Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please become a subscriber!
Dr. Tamara MC is a memoirist, poet, and cultural critic whose work appears in The New York Times, Newsweek, SLATE,Salon, HuffPost, and 90+ publications. She is the 2025 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalist of the Year. She has two forthcoming books: Poetry for English Language Learning (University of New Mexico Press, 2026) and Oldest Tucson(Reedy Press, 2026). She holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and attended Columbia University’s MFA program in both poetry and creative nonfiction. A U.S. Department of State Fellow and Arizona Commission on the Arts grantee, she has attended residencies including Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Ragdale, and received a fellowship from the Highlights Foundation. She founded Muslim Jewish Love nonprofit and serves on the steering committee of the National Coalition to End Child Marriage, contributing to legislation ending child marriage in 16 states and counting.
What are you reading now?
Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers, everyone’s Substack—how wildly consuming keeping up has become—social media posts, submission guidelines, my own manuscripts in revision, friends’ manuscripts. And essays—always essays—in lit mags like The Rumpus, Electric Literature, The Sun, HuffPost Personal. Personal essay reading is my absolute favorite. I love slipping into someone else’s body, feeling what it might be like to live a life not my own.
As far as books, the last one I devoured was Elizabeth Gilbert’s All the Way to the River. I couldn’t wait for it to come out—finished it in a night or two. I used to read Liz for joy and story, like Eat, Pray, Love. This time, I read her for craft and curiousity. How did she pivot from Eat, Pray, Love to All the Way to the River? How does a writer make that leap? But life lifes. Our stories change as we change, so how could two of our memoirs ever be the same?
Perhaps more revealing is what I’m watching. That’s where my joy lives. At the end of the night, when my eyes are tired and my wrists ache from carpal tunnel, I need my brain to rest. So I turn to reality TV—TLC shows especially. 90 Day Fiancé, Sister Wives, Seeking Sister Wife, Three Wives, One Husband—anything featuring polygamy. I grew up in a polygamist community, so I watch with fascination and in horror. What are these women thinking? That it’s God’s plan when really it’s men getting to have multiple partners while women can’t?
What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
Dr. Seuss was my first love. The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish—I read them until the pages softened. The rhymes, the rhythm, the way language could dance and surprise. These books taught me writing could be joyful, playful, rebellious.
But my absolute favorite was Encyclopedia Britannica. I’d sit for hours in my yellow bedroom, reading entries from A to Z, mesmerized by how much knowledge existed in the world. It never occurred to me that humans wrote encyclopedias. I thought God sat down and wrote them. That’s what writers appeared to be to me as a child—gods. Dr. Seuss was God.
Full circle: I’m now an encyclopedia writer myself. I was recently featured in the Encyclopedia of Gender and Politics through Sage Publications, writing entries on such topics as child marriage, polygamy, trad wives, temporary Islamic marriage, and domestic servitude.
The Diary of Anne Frank has always been among my favorites. My grandmother, Bubbe, was a Lithuanian Holocaust survivor, so I felt deeply connected to Anne’s story. I’m also a lover of diaries—a diarist myself and a scholar of diary and journal studies for my PhD. I love examining women’s diaries: what is said, not said, and hidden between the lines.
And Judy Blume. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was a secret between us. Just Judy and me. She taught me about bodies, periods, all the things I couldn’t discuss with anyone else.
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
I don’t generally reread books or rewatch shows. I’m a novelty seeker—my ADHD brain craves constant newness.
But reference books are different. I return repeatedly to Story by Robert McKee. It’s incredibly dense, the bible for craft. I can read it multiple times and still not fully grasp it.
Picture books are different too—they’re meant to be reread, reconsidered, felt again and again. I’ve begun writing children’s picture books, and I constantly study them for craft: how to compress emotional universes into 32 pages, how to trust rhythm and repetition. I love Love You Forever. I can’t wait to have grandchildren so I can read my favorites to them.
I remember reading Dani Shapiro during a difficult time—moving through her books from first to last. This is something I love: reading an author’s complete body of work in order, from their earliest book to their most recent. One of my true joys.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
Skorts, leggings, cotton t-shirts. I live in Arizona and I’m sensitive to fabrics, so I live in these basics. Natural fibers, super soft cotton. I always have something pink on somewhere, without any planning.
But what really makes me feel like me? My earrings. I collect them—huge and bright. I just bought a pair of pink alligator earrings in Louisiana. Ridiculous and perfect.
And always flip-flops. When I lived in the Republic of Georgia during the dead of winter, I wore flip-flops. In New York City in January, flip-flops. Always.
My signature: MAC Candy Yum Yum lipstick. I have a collection of fuchsia lipsticks and could have long conversations about each brand.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you’ve encountered recently?
I’m watching All’s Fair, Ryan Murphy’s new legal drama on Hulu with Kim Kardashian as a divorce lawyer. She runs an all-female divorce firm with Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Sarah Paulson, and Glenn Close. Judith Light’s character says, “You know what a woman’s best friend is? Not diamonds. Her lawyers.”
I don’t even like diamonds or divorce attorneys (especially divorce attorneys!), but I thought it was clever. I’d rewrite it as: “You know what a woman’s best friend is? Not diamonds. Her dogs.” Duh!
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
I love all of my dogs: Li’l Guy, my Yorkie-Wawa and Latka, my Chihuahua, who hated men who wore boots; Blazer, my Boston Terrier, who I’m both grandma and mom to; and my grandpup, Willow, an Aussie.
Desert animals are my constant companions. Spiny-tailed lizards sunbathe on my patio and dart across the asphalt during my daily bike rides, alongside roadrunners. Beep. Beep. I observe ants building their intricate cities and welcome ladybugs that land on my arms during the summer. I carefully scoop bees from the pool and delight in watching them dry their wings and fly away.
Then there are the prairie dogs. They pop up from their burrows and stand on their hind legs, watching and chirping warnings to each other. Their little towns spread across the desert floor.
What’s one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
I’m not sure I’m happy about this, but I’m learning to sit with it: the quiet. The aloneness of aging.
I grew up with a large community on my dad’s side—full of people, noise, constant presence. Then I spent a lifetime building relationships through educational programs, marriage, my kids’ friends. I thought my life would always overflow with people, with noise. I thought I’d have many more children. I always wanted six. I thought I’d be married to my forever person.
But now, at 53, I find myself mostly alone in my home. The quiet is often surprising. My adult sons are in their late 20s, living their own lives. The house I thought would overflow with children and chaos, and a partner, now holds just me, my collections, and my walls.
Maybe that’s what I’m working out differently than expected—learning that without more children and people, I have time to write and leave my legacy. I have time to tell the stories I’ve been waiting a lifetime to tell.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
Dancing in the kitchen to 80s music—Madonna, Prince, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson. I blast “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and dance like everybody’s watching because in the community where I grew up with my dad, we weren’t allowed to dance. Movement was controlled. Music was restricted.
Pickleball too—my pink ASICS shoes, pink balls, pink everything. I play when I can.
And cycling. I ride daily. My body moving through the Arizona desert, feeling the heat, the wind, the freedom. On a bike, I control where I go, how fast, how far. I still feel like a child when I ride.
Swimming too—pools, oceans, lakes. Water heals everything, but then again, I’m a Cancer, a water sign. When I float, I remember I’m made of stardust and saltwater. I’m obsessed with stars and space. And could forever discuss: When we’re up in space, are we still human?
What are your hopes for yourself?
The Nobel Peace Prize. As someone both Jewish and Muslim, bringing peace to the Middle East has been my dream since childhood. I want the Pulitzer too—for memoir. And I’ve always wanted to be President of the United States, so maybe at 70?
My other hope: wake up every morning at 4 AM (like I do naturally, always), make my Nespresso, write until I can’t write anymore, take my bike ride, eat well, love on my animals—the ones I can touch and the ones I love from afar—breathe in my desert air, watch my boys grow into the beautiful men they already are, and see my mother age with her health intact.
Oh, and I want to be Dr. Seuss. A picture book author writing and speaking to kids about choice and questioning—each of us with freedom to make our own decisions.
And becoming a glamma!!!
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
With animals and the desert, I can be myself. They can be themselves. We can respect each other—either closely or from a distance. My dogs—Li’l Guy, Latka, Blazer, and Willow.
The Arizona desert itself has been the kindest presence in my life. The saguaros standing sentinel. The mountains. The monsoon rains that smell like creosote and promise.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
Curiosity. Questioning. Asking why. Always asking why.
Questioning is central to everything I do. There are no right answers. We all have our own answers. It’s in the questioning, not the answers. That’s how we learn about human nature, the natural world, the universe, animals, ourselves.
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