"What Am I Supposed to Be Doing at What Age?" A Chat with Sari Botton, Editor of Oldster & Memoirland
“I love reading personal essays.”
Good day! I come with a new interview, freshly in the books.
Before we get into it, I wanted to let you all know I’ve updated the day & time for the interview with the editors of Roanoke Review. That will take place on November 24th. You can hop over here to learn more and register.
Now, onward!
Today I had the pleasure of chatting with Sari Botton, Editor of both Oldster Magazine and Memoirland.
Oldster Magazine explores what it means to travel through time in a human body at every phase of life. It focuses on the good, the bad, and the ugly we experience with each milestone, starting early in life. It’s about the experience of getting older, and what that means at different junctures.
…A more serious part of the Oldster Magazine mission is de-stigmatizing and normalizing aging by demonstrating that’s it’s happening to everyone, regardless of age and gender, all the time. And fostering intergenerational conversation, so we can all learn from one another.
And,
Memoir Land [has] four verticals:
Memoir Monday, a weekly curation of personal essays co-curated by Granta, Guernica, Narratively, The Rumpus, Literary Hub, Orion Magazine, The Walrus, and Oldster Magazine;
First Person Singular featuring original personal essays;
The Lit Lab featuring interviews and craft essays;
Goodbye to All That, inspired by Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving & Leaving NY, and Never Can Say Goodbye: Writers on Their Unshakable Love for NY, featuring stories about the push-pull that NYC exerts on its inhabitants.
In today’s conversation we covered so much.
We talked about what prompted Sari to begin these magazines and how people in the literary world think and talk about age and aging (or don’t think and talk about it at all). Oldster features writing from people of all ages and is not limited to the experiences of older writers. Rather, it focuses on the experience of what it means to be in a human body as it ages.
Prominent questions undergirding Oldster are, What am I supposed to be doing at what age? How do age-related expectations shape how we think of ourselves at different phases in life? What pressures do we feel at 20, 30, 60, 70, and in what ways do we choose to adhere to or buck social conventions?
Sari has a ton of experience in the realm of personal essays. She is a former Editor at Longreads, has published and edited personal essay anthologies, has taught personal essay writing, and says simply, “I love reading personal essays.”
So what makes a great personal essay? Sari talked about work that rises above mere personal anecdote in order to convey deeper meaning. If this is something you’re curious about, you can learn more through here Skillshare, which she was kind enough to share with us.
Both Oldster and Memoirland are officially paused for submissions. However, Sari said that people are constantly sending her personal essays and she does read them. So there is a chance that your essay could find a home in one of these magazines.
However, it is not easy to break in. Published pieces should be exceptionally polished. They must be under 2,000 words. And there are several additional things that all writers should know before sending essays to these venues.
What else should be known? How should work be sent? What should writers specifically state in their cover letters? What should writers definitely not say? What kind of work is Sari interested in and what will lead to a certain No?
For all that and more, you will have to tune in!
This video is for paying subscribers only. Your support allows me to do this work and is truly appreciated.
To everyone who came out today to participate, thank you for tuning in! Your faces are the sweetest honey in my early fall spiced warm beverage.
And, of course, thank you to Sari for taking the time to take us behind the scenes of not one but two lovely little magazines.
Happy viewing!