valeriavescina Blog, Reviews

Lily Dunn’s “Into Being”

I’ve read many titles on the craft of memoir, but Into Being is about so much more than the craft. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. Lily Dunn’s focus on the transformative power of the process, her handling of philosophical questions, the generosity with which she shares her experience, the inclusion of other writers’ insights, and the voice – which blends authority and wisdom with modesty and empathy – make for a powerful mixture that I’m sure will be invaluable to memoirists for a long time to come.

I love how Lily conveys ‘the dance between writing and gaining in self-understanding in life, and how intimately connected they are.’ Her view of memoir-writing has a remarkable life-enhancing quality. ‘We are touching on questions not only of how to write better, but also how to live better, to be more self-aware and honest as we move through the world. The best memoirs, I believe, evolve alongside their authors who gain in understanding and wisdom […].’

In January, I had the privilege of interviewing Lily on behalf of the Women Writers’ Network. We discussed how she balances her work as a memoirist, teacher, and mentor; her aims for the book; how to nurture the ‘gift of noticing’; approaches to concerns over protecting oneself and others; degrees of emotional distance; finding clarity of both vision and voice; unearthing the best shape for one’s memoir.

You can read the interview of 22.1.2026 by clicking on the six questions below. Happy reading!

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4

Question 5

Question 6

Lily Dunn’s Into Being (Oct. 2025) is published by Manchester University Press.  

Image credits:

Photos by the author. Slide by Women Writers’ Network.

valeriavescina Blog, Reviews

Review of ‘Love lay down beside me and we wept’

Photo of Love Lay Down

love lay down beside me and we wept by Helen Murray Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Any one-liner for describing what this memoir is about would do it an injustice: it could not encompass its range. It’s about depression, attempted suicide, surviving it, recovering, building a new life… About societal expectations and how they shape us. About our system of mental healthcare. And it’s very much about love.

‘Love Lay Down’ is an important book. Helen Murray Taylor shares with generous openness and formidable eloquence her story of depression’s vortex and of her recovery. Her memoir is vivid, raw, at many points heartbreaking. At the same time, it’s infused with wit, with her ability to perceive the surreal and the outright comedic in some of the worst circumstances. She lets us into her intense emotions and thoughts at the time, as well as into her capacity for looking back at them now with hard-won distance.

Love blazes a luminous, life-saving path throughout this memoir: the love between Helen and her husband; that of family; of friends, colleagues… The whole book strikes me also as a real act of love by its author towards readers: as a gift of hope – and of feeling seen and heard – to sufferers from depression; and as a gift of understanding to all. ‘I hope that no one who reads this has ever found, or will ever find, themselves being dragged under by the force of their depression. But if that is you, […] please, please, call out for help. The help when it comes might not steer you to dry land but it might be the lifejacket that lets you turn on your back and float, the thing that lets you rest awhile, that keeps you afloat a little bit longer. Survival isn’t always about kicking against the waves. Tomorrow the tide might turn and wash you ashore.’

Re-posted from my Goodreads review