I saw Amy Alkon speak at the LA Times Festival of Books and was delighted with her talk on her book, Unf*ckology, which breaks down the science of building up courage. Here, I thought, was a person who can address this fear so many people have of calling themselves writers. I was right in guessing she'd have a lot to say on the topic, but we went so much further into how to trick your brain into being brave, what routines help jump-start Amy's writing day (one of my favorite writing routines EVE...
Aug 16, 2018•47 min
Confession: I am intimidated by poetry. If you look over the back catalog of the show, you will find a dearth of poetry represented. partly this is because I have such an abundance of novelists, essayists, and other more mainstream-length books to discuss with people. But, to be fair, I haven't gone digging for poetry. I feel vastly uneducated in that realm and I suspect many people out there feel the same way. For this reason, I was delighted to read Trickster Feminist and to have the opportuni...
Aug 09, 2018•41 min
Reading and Writing History When the Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta was announced for a reprint from Penguin, I was so excited to see that Diana Gabaldon wrote the foreword. In speaking with Diana both about this novel from history as well as her experience writing fiction set in a historical setting, I was hit with a variation on the classic real estate slogan: Context! Context! Context! Just like location is everything for a home purchase, context is everything when reading and writing...
Aug 02, 2018•37 min
Donal Ryan is the best argument for staying hopeful about writing. In this conversation, we discuss how Donal Ryan stayed optimistic as his first few books were rejected nearly 50 times before he broke in to get one published. Once he did, he was long listed for the Booker Prize. We have all heard these stories: of Stephen King impaling rejection letters on a nail driven into the wall by his desk, and writers who just kept sending in their work dozens – and sometimes hundreds– of times. While th...
Jul 26, 2018•46 min
How I love speaking to writers who also teach writing! Lucy Tan is that delightful hybrid: a novelist who also knows how to speak about the process of writing so clearly you can follow along in her footsteps. She is so smart, both in her writing and her advice about how to get it done. Lucy began her novel, What We Were Promised, inside the safety of her MFA program, and was relieved to be protected from thinking about agents, publishing, and the outside world as she spent time on what was most ...
Jul 19, 2018•35 min
We're going steady on a podcast! So... we've had Mary-Laura Philpott (or MLP as we like to call her around here) on recommending books seasonally for the past few seasons and we decided it was time to give her a bonus episode slot. We know you are all busy and want a quick listen, so here it is! All your July reading recommendations in one convenient in-between-isode. That's a word now - I just decided. Also coming this week: the video version! We know you want to see the covers. Full show notes...
Jul 17, 2018•22 min
Sometimes the line between memoir and novel is thinner than others. Keith Gessen came on the show this week to discuss his latest novel, A Terrible Country. Drawing on his own experience caring for his grandmother in Russia after graduating from college, Keith originally set out to write a much bigger book than the one he ended up with. He had fantasies of covering aspects of Russian culture in between the narrative sections, and coming up with – essentially – the Russian equivalent of A Suitabl...
Jul 12, 2018•41 min
The best books don't center around perfect characters doing easy things. I am so excited to share this week's episode as each of these conversations was so much fun to record. Edan has been on the show before, but I wanted to have her back to talk about her love of writing difficult characters within the framework of her latest novel, Woman No. 17. Edan delights in creating tension by revealing her character's flaws for the reader's view and puts these characters in situations sure to highlight ...
Jul 05, 2018•1 hr 15 min
Rebecca Makkai didn't set out to write about the AIDS Crisis in Chicago. This is what I love about writing. There is the saying, "Life is what happens when you're making other plans." I would say that it's just as true that "Books are what happen when you're busy making outlines." In speaking with Rebecca Makkai this week about her latest novel, The Great Believers, a book I absolutely loved, I was most struck that the plot line all the press and critical acclaim is centered around is not the on...
Jun 28, 2018•48 min
Michelle Kuo got a call one day, telling her that her favorite student had been arrested. After college, Michelle Kuo joined Teach for America and moved to the Arkansas Delta. She taught in a school that focused on teaching underserved youth who had been expelled from other schools. Her time there was transformative, both for Michelle and her students. But at the end of her term at Teach for America, she moved away to attend Harvard. Several years later, she got the call that Patrick, one of her...
Jun 21, 2018•47 min
Sometimes you just want to write a lot of characters. Chibundu Onuzo wrote her first novel surrounding two characters, so when it came time to writer her second novel, she wanted a lot of people in there to play with. In addition, she shifted into third person, a process she compared to Scooby Doo or Nancy Drew trying to figure out how to open a secret bookcase in a mystery story. Ultimately, she unlocked the code and I was able to follow along as she shared where her latest book, Welcome to Lag...
Jun 14, 2018•46 min
There is very little I love more than getting away. For anyone who loves to escape, this is your episode. Stephanie Rosenbloom and I talk about Alone Time, her book on solo travel. Through the four seasons, she travels to four cities (including her hometown for a staycation) and shares what she finds by traveling alone. As a fan of solo travel as much as I am of exploring with others, I was enchanted. Anyone who wants to travel to write must listen. And then, Lauren Weisberger talks about the wi...
Jun 07, 2018•1 hr 14 min
Sometimes you just have to dive into an idea and get it done. A little over a year ago, many of you will remember that Scott Carney came on the show to talk about his book What Doesn't Kill Us. Toward the end of that conversation, he dropped a little bit of knowledge that made a light go on in my brain. "If you write 500 words a day 5 days a week, in a year you'll have a book." Boom. When Barry was editing the episode, he mentioned how bummed he was that we hadn't gotten to continue that part of...
May 31, 2018•1 hr 5 min
I LOVE this pairing. I just have to say that at the outset. Speaking with Amber Rae and Madeline Miller was an incredible privilege. I think you'll find this week's episode filled with Wonder, which is no surprise given the title of Amber Rae's book, Choose Wonder Over Worry. But this theme is woven through both conversations, from Amber's process surrendering to the way her book wanted to be written despite the outline she had carefully planned before starting. And Madeline Miller talks about t...
May 24, 2018•1 hr 19 min
It's funny how themes emerge when guests get paired together. Most often, the date I schedule a guest appearance is based on their book pub date and so we get these funny coincidences when I sit down to write the show notes. Both Catherine Isaac and Tom Rachman have written books that have a troubled father-son relationship at the center, and both of them write novels that allowed them to explore topics that were very deep and personal. For Catherine Isaac, who had written for years in the UK as...
May 17, 2018•1 hr 3 min
Have you ever been told you can't expect to make money writing books? Me, too. Having heard the refrain that books don't make money over and over, it was my distinct pleasure to speak with two writers who have built careers with books and writing at the center: Chris Guillebeau + Tom Hodgkinson. I have been reading each of their work for years and was long inspired by books like The $100 Startup and How to Be Idle. These books found me at a particular period in my life when it hadn't occurred to...
May 10, 2018•1 hr 7 min
A writer is faced with so many dilemmas when creating a book. Two of the most common that I encounter in my coaching practice? "Do I go for traditional publishing OR publish as an indie author?" And "How can I write about the people in my life without damaging those relationships?" Writing is not for the faint of heart, not only because you have to tell the truth on the page, but also because it requires so many decisions that force you to look very closely at who you are and what values you sta...
May 03, 2018•1 hr 19 min
I don't know how else to say it. This episode is long. But it's so good that we couldn't stand to cut anything out of it. As soon as I knew that Sarah Selecky's book, Radiant Shimmering Light, was coming out in Canada this week, I knew she was episode 100. And then I had to talk about the amazing books coming out this spring with Mary Laura Philpott. And I love talking to both of them, so we didn't cut it short. We went all out talking about everything we're excited about. I know going over an h...
Apr 26, 2018•1 hr 21 min
ML Longworth has one of the greatest writing stories I've heard so far. After the tech company her husband worked for in Silicon Valley was sold in the last 1990s, ML Longworth tried something bold. Before leaving for a family vacation in France, she typed the following search term into a browser: computer-jobs-France. What followed was a series of incredible coincidences that lead to she and her husband and daughter moving to Aix-en-Provence. You'll want to listen in to hear her version. When s...
Apr 19, 2018•1 hr 4 min
Elaine Castillo broke my brain with something she said on the show. The book she ended up publishing, her debut novel America is not the Heart, was not even close to the same length as the book she wrote. Let me say this again: Elaine Castillo sold her debut novel to a big 5 publisher and then got to spend a year and a half editing it because they believed in the book and wanted Elaine to feel satisfied by the end result. As someone who has always felt novels got sold only when there might be an...
Apr 12, 2018•43 min
Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon wrote the book on Being Boss. Back in January 2015, Emily and Kathleen launched a podcast called Being Boss. It was for women business owners and creative entrepreneurs. The show quickly grew from a small posse of listeners into a sensation, and then a movement. The exploration of what it meant to be boss created in-person events and a vibrant online community of women, all ready to "do the work" as Emily and Kathleen put it. It was only a matter of time befor...
Apr 05, 2018•52 min
Kit De Waal didn't start writing until she was 40. I love a hot debut novel from a bright young thing as much as the next person, but there is something I love even more about a late-to-writing career trajectory. Now that I'm on the other side of 40, I feel particularly fired up whenever I read books by those who didn't start as writers the moment they finished school. If you feel like it's too late for you to write what you want to, it's not. If you feel like you aren't like the authors you see...
Mar 29, 2018•48 min
This week, we dive into the mysterious lure of Sweden and its literature. As a lover of languages, I have long been fascinated with the art of translation. I am delighted to have Henning Koch on this week, who has translated Fredik Backman's work including A Man Called Ove as well as the acclaimed Every Moment We Are Still Alive. In addition to working as a translator, he's also a writer himself and has published two books. We explore Henning's beginnings in translation, the relationship it give...
Mar 22, 2018•58 min
Elaine Weiss found the locus of action for her book deep in the library archives. I love this image because it is the stuff writing fantasies are made of: a writer, buried in the depths of newspapers that had been cataloged on microfilm. It was there that she discovered that a member of each of the critical political parties in her book arrived the very same night in Nashville, TN to fight the final battle around the 19th amendment in the US. Elaine and I talked about the politics of the 19th am...
Mar 15, 2018•59 min
Chad Murphy is the genius behind Lord Birthday. He wasn't always out as Lord Birthday- in fact, he decided to start as an anonymous creator and kept up that goal even when he saw that his own sister was a fan and regularly sharing his posts. One of my favorite parts of this episode is the story of Chad having to tell his sister that he was Lord Birthday. Just a few years after starting Lord Birthday, Chad's little project has over 180,000 followers (!!!!) and a book in the pipeline. It could be ...
Mar 08, 2018•1 hr
Ben Percy began Writing With a Love of (Fictional) Wooly Underpants I knew I had to have Ben Percy on the show because I kept mentioning his book, Thrill Me, and it's argument that genre fiction and literary fiction have a lot to learn from each other. Ben and I talk about how he began to study writing with a great love of fantasy and science fiction only to be told he wasn't allowed to write either in his degree program. As he studied literary fiction, he fell in love with character development...
Mar 01, 2018•55 min
Jasmin Darznik knew she had to tell her mother’s story first. On this episode, we discuss Jasmin’s second book, and her first novel. After the smash success of The Good Daughter, Jasmin turned to fiction in order to tell the story of Iran’s most famous woman poet. Forugh Farrokhzad’s short life takes her through many of the same heartbreaking obstacles that Jasmin addressed in her memoir, along with many new ones. This book explores what it means to be a woman and an artist in a culture where wo...
Feb 22, 2018•44 min
Before Me Before You sold 8 million copies, Jojo Moyes wrote three books that didn't sell at all. Jojo Moyes wrote three books that the publishers rejected before she was published at all and 8 novels over 10 years before she had a hit. Listen up to this incredible conversation to learn why she wouldn't change a thing. Her perspective on the beauty of great success that happens slowly is one you'll listen to over and over. Let Jojo be your guide to never giving up on your writing. One of my favo...
Feb 15, 2018•48 min
Danielle Lazarin didn't realize she'd written a Feminist Collection of Stories. What struck me about Back Talk was how real the people inside the pages felt. Reading through the book, I was a bit surprised at how the critics had hailed it as a feminist collection, because it felt first and foremost like a collection of stories about women acting the way women actually act. But then it hit me, that is profoundly feminist because we come up against stereotypes in fiction all the time. Breaking the...
Feb 08, 2018•48 min
Sometimes the hardest part about writing is having the guts to get started. In a time where it has never been easier to publish a book with indie publishing on the rise, I still hear from person after person afraid to take on the title of "writer" for themselves, sometimes even after publishing several books. The statistics have reported that 4 out of 5 people would like to write a book, but far fewer people do. In this 3 part episode, we launch a new anthology, leap over obstacles, and talk abo...
Feb 01, 2018•59 min
