Tamara Jong, author of Worldly Girls: A Memoir in Essays Credit: Photo provided by River Street Writing
*Content warning: The following contains descriptions of trauma, addictions, mental health and suicide. Please proceed with caution and care. If you require support, there are resources available.
Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) born writer Tamara Jong is my guest on Small Change today. Her work has been published in the Humber Literary Review, Room Magazine,The Fiddlehead, and has been both long and shortlisted for various creative nonfiction prizes.
Of Chinese and European ancestry, Tamara is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University and a former member of Room Magazine’s collective. Tamara currently lives and works on Treaty 3 territory, the occupied and ancestral lands of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabewaki, Attiwonderonk, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation – also known by its colonized name, Guelph, ON.
Worldly Girls: A Memoir in Essasys is Tamara’s first book. The moving memoir published by Book*hug is a portrait of trauma, addiction, grief, and forgiveness. In sparse yet searing prose, Tamara documents the tragic history of her fractured family and fraught relationship with the strict Jehovah’s Witness religion.
The middle of three children, Tamara describes her childhood as unconventional and busy with meetings, Bible study and door-to-door ministering. Her father was emotionally distant and her mother, an alcoholic, struggled with mental health issues.
When Tamara was 15 years old her parents divorced. Tamara and her siblings lived with their mother. But when Tamara was 18, her mother was disfellowshipped — excommunicated from the Jehovah’s Witness religion — placing additional strains on their relationship.
We discuss how the strict religious observances of the Jehovah’s Witness religion impacted Tamara’s life growing up as well as when she knew that she too would have to leave her faith.
We look at the myth of the tortured artist and how that relates to Tamara’s past and present mental health and writing life. We also explore the essential role communities play in healing, hope and new beginnings.
Purchase Worldly Girls here.
Find Tamara on her Website Instagram X: @Bokchoygurl Bluesky: @bokchoygurltjong.bsky.social
Find out about River Street Writing here.
*For folks not familiar with Tamara’s reference to “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!” — from The Brady Bunch show — middle daughter, Jan, often exclaimed, “Marsha! Marsha! Marsha!” when frustrated by her older, more popular sister. The Brady Bunch aired from 1969 until 1974.
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