Here’s the deal: Jess and I (KJ here) have been rolling with different energies lately. She’s letting the spirit move her. Being inspired. Putting time into other creative projects and inviting that to feed her soul. I’m stepping over other projects, telling the spirit I’m not home right now and keeping the spotlight in one place. In this episode, we talk about when you can—and can’t—go with the flow. How we handle it when other ideas beckon, but a deadline demands our attention. What we do betw...
Feb 25, 2022•49 min
Your first book, we’ve all found, is usually something you’ve been mulling for a while. You second might be the same—so the question, how do you get you ideas, seems both confusing—I don’t know—and unnecessary—I have lots. Nonfiction, essays—when we first get started we’re bursting at the seams. What to write next isn’t a problem—until it is. Or until you find yourself wanting to think about ideas differently—about what you want to write or say, but also how you’d like it to be received and by w...
Feb 18, 2022•45 min
Here’s Katherine Center , author of soon-to-be 9 bittersweet comic novels that have been described as “the best medicine for human souls,” on her relatively late-in life discover of romance novels: “I felt like I’d discovered chocolate cake after a lifetime of eating boneless skinless chicken breasts.” We dig deep into the process of figuring out what you love in a book and how to find it in your own work, from analyzing other books to the importance of the reading journal, and then we get into ...
Feb 11, 2022•41 min
KJ here. Sarina wanted to try Morning Pages, the most famous ritual from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way—a book that, tbh, has never, ever floated my boat, just as my resistance to morning pages—in my mind, a variation on journaling, which I have also never liked—has been strong. But Sarina wanted to try it. So we did, she in a fairly systematic way and me in what I still have to concede was more than a little half-assed. And now, having recorded the podcast, and kinda-sorta-promised to try thi...
Feb 04, 2022•37 min
Hey writers—KJ here, and we have a treat for you this week. A bonus episode, filled with all the writer-y advice and details and aspirational riffs that you’ve come to expect from us, but this time in the form of—an entirely different podcast. We’re dropping an episode of Book Dreams into your #AmWriting feed so that you can discover something new. I think you’re going to love it. Hosts Julie and Eve are excellent interviewers—and they fill their interviews with excerpts from the author’s work a...
Feb 02, 2022•38 min
300 is a lot of episodes, and we have recorded them. Things we’ve learned—the most famous guests aren’t necessarily the one that have the most to teach us—UNLESS you ask the right questions. WOTY Recap: Jess: Evaluate KJ: Play Sarina: WIP Links from the Pod Everyday Calendar , by Simone Giertz (there is no link on MOMA, sorry!) It was actually an opera singer who got stuck in the closet. Here’s a This American Life Opera about it. It’s a TOTALLY WORTH IT rabbit hole down which I am sending you. ...
Jan 28, 2022•51 min
How, HOW has it taken us this long to bring you the amazing Sue Shapiro? Sue teaches what is unquestionably THE class on publishing personal essays —her motto is “Instant Gratification takes too long” and her students’ success record is astounding. She’s the author , co-author or editor of 16 books in genres ranging from memoir to middle-grade and including self-help and fiction. She’s a poet, an essayist and a teacher of such generosity and enthusiasm that I could probably just stop talking rig...
Jan 21, 2022•50 min
“Just a little jaunt to Ireland to research my next book.” If that sounds like a dream to you, we asked Sarah Stewart Taylor—author of The Mountains Wild , A Distant Grave and the forthcoming The Drowning Sea , all set in Ireland and the somewhat-less-glamorous Long Island—to explain how she made that dream a reality, even before she sold the first of her books. We talk about why research travel matters, when and why Sarah chooses to use real neighborhoods or locations in her fiction, how she sp...
Jan 14, 2022•54 min
Alison Zak has just been “jolted from being a writer to being an author” with the interest in her non-fiction book proposals—but with that interest came questions about… The dreaded platform problem! That was the subject line of the reader email that caught our attention, and the problem is follows: you’ve got a great non-fiction proposal—but a relatively small existing “platform”. What is a platform, you ask? Well, it could be an offline community, a reputation, an academic or business space th...
Jan 07, 2022•40 min
Words of the Year from 2021/New words for 2022 Jess: 2021: Organize 2022: Evaluate KJ: 2021: Flow 2022: Play Sarina: 2021 Generous 2022: TBD Links from the Pod: Oh. What. Fun. by Chandler Baker Jetpens Scrivener Hoopla Libby/Overdrive Last week y’all heard me—KJ—rave about the coaching certification I’m working towards with our sponsor Author Accelerator. I have learned so much—about my own work, and how to help others’ with theirs. I spent five years editing others’ work at the New York Times, ...
Dec 31, 2021•38 min
What did we notice evolving in the industry? What worked and what didn’t in our own writing lives? Here’s our take. We’d love to hear yours—check in via the #AmWriting Facebook group . Links from the pod Findaway Voices acquired by Spotify Penguin Random House/Simon Schuster merger Storytell acquired Audiobooks.com The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris Reading Apps like Radish The Shrink Next Door Our best lessons from 2021: KJ: You only need one plot. Sarina: Write the flap copy first. J...
Dec 24, 2021•46 min
Who doesn’t want a craft book that’s fun to read and will help you plan your fiction (or memoir), write that fiction, revise that fiction and then sell that fiction? This week we talked to Theodora Taylor, author of more than 50 novels and one brilliant book about writing that made Sarina and I (KJ) go SQUEEEE and then text back and forth frantically for a couple of hours. It’s all about the “Universal Fantasies” that give our story-loving brains the things we need when we read—and how to spot t...
Dec 17, 2021•42 min
Ever want to know “how she did it”? This episode is our little version of How I Built This, in which we ask Zibby Owens—whose name you surely know by now—about how she turned a desire to be part of the world of books into a one-woman mini book empire. Zibby Owens is the host of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read , a daily podcast featuring interviews with authors that has over 900 episodes. She’s also a Bookstagrammer with 16K followers, the host of a second podcast—Moms Don’t Have Time to Have Sex—th...
Dec 10, 2021•45 min
Can a marriage survive nearly a quarter century of co-writing? I (Jess) present exhibit A on the side of yes, absolutely: illustrator Robbi Behr and writer Matthew Swanson . Robbi and Matthew met in college, have been partners in life and publishing ever since, and they (along with their four kids) are about to embark on their greatest adventure yet. Robbi and Matthew have written over seventy books, initially with their own publishing house, and now with Random House (Knopf). Matthew writes the...
Dec 03, 2021•51 min
Our guest on this episode has a problem—a good problem, yes. An enviable problem even. One that she herself is delighted to have: she’s sold a non-fiction book on proposal. And now she has to write it. 60,000 words, researched, organized and ready for the editor while also fitting in her day job, raising 3 kids with her partner and all of the other curveballs life likes to throw you. In this “coaching call” episode, Jess and I (it’s KJ writing, as it often is) help long-time listener Emily Edlyn...
Nov 26, 2021•50 min
Hi all! Jess here. I met performer and voice educator Cate Frazier-Neely through a mutual friend earlier this year, at a Sungazer concert. I was at the concert because my son is a massive fan of Sungazer bassist and YouTuber Adam Neely and Cate was there because she’s Adam Neely’s mom. When the topic of conversation turned away from my son’s hero worship of her son and toward writing and publishing (doesn’t it always?) she revealed she’d made ALL THE MISTAKES when self-publishing her first book,...
Nov 19, 2021•40 min
Why can’t I finish my novel? KJ here, and when I saw that heartfelt cry in our Facebook Group, I knew we had to answer. Because finishing is hard, y’all. It’s harder than starting. It’s harder than showing up to the page. There comes a moment in so many projects when the wheels are spinning but the Matchbox car just isn’t going anywhere. Ophir Lehavy is a coach herself, working with students to help them find ways to get their work done and feel more successful about it—so she knew the benefits ...
Nov 12, 2021•49 min
How do I find a writing group and what if they’re mean? That’s a question we get asked a lot, and we always encourage writers to reach out in our Facebook group or boldly throw it out there anywhere else online that you hang out and see what happens. You don’t even have to trade pages to be a writing group. You look for the kind of support and camaraderie you need. But if you’ve ever thought of hying yourself off to your local version of Grub Street or our local spot for in-person writer-ness, T...
Nov 05, 2021•59 min
The hardest part about writing a book is … all of it. Or, arguably, whichever part you’re doing. For our guest on this episode, listener Emily Henderson, it’s something like “I know what I want to write about, but I don’t know how. Structuring memoir or non-fiction (or, for that matter, fiction) is hard, y’all. And I think it gets talked about less in many ways that other elements of craft. We have this illusion that you come up with an idea and then you write it and it’s the writing that’s hard...
Oct 29, 2021•45 min
Hello listeners! Jess here. I had the chance to interview one of my former students, Will Morey, about his career as a writer. He has always been talented, and even way back when I knew him in high school English class (actually, since he was eight) he has dreamed of working in movies and television. We talk through his entire career, from a high school screenplay about vampires to working in professional theater, to helping create (and this was a new word for me) “Mockbusters,” or close-but-not...
Oct 22, 2021•40 min
Querying and submitting is a jungle, campers—and yet if it’s done right, it can not only work out happily in the end, but seem as if it were meant to be. “Meant to be” after a year of additional work, anyway. Mindy Carlson has just signed a 2 book deal with Crooked Lane Books. The first, Her Dying Day, comes out June 7, 2022. I asked her to come on to talk about her road to publication--because she revised and resubmitted her novel not just once but twice before signing with her now agent. Said ...
Oct 15, 2021•47 min
The whole “am I showing, or am I telling” inner debate can be tough in every part of a novel, memoir or nonfiction-with-elements-of-memoir draft. You don’t want to “tell” about the action. You don’t want to “tell” about the setting. And goodness knows you don’t want to “tell” what the character is feeling. Except when you do. Sometimes a little telling, in the form of inner dialogue, is exactly what the reader needs to feel a part of the story, not just the happenings. Sarina, Jess and KJ are al...
Oct 08, 2021•37 min
Welcome to what I think we’ll designate as a fresh new season of #AmWriting! We are mixing it up a bit this fall. It’s KJ here, and I’ll be doing some great interviews on craft and getting the work done. Jess has some interviews up her sleeve as well, and Sarina will be joining us regularly for what I like to think of as “Masterclass” episodes on craft and process. We’ll also be doing some “coaching calls” with listeners who’ve written in with a burning question that one or more of of can help w...
Oct 01, 2021•40 min
The author I’m interviewing today, Joy Imboden Overstreet, holds the distinction of having procrastinated on writing her first book longer than any previous #AmWriting guest—about 40 years. She is also the writer whose essay on her son’s unusual business venture enabled me, in my role as an editor at the NYT, to publish the paper’s first illustration of a personalized vibrator, and I will forever be grateful to her for that. But wait, I hear you saying. Forty years? Forty? How did Joy manage to ...
Sep 24, 2021•46 min
Stephen King says: Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. In this episode, we dare to ask if maybe that’s not always the case. Does having to put your idea into words and get it into another person’s head weaken it--or force you to make it strong? Links from the pod: The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction by Erik Bork Great Stories Don't Write Themselves: Criteria-Driven Strategies for More Effective Fiction by Larry Brooks Libro.fm #AmReadin...
Sep 17, 2021•42 min
By popular request, it’s the 2021 The Addiction Inoculation Launch Story! Jess fills us in on the weirdness and craziness that was a mid-pandemic non-fiction book release. Her advice includes: don’t try to do too much, target your energy—and ask for help making choices when you don’t know what to do when. We talk balancing an outside and an inside publicist, working with local booksellers for signed copies and larger orders, the challenges of a world with far fewer speaking opportunities and jus...
Sep 10, 2021•42 min
Jess and Sarina are back! After a hard-working summer and an August of anxiety (don’t tell us you didn’t feel that too), we talk about how we got all the things done and all the things we have planned, with a fun diversion into how and where to end a chapter to create the illusion of a break while keeping the reader hooked. Plus, a summer reading review that will absolutely add to your #tbr. Links: Sarina’s new co-author, Lauren Blakely Sarina’s latest best-seller: Waylaid The Idea: The Seven El...
Sep 03, 2021•42 min
For that moment when you’ve hit the finish line—and now you’re going back to the beginning and starting all over again in a different hat. In our new summer series, The Working Bookshelf, KJ and guest host Jennie Nash pull their favorite writing books off the shelf and debate: which is better and why—until invariably, they get distracted and just start talking about the topic at hand. Funny, fresh and full of frank advice, when KJ and Jennie get going they’re hard to stop. This week, it’s Meande...
Aug 27, 2021•26 min
Sometimes you just need to spend a few hours with someone who really gets you—without actually having to talk to anyone. In our new summer series, The Working Bookshelf, KJ and guest host Jennie Nash pull their favorite writing books off the shelf and debate: which is better and why—until invariably, they get distracted and just start talking about the topic at hand. Funny, fresh and full of frank advice, when KJ and Jennie get going they’re hard to stop. This week, it’s Bird by Bird versus Maki...
Aug 20, 2021•26 min
Sometimes you find yourself asking—over a draft, or a failed draft, or a sagging outline or just during a really long drive—why exactly you do this thing we do. This week, we turn to some favorites to help answer that question. In our new summer series, The Working Bookshelf, KJ and guest host Jennie Nash pull their favorite writing books off the shelf and debate: which is better and why—until invariably, they get distracted and just start talking about the topic at hand. Funny, fresh and full o...
Aug 13, 2021•34 min
