In Oprah’s latest Book Club pick, The Many Lives of Mama Love, Lara Love Hardin tells the story of how she went from a picture-perfect suburban soccer mom to a heroin-addicted convicted felon to a bestselling ghostwriter for some of the most impactful voices of our generation—from Desmond Tutu to Nelson Mandela. While Hardin’s life story is exceptional, her writing is infinitely relatable, laced through with wisdom on redemption, reinvention, and resilience that will resonate with anyone who has faced the messiness of life head-on and come out the other side.
In this candid video, Hardin shares how she rediscovered writing while incarcerated. “Everyone has their own individual skills in jail, and we were a community,” the author explains. “There were artists who drew pictures, and there were designers who built us furniture out of toothpaste and Tampax boxes, and there were great chefs who learned how to make amazing meals out of a hot pot of water and commissary food.” Writing was the skill Hardin brought to the community, helping her fellow inmates draft letters to judges explaining why they should be placed in long-term treatment, or to request passes to attend family events. “In the outside world, I didn’t feel like there was any part of me that was good and valuable,” says Hardin. Seeing the impact her words had inside that jail gave her the confidence to pursue professional ghostwriting when she was released.
Watch the video to learn about the (very famous) stories Hardin helped pen, the work she is still doing to help women impacted by the justice system, and how she moved from guilt to gratitude. “The biggest takeaway from my story,” says Hardin, “is that each of us is so much more than the worst thing we’ve done and the worst version of ourselves, and also that shame multiplies in isolation and it heals in community.”
Special thanks to The Aster in Los Angeles for providing our filming location.
Charley Burlock is the Associate Books Editor at Oprah Daily where she writes, edits, and assigns stories on all things literary. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from NYU, where she also taught undergraduate creative writing. Her work has been featured in the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review, Agni, the Apple News Today podcast, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a book about collective grief (but she promises she’s really fun at parties).
