You might know her as Mrs. Columbo. Or maybe Mary Ryan from Ryan’s Hope. Batman: The Animated Series fans remember her as Red Claw. If you’ve watched Orange Is the New Black, you know her from her chilling portrayal of Galina “Red” Reznikov.

And if you’re a Star Trek fan, you know Kate Mulgrew from Star Trek: Voyager, where she boldly went and broke new ground for seven seasons as the franchise’s first female captain: Captain Kathryn Janeway.

Over the years, Mulgrew has also had a steady presence on the stage… and the page. In 2016, she published Born with Teeth, a memoir that traces her journey to becoming an actor and all the ups and downs that entailed. And out now is her second memoir – How to Forget – which is an intimate and searingly honest account of her life’s most challenging role: daughter.

In How to Forget, Mulgrew takes us on an introspective examination of her relationship with her parents as she cares for both of them in their final days (her father from lung cancer, her mother from Alzheimer’s). The book is a powerful look at family, memory, loss, and the legacy we leave behind.

On this episode, we talk with Mulgrew about How to Forget, the tricky job of mining your own life for stories, distilling facts and “truth” from an often muddled mix of memories and emotion, the enduring legacy and popularity of Kathryn Janeway, and much more.

You can listen on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, TuneIn, Stitcher, and YouTube; you can follow the RSS feed; or you can listen right here!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Connect:

• Kate Mulgrew is on Twitter here and online here.
• The show is on Twitter here and Facebook here.
• Jamie is on Twitter and Instagram as @theroarbots.
• Shiri is on Twitter here.