A conversation with the author of My Salinger Year. How many characters do you really need? Make a list. Every character needs to be fully-fleshed, each with their own motivations. In order to make them real, you need to find them interesting, complicated. You need to be curious. Then, you need to write from a place of love and cold-bloodedness at the same time. “If you really want to write something great, if you’re really aiming at greatness, at things truly working, not at just like getting s...
Jun 30, 2025•1 hr 10 min
A conversation with the author of If You Must Go, I Wish You Triplets : -When you include your thoughts that are unkind, immature, or that you’re embarrassed to admit, it’s funny and relatable. “In the bedroom, I grab two boxes and throw in Perry's shirts, belts, ties, underwear, shorts, and pants, and dump them in the garage. Hopefully, they'll mildew.” -Sometimes you need an outside perspective to title your book. You, as the writer, are too close to it. Fresh eyes on the manuscript could see ...
May 26, 2025•51 min
A conversation with the author of It Must Be Beautiful To Be Finished. -The key to writing about someone you love who you’ve also been hurt by, is to write with empathy. Think about their perspective and their experience and be generous and loving when you do. -Be wary of the please-feel-bad-for-me voice -Analogies should be both fresh and accurate -Metaphors written as standalone chapters, without any reference to how they relate to your story, are a powerful way to trust the reader and not hit...
Apr 28, 2025•1 hr 5 min
A conversation with the author of Happy To Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser. LINKS Books: Happy To Help When Did I Get Like This? Essay: Why I Didn't Want A Girl (originally titled: A Daughter At Last) Podcast: What Fresh Hell? References: Mom 2.0 Conference Booked Author series Zibby Retreat (Santa Barbara)...
Mar 31, 2025•53 min
Here’s what I learned from Happy To Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser by Amy Wilson: Include your fantasies. It’s especially funny if you can incorporate four levels in the build up to the punchline: First: set the scene—what’s about to happen Second: set the stakes—why is this a big deal Third: fantasy/a positive hypothetical of what’s to come Fourth: Dialogue/action of what actually transpired Write a short and snappy analogy that has pronouns and alliteration: “It was like hiring Kidz Bop ...
Feb 28, 2025•29 min
Memoir deep dive #21 Here’s what I learned from Here After by Amy Lin: One way to treat your audience like a genius is to not say the next obvious thing. Where can I leave out what the reader already knows is coming? One approach to this: in every paragraph I write, where can I remove the last sentence? “I stare at the blank ceiling tiles and wonder when Kurtis will call me. I have so much to tell him.” Expressing negative feelings about a person’s appearance is funnier than directly expressing ...
Feb 17, 2025•27 min
Here's what I learned from Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd: -When writing memoir, never insert present knowledge about your past if it means condemning your past self or celebrating your present self. -Avoid casual prose such as, "you know," or "bet you thought," or "ummm, hello?" This style of writing seeks instant intimacy with the reader. It's a style what wants to SEEM fresh and authentic but has the opposite effect. -Don't be melodramatic! I cannot write t...
Jan 31, 2025•27 min•Ep. 1
Here’s what I learned from my conversation with Sandy Schnakenburg, author of The Housekeeper's Secret : When you’re writing about a tragic or shocking event, one way to create suspense is to tease that something bad is coming. In the book she had a terrible accident on her bike, and at the beginning of the chapter a character calls out and tells her to be careful riding to school. From there until the moment of the crash she slows down time by including the tiniest details and specifics surroun...
Dec 10, 2024•59 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Here’s what I learned from Long Live The Tribe Of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden: First lines should make the reader curious to read more. They can be surprising, specific, and/or present a conflict. It’s important to stay in moments longer by going deeper with details and going on tangents that add context. Write unsparingly about yourself to get the reader to root for you—without disclaimers. Write about complicated characters in your life by sharing stories that show their different sides....
Nov 11, 2024•37 min
Here’s what I learned from Still Life At Eighty by Abigail Thomas: Revealing the dark parts of yourself in writing makes those things less scary and less powerful. Simple, clear, no-frill writing can be just as powerful and moving as fancy prose. Lean into your style, whatever it may be. Sometimes writing can just be keeping a log of your feelings and experiences. It might not be something to publish now, but later, when you can look back at that time in your life and have rich details to includ...
Sep 23, 2024•17 min
Here’s what I learned from My Salinger Year by Joanna Rakoff: How to write dialogue in a novelistic or cinematic way: Include details about the surrounding area. The weather, scenery, anything the characters interact with, other people in the room. This is especially useful at the start of the scene, and if/when the scene changes. When you add context for the reader it should relate to the dialogue before it. It can also help establish the relationship of the characters. There are three people t...
Aug 11, 2024•26 min
Sam is back to discuss more marital arguments, though he insists they rarely argue while Charlie insists they argue plenty.
Jul 21, 2024•34 min
I submitted a personal essay to the New York Times weekly column, Modern Love. In this episode I talk about how I learned about the column, how I decided to submit an essay under my real name, and a little context for what the essay is about. References: 39 Submission Tips for Modern Love Estelle Erasmus interviews: Noah Michelson Joanna Rakoff Abigail Thomas Maggie Smith Cheryl Strayed...
Jun 21, 2024•23 min
Here’s what I learned from three sobriety memoirs: The Night of the Gun by David Carr: Interview the people from your past. It doesn’t have to be formal or recorded. It could be as simple as a text message to see what they remember about the event. This can accomplish three things: It’s a way to add more details into your story. It allows the person to feel like they’re a part of the process of writing it as opposed to feeling like it’s one-sided. It makes you, the writer, more relatable and rel...
Jun 01, 2024•24 min
Heres’s what I learned from Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp AND The Elements Of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. Anaphora is when you start each phrase, sentence, or paragraph with the same word or words. But be careful: readers always remember the opening words but often forget the rest. So when using anaphora, be intentional about what you want to emphasize. Also, only using one word for the anaphora—as opposed to a phrase—is slightly less powerful but beautifully hypnotic. Epistrophe is wh...
Apr 27, 2024•37 min
Do you want to write under a pseudonym or not? I have been writing as Charlie Bleecker for over four years. If you want to give it a real go, commit to it for a year. Do my friends read my writing? No. Does my family read my writing? No. That is the whole point. If you care at all about growing your audience in a time span of less than 10 years, don’t do it. What about support? It’s nice to have your family and friends support you… That’s true. But give it time. You only need one or two people t...
Apr 13, 2024•26 min
Here’s what I learned from Life On Delay by John Hendrickson: On Structure: When you open with a big event, where something big is about to happen, it creates suspense. The opening is a pivotal moment. There was life before this moment, and then there’s life after. Around ¾ of the way through the book he comes back to this moment and finishes the story. The life-changing moment is only the beginning of the major changes to come for John (aka, the main character). The life changing moment, then, ...
Mar 31, 2024•52 min
Here’s what I learned from How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart by David Foster Wallace: Rather than tell us how bad the memoir was, he lists eight (eight!) examples—all quotes from the book. Later, he explicitly tells us how bad TV interviews of top athletes are, then gives two very long and detailed back-to-back examples to make his point. The best memoirs are written by writers, and celebrity memoirs are trash.
Mar 15, 2024•25 min
Here’s what I learned from My Fair Junkie by Amy Dresner: Amy Dresner is the second memoirist I’ve read who had a life changing moment with a breathwork teacher—Glennon Doyle was the first, in Love Warrior. So I found a breathwork person near me and did it! I don’t know if it was life changing but I definitely had a moment. Character intros should have lots of specific details, and don’t be afraid to make them long, like three or four sentences. A rule about parentheticals: they should always on...
Mar 04, 2024•38 min
Here's what I learned from Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz: Create tension by pairing repetition with opposites. Add playfulness by pairing something literal with something figurative. Show don’t tell: how can you show us you’re crying without telling us? Also… an update on my memoir!
Feb 18, 2024•14 min
Here’s what I learned from In The Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado: I can write a cohesive story that is made up of little stories, all strung together with a unifying theme. When writing about moments of inebriation or vulnerability, it’s funny to include present-tense comments of your thoughts at the time, like a question you thought, or something ridiculous that would not make sense if you were sober. Metaphors don’t need to be explicitly explained, as long as there's context surrounding i...
Feb 02, 2024•30 min
Here's what I learned from A Life's Work by Rachel Cusk: -Sometimes your experience of something is enough, sometimes it’s all there is. You don’t have to share wisdom or lessons; you could just tell people what happened, and there's value in that. -When you include disclaimers you water down the thing you were trying to say. It takes away from the truth and makes you unrelatable. -Write unsparingly about yourself means to ONLY write unsparingly about yourself. You don't then try to redeem yours...
Jan 18, 2024•26 min
Here’s what I learned from The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr: If I want to tell stories from my past that involve family members, I can ask them how they remember the same story and include their perspective by saying things like, “If I gave my big sister a paragraph here, she would correct my memory. To this day, she claims…” or “Lecia says that…” or “My sister says this never happened.” I can tell my truth and honor my story while and also share my family’s perspective. It’s not 'I’m right and they...
Dec 15, 2023•27 min
Here’s what I learned from Cheryl Strayed : “The hardest part about memoir is the unfortunate fact that other people exist.” Every time she writes about anyone other than herself she asks herself a series of questions— Will this hurt our relationship? Will this unfairly invade someone's privacy? Will I be able to tell this story in such a way that is both deeply rooted in my truth and also acknowledging that that person I'm writing about would tell a different version of this story? Do I have th...
Nov 30, 2023•23 min
Here's what I learned from What Remains by Carole Radziwill: -The best prologue I’ve read so far because of her journalistic style of writing. -Structure is so important. It should be seamless, unnoticeable; surprising but not confusing. Never linear. -Rather than attempt to describe visceral moments from my life where I’ve “cried so hard,” I can skip them altogether. -Facts are more shocking than trying to describe the shocking thing. -A strong ending: circled back to the prologue and then clos...
Nov 12, 2023•24 min
Memoir deep dive #8 Here’s what I learned from The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls: -When you leave out thoughts and feelings it evokes big emotions from the reader. -Action and dialogue drive a story—not thoughts and feelings. -If you want to drop a bomb, bury it. Make it subtle, within a sentence. Say it and move on. -A long list can evoke big emotions. -Include moments of resolution, when something difficult has occurred that has made me determined and focused about myself or my future. -Want...
Oct 27, 2023•34 min
Memoir deep dive #7 Here's what I learned from Born Standing Up by Steve Martin: -Breaking the 4th wall is when the writer addresses the reader directly. It's intimate, it's funny, and a lot of comedic writers do it. It's a fun way to make the reader feel like they're a part of the story. -The best way to be sarcastic in writing is to be subtle about it. -Our fantasies are hilarious, vulnerable, and relatable. When sharing a fantasy, the deeper into it you go, the better it gets. -Great ending! ...
Oct 13, 2023•18 min
Memoir deep dive #6 Here's what I learned from Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle: -Her book structure was as follows: Prelude (her wedding day) Part 1 :The Before Image (childhood to rock bottom, to pregnant, to marrying Craig) Part 2: The Explosion (being sober and married and a mom is hard, writing is the light in her life, and then the bomb is dropped—Craig confesses that he's cheated on her multiple times) Part 3: The Transformation (a journey to self-trust, forgiveness, and a new way of being) ...
Sep 30, 2023•34 min
Memoir deep dive #5 Here's what I learned from The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer: - Repetition can have a lyrical effect, which makes your writing read almost like a poem. It's also a fun tool when writing as a drunk person, because drunk people repeat themselves. - Analogies are a descriptive way to be more specific and visual, and avoid cliches. You don't need to force analogies. Try to think of it this way: What does this really remind me of? - Alliteration is a subtle way to make your writin...
Sep 17, 2023•52 min
Here's what I learned from Finding Me by Viola Davis: - Never write: "Words can't describe..." because that's what writing is. It's describing things. - Show don't tell. Show the reader something is important with your words, not punctuation marks. - If you have an amazing story to tell but you're not a very good writer, consider hiring a ghost writer. Here's what I learned from Based On A True Story by Norm Macdonald - It's okay to have a bad memory and still tell your story because ... no one ...
Aug 12, 2023•29 min
