Interview with Elizabeth Jannuzzi: Q4 2024 Creative Nonfiction Contest Runner Up

Elizabeth Jannuzzi is a writer whose work explores themes of loss, motherhood, and recovery from alcoholism. Her essays have been featured in The Rumpus, Memoir Monday, The Brevity Blog, and more. Elizabeth received an honorable mention in Memoir Magazine’s 2018 Recovery Contest, was shortlisted for Cagibi’s 2019 Macaron Prize, and earned a Best of the Net nomination in 2023. Elizabeth serves as the operations and communications manager at Project Write Now, a nonprofit writing organization. She engages with her audience through a weekly Substack and is working on a memoir.

---interview by Marcia Peterson

WOW: Congratulations on placing as a runner up in our Q4 2024 Creative Nonfiction essay competition! What prompted you to enter the contest?

Elizabeth: Thank you so much! I was honored and delighted to be a runner-up in WOW’s contest. I became aware of WOW! Women On Writing when a colleague, Courtney Harler, from the organization where I work Project Write Now, won the Flash Essay contest in October 2022. Since then, I’ve been a fan of this publication that promotes women. THEN, my colleague and friend, Jennifer Gaites, won first place in WOW’s Q4 2023 Creative Nonfiction essay contest. I guess I wanted to throw my hat in the ring as well.

WOW:  Your entry, “Purgatory in Two Parts” is a quietly powerful piece, including the ending. What inspired you to write it?

Elizabeth: You know how as writers, we keep returning to the same themes, or as a memoirist, the same moment in our lives? My sister’s suicide attempt and the eight months she spent in the hospital before she eventually died is one of those moments for me. (I have other published pieces on the same topic.)

I’d like to say my inspiration is to remove the shame surrounding mental illness and suicide but to be honest, that’s just a by-product of my writing. I feel drawn to write about my sister’s suicide in order to understand it. Twenty-seven years after she passed, I’m still trying to figure it out. The second part of my essay though is a direct reaction to people (the lit mag editor) not understanding mental illness and suicide and how that hurts those of us who are survivors of suicide loss. That section IS an attempt to educate people.

WOW:  Do you have any thoughts or advice for writing about difficult things?

Elizabeth:  Ah, that’s a good question. But beyond the typical self-care advice--be kind to yourself, take breaks, go for a walk, etc.--not really. I will say that it’s important to lean into the difficult topics. Write the thing that’s hard to say. That’s where the heat is. That’s what’s going to resonate with readers. It may be difficult, but that’s what connects us and creates empathy. “Normalize,” as Brené Brown would say.

WOW:  You mentioned that you’re working on a memoir. Anything you can share about the writing process, or how the journey of writing this book is going for you?

Elizabeth: Thanks for asking! I’ve written one memoir, SOBER MOM, about my recovery from alcoholism. I’m currently querying agents for that manuscript. (Hello? Any agents out there?) And I’m writing a weekly Substack to build my author platform.

My second memoir about loss, grief, and resilience, called THIS WOMAN’S WORK, is still a draft. I plan to revise it in 2025.

I’m currently a member of a wonderful community of writers called book inc, a division of the nonprofit Project Write Now. Our Memoir and Novel Incubators are yearlong creative writing programs to guide and support writers from their initial story ideas to the completion of their manuscripts. I highly recommend this program, and I’m not just saying that as its program manager! :-)

WOW:  Thanks so much for chatting with us today, Elizabeth. Before you go, can you share a favorite writing tip or piece of advice?

Elizabeth: Thank YOU for the opportunity. Writing advice? Let’s see…I used to berate myself because I didn’t write every day. I thought I wasn’t a real writer because of that fact. As a busy working mom, I only had time to write on the weekends or if I scheduled a writing retreat for myself. Once I let go of that (patriarchial?) pressure to write every day and allowed myself to write when and how I could, I started to flourish. Don’t let others tell you what your writing practice should look like.

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