The “On Writing” series marches on, and for last week’s episode we were joined by Lee Skallerup Bessette. As I mention during the conversation, Reclaim Hosting has been continually going back to the well by asking Lee to lead our community chat in April, share her blogging journey post on our blog, and now we dig even deeper into her career as writer during this hour long conversation. The reason we keep coming back to Lee is not only because she is so damned smart and engaging, but also for her generosity and kindness as a speaker and writer. All of these elements make for a joyful discussion and that’s what we want from our “On Writing” episodes!

Anyway, I had a bit of a plan going into this one because I was personally fascinated by Lee’s growing up in the bi-lingual world in and aroundQuebec. She has published scholarship in both English and French and I wanted to know more about what it means to write in different languages. What follows is a fascinating discussion of the role the politics of language played in her own education as a writer. The way in which her strong memories speak to her gravitation towards memoir across. all her various forms of online writing is not surprising. She understand all the writing she does across various medium as a kind of hyper-texted memoir that is a powerful way to understand one’s work across the time and space that is the web. In many ways Lee’s mind works like the best web, a series of connections that are constantly enriching the dialogue and widening the space for intellectual exploration.

I love talking to Lee. Ever since we communed at Domains 19 over the edtech world in which we live and write, I’ve found her to be a strong, authentic voice that speaks openly and honestly—something that’s not easy to do, but such a voice invariably reminds us that the web we inhabit is made up of real people in and of the world.