This summer, I had the incredible opportunity to research the craft of memoir and write my own in response, thanks to the Lambda Iota Tau Research Grant. At the end of the project, I was able to study seven memoirs, attend a summer creative writing institute in Paris to complement my studies with lessons in craft, and produce a 300-page manuscript.
Part of my memoir discusses my childhood growing up as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon church. Leaving a high-demand religion has become a big part of my identity. I read works that helped me shape the way I wanted to talk about religion, such as Tara Westover’s Educated, AJ Romriell’s Wolf Act, and Denise Turner’s Worthy. All of these authors grew up in the Mormon faith and left it in their adulthood. How they approach religion has influenced the way I want to write about my own upbringing. Their effort to name religious trauma in blunt, yet lyrical ways underscores the importance of faith in someone’s life—whether it is kept or lost—as well as how that faith can get contorted. As Westover put it in Educated, “It’s strange how you give the people you love so much power over you” (199). I saw parts of myself in these works, as someone who felt dominated by their own religious identity. Learning how others write about a complicated, high-demand religion like the LDS church was essential in figuring out which aspects of my past to highlight.
I also read memoirs detailing stories of sexual abuse, such as The Only Girl in the Car by Kathy Dobie and Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot. Dobie’s work was a chronological tale of growing up and the sexual abuse she faced, whereas Mailhot’s memoir moved non-linearly in an effort to replicate trauma. These memoirs were eye-opening in my writing journey, as they walked me through the connections they made between the sexual abuse they faced in relation to their childhoods and cultural identities. In reading these works, I understood that my own life story is more than just a single event; everything in my life is intertwined, and everything, including my religion, body image, sexuality, and experience growing up, played a role in how I got to where I am today. This deepened the questions I began exploring in my own project and highlighted the different approaches I could take when writing my memoir.
In addition, reading Cheryl Strayed’s Wild showed me the craft of piecing together seemingly unrelated moments in order to create more meaning. In her memoir, Strayed hikes the Pacific Crest Trail and reflects on her mother’s death and her own divorce through her journey. The juxtaposition of nature and trauma reveal how healing is painful and beautiful. Strayed writes in her memoir, “I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it” (211). Her relationship with her healing allowed me to examine my own healing and empowered me to the point that writing a painful story, and incorporating new elements into it, felt entirely possible and even cathartic.
Dobie’s and Westover’s memoirs were especially instrumental in determining the structure of my memoir. Although I enjoyed all of the different forms I was exposed to, I determined the best path for my memoir would be to alternate chapters between my more immediate past and exploring a different story from my childhood that shaped the way I viewed sex, sexuality, religion, body, and love. Dobie, in The Only Girl in the Car, writes, “Once the mind knows something exists, there’s no stopping it from finding that thing again” (125). Through this project, once I realized my story was not just one event but a culmination of everything that had happened in my life, past and present, everything began to appear as it always was—connected.
After this project and writing in Paris—I am not the first to say this city is entirely inspirational, but I will repeat it here—I decided to apply for creative writing MFA programs to continue working on this project and elevating my creative nonfiction writing technique. Should I get into a program, I hope to take this work and make it more experimental. Books like In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado are what have really drawn me to this idea, and I want to explore how different forms can pull out the central tension more clearly.
I am so grateful for the support I received from the LIT Research Grant and that I am participating in an organization that views reading and writing as genuine research. I have grown so much as a writer from this experience; as they say, you have to read to be a good writer.
Ella Stott
Lambda Iota Tau (LIT) Research Grant Recipient, 2025
Rho Tau Chapter
Utah State University, Logan
Lambda Iota Tau (LIT) Research Grants
LIT Research Grants are designed to support individual members at the undergraduate or graduate level as they complete original research that furthers the goals of Sigma Tau Delta. Grant money of up to $1,000, with up to $500 for runners-up, will support travel to and use of archives or collections important to their research. The winning applicants will demonstrate the relevance of the research to English and English-related fields and may also describe the effect on current coursework, future research, or career pursuits. Each applicant will identify goals, propose outcomes, and estimate specific costs for their research travel. Students may not request grant money for research supported by a previous LIT Research Grant.
Any members interested in support for summer or study abroad programs should apply for those scholarships rather than for a LIT Research Grant.
All research travel and the resulting written or presented outcome must be completed before May of the following year.
How to Apply & Deadlines
Applications for the LIT Research Grants are accepted through AwardSpring during the Spring Awards Cycle (March 16 – April 13, 2026, 4 p.m. CT).
More from Footnotes: March 24, 2026
2026 Convention Program
Spring Awards Cycle
Graduation Regalia & Spring Merchandise Sale
Journal Submissions
