Listen:
Abby Thomas has become a dear friend and we have weekly conversations about writing and life. I’m so happy to share her once again with my listeners and viewers, and to highlight her new book Still Life At Eighty: A Memoir, published by Scribners.
In This Episode
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Abigail’s new book, Still Life at Eighty, now published by Scribner [1:11]
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What gravitas means to Abby [3:44]
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Why Abby’s go to reference is always the dictionary [3:59]
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The gifts Abby sees in aging [9:06]
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The meaning of ambition and weaving [7:04]
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How guilt grows up and becomes regret and how Abby really feels about guilt [15:02]
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What compels her to write [18:27]
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Using a person’s voice as a framing device [25:43]
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The importance of vulnerability and creativity in your writing [27:22]
- The meaning of her two tattoos and the third one she wants to get [31:30]
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Watch on YouTube
About Abigail Thomas
Abigail Thomas has four children,12 grandchildren, two great grandchildren, eleven books, and a high school education. She was asked to leave Bryn Mawr freshman year when she told the Dean she was pregnant, and she never went back. She had always wanted to be a writer, but for a long time the closest she came was bopping around her kitchen to Paperback Writer, by the Beatles. When she was forty-eight, after an interesting adventure, when she got home, she left her ego outside, and began to write a story. It didn’t work, but instead of crumpling it up saying “who do you think you are?” sat in a different chair, and another, and at the end of the afternoon, she had written a story. It was published in the Columbia Journal of Poetry and Prose. She had learned you have to keep at it. Writing is work of the best kind.
She has written two short story collections, one novel and four works of non-fiction, including the memoirs Safekeeping; A Three Dog Life; What Comes Next and How to Like It; and a book about writing, Thinking about Memoir.
Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing is her latest memoir, published by Scribners in November 2024.
Connect with Abigail Thomas:
Substack Abigail Thomas/What Comes Next?
Abigail on the Joe Donahue podcast
Estelle’s prior Episode #83 with Abby
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