Mary Laura Philpott Addresses the Humor and Difficulties of Life in “I Miss You When I Blink”
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:20:50 — 74.2MB)
In this episode 134, we visit with Mary Laura Philpott, author of the best-selling memoir-in-essays, “I Miss You When I Blink.”
Mary Laura Philpott thought she’d cracked the code: Always be right, and you’ll always be happy. But once she’d completed her life’s to-do list (job, spouse, house, babies—check!), she found that instead of feeling content and successful, she felt anxious. Lost. Stuck in a daily grind of overflowing calendars, grueling small talk, and sprawling traffic. She’d done everything “right,” but she felt all wrong. What’s worse, she wondered: smiling and staying the course, or blowing it all up and running away? And are those the only options?
In this collection of humorous and poignant and observations about home, work, and creative life, Mary Laura Philpott takes on the conflicting pressures of modern adulthood with wit and heart. She offers up her own stories to show that identity crises don’t happen just once or only at midlife; reassures us that small, recurring personal re-inventions are both normal and necessary; and affirms that multiple things can be true about any of us at once. Most of all, she learns that when you stop feeling satisfied with your life, you don’t have to burn it all down and set off on a transcontinental hike (unless you want to, of course). You can call upon your many selves to figure out who you are, who you’re not, and where you belong.
Mary Laura starts the show with a reading from the first chapter of the book, where her young son reveals to her the perfect sentence – “I Miss You When I Blink” – so perfect, in fact, that she wrote a book about it.
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About the Author:
Mary Laura Philpott is the author of the bestselling memoir-in-essays I Miss You When I Blink. Her writing has been featured frequently by The New York Times and also appears in such outlets as The Washington Post, The Paris Review Daily, O The Oprah Magazine, and others. Across her work, Mary Laura examines the overlap of the absurd and the profound in life, literature, and culture.
Additionally, Mary Laura is an Emmy-winning co-host of A Word on Words, the lively literary mini-program on Nashville Public Television. She worked as a bookseller for several years and was the founding editor of the digital magazine MUSING for Parnassus Books. She also wrote and illustrated the book Penguins with People Problems. She enjoys traveling around the country to speak with people about creativity, work, the ups and downs of perfectionism, reinvention, reading, and writing. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her family.
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Additional Facts About I Miss You When I Blink and Mary Laura Philpott:
I Miss You When I Blink was named one of NPR’s Favorite Books of 2019, a Best Book of the Year by Esquire and Real Simple, and #1 on the Indie Next List by booksellers nationwide. A finalist for the Southern Book Prize, it was also highlighted on must-read or most-anticipated lists from Newsweek, BuzzFeed, Town & Country, theSkimm, ELLE Australia, Lit Hub, Southern Living, Bustle, The Millions, BookRiot, Garden & Gun, and the Chicago Review of Books, among others.
Mary Laura Philpott is represented by Simon Speakers. Read more about her speaking engagements here: https://marylauraphilpott.com/speaking/
-Find Philpott’s latest columns, essays, and articles for newspapers and magazines here:
https://marylauraphilpott.com/articles-essays/
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