Katya Cengel
Writing a Memoir in Two Voices
February 13, 2025
4 PM PST | 5 PM MST | 6 PM CST | 7 PM EST
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When you are put in an institution you are separated from society, forgotten, cast aside. That is how it felt to me as a 10 year old placed in a psychosomatic ward at Stanford Children’s Hospital. In writing my memoir Straitjackets and Lunch Money I wanted to show people what goes on inside the silent, sullen children that the hospital removed from sight. Revisiting that period in my life in words was extremely challenging and yet illuminating as well. As a child you have little power. As a patient, especially a mental health patient, you have even less. Writing about my experience and that of other children like me allowed me to take control of the narrative, literally. Instead of doctors diagnosing me, I was chronicling what they had done to me and why.

In this presentation I will discuss:

• How to add context to an individual story. My young age and the length of time I spent in a psychosomatic unit make my story unusual. Then, placing this story in the larger framework of treating children with mental illness broadens the narrative.
• Utilizing two voices. I alternated between the voice of a child and that of an adult journalist.
• Early reviewers said that reading the portions of the book written in the child’s voice was tough. So, I had to find a way to keep readers from being too disturbed to continue.
• Writing about some of the hardest periods in my life meant reliving them; I had to learn how to do that without succumbing to depression.
• There are things I did not want to reveal in this book, but I did, and I will tell you why.

Bio

Katya Cengel is the author of two memoirs, From Chernobyl with Love and Straitjackets and Lunch Money. From Chernobyl with Love covers her time reporting in Ukraine earlier this century while Straitjackets and Lunch Money chronicles her time in a psychosomatic ward as a 10 year old. Cengel also writes about Bosnian Bruce Lee statues, Mongolian bands and searching for big foot in Utah – she didn’t find him. Her features, essays and short stories have been published in New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine and Atavist among others. Her memoirs have received Independent Publisher Book Awards and an Eric Hoffer Academic Press award. When not writing, Cengel teaches writing (Journalism) at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

www.katyacengel.com