them. But it takes practice.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I love hearing from folks who have read my blog or memoir essays and felt seen. It’s incredibly rewarding to know that my experience can help others. Death, grief, and caregiving can make us feel isolated and alone, so to know that my writing helped someone feel less alone is a trememdous gift.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
In academia, emotion is not only undervalued but often scorned. I had learned that my emotions were shameful and that I should be embarrassed about them. I had spent years editing my emotions out of my writing.
Memoir writing hinges on emotion. When I first started writing memoir, I got the feedback that people wanted to be able to feel what I was feeling when I went through the experiences I was writing about. I resisted that and wanted to focus on the facts of what happened. I had to learn not just how to allow emotion into my writing but how to express it in a way that allows readers to feel what I felt–it’s the old “show don’t tell” advice. Instead of just saying, “I was scared,” a memoir writer needs to show readers that they felt scared.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://elizabethkleinfeld.com/
- Instagram: lizkleinfeld1
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ekleinfeld
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethkleinfeld/
- Twitter: @lizkleinfeld