#AmWriting
445 episodes - English - Latest episode: 11 days ago - ★★★★★ - 170 ratingsEntertaining, actionable advice on craft, productivity and creativity for writers and journalists in all genres, with hosts Jessica Lahey, KJ Dell'Antonia and Sarina Bowen.
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Episodes
Bonus BP6: TOCs, Chapter Headings, POV---It's all Structure.
August 08, 2022 04:44 - 21 minutes - 29.4 MBStructure, people. It’s everything. Or it’s a very simple thing. Like I said in the shownotes, for fiction, chronological 3rd or 1st person, present or past tense, following the protagonist through the story is the white-button-down and jeans of structure. Always appropriate, almost invisible. For non-fiction, it’s harder—there is no fall-back basic, but a good trick is to pretend your book is either a chronological story or a how-to and start from there, then see what feels right and what...
What's the Structure of Your Narrative? Blueprint for a Book Step 6
August 05, 2022 04:01 - 48 minutes - 67 MBThe structure of a book is only inevitable in hindsight. Non-writers don’t usually notice structure unless it leaps out at them—reverse chronology, say, or an epistolary narrative. But structural choices loom huge for non-fiction writers and are no less important for memoir and fiction (although straight chronological is the white-shirt-and-blue-jeans of structure—relatable, easy to execute and nearly always appropriate). Will there be alternating timelines or POVs? A prologue? Who’s telli...
Bonus BPB 5: The Change is the Theme
August 01, 2022 04:20 - 12 minutes - 17.4 MBKids, this is a Blueprint for a Book Summer Challenge Bonus Episode. I’ll be dropping these weekly throughout the Summer 2022 Challenge. Some of you are already signed up and challenging away, turning in weekly assignments and pushing yourself to get this done. Some of you are #AmWriting supporters who’ve put your $$$ where your <3 is (that’s an old school pre-emoji keyboard heart, in case you’re wondering). We appreciate you—and so you’re getting these bonus episodes too. I touched on th...
There Must Be Change: Blueprint for a Book Step 5
July 29, 2022 04:01 - 47 minutes - 65 MBI want to believe I can change. Show me how. The “arc of change” is famous in fiction, and it’s much the same in memoir–but there’s a change and shift in non-fiction too. Change is what pulls the reader from the beginning to the end of every narrative book. Without the promise of change, your reader feels like they’re going nowhere, and they won’t come along for your ride. In fiction and memoir, the change comes to the protagonist (and offers the reader the promise that they, too, are cap...
Bonus BPB 4: Jacket Copy Cheats and Hacks
July 25, 2022 04:49 - 22 minutes - 31.4 MBKids, this is a Blueprint for a Book Summer Challenge Bonus Episode. I’ll be dropping these weekly throughout the Summer 2022 Challenge. Some of you are already signed up and challenging away, turning in weekly assignments and pushing yourself to get this done. Some of you are #AmWriting supporters who’ve put your $$$ where your <3 is (that’s an old school pre-emoji keyboard heart, in case you’re wondering). We appreciate you—and so you’re getting these bonus episodes too. This is a longi...
Your Jacket Copy is Your Promise to the Reader: Blueprint for a Book Step 4
July 22, 2022 04:01 - 43 minutes - 59.4 MBHow do we make our ideal reader say Oh—THIS is the book for me? In our first two episodes, we dug down into why we write and how to share that why with the reader. In the last episode, we hung a quick right and got really practical about that reader and how to reach her–in other words, we talked about the market and why it’s important to understand where your book will sit on the shelf if you want the right readers to find it. In this episode, we’re going to talk about what happens when on...
Bonus BPB 3: Write What You Want--to Be Read.
July 18, 2022 04:44 - 9 minutes - 13.6 MBTHE MARKET. First of all, I am having the best day here. I’m through 9 of 10 phone call/Zoom interviews about In Her Boots, and 8 of those interviewers appeared to have read it or at least in one case started it (a record) and a bunch of them seemed to have genuinely LOVED it and I’m delighted. Why tell you this here? In part because something readers have come back to several times is a piece of the book that I changed, at my editor’s suggestion—because she thought readers would want some...
Who Will Read My Book? Know Your Market: Blueprint for a Book Step 3
July 15, 2022 04:01 - 45 minutes - 62.1 MBIn the first two Blueprint steps, we went high level, talking about your why and your point, and why those are key things to consider in writing the book you want to write–that will reach the readers you want to reach. In this episode, we get practical. Because while you need a why and a point to reach readers, you also need to know something about those readers–where they hang, what they’re looking for, and how you can become a part of it. In other words, it’s time to talk about the market...
Bonus BPB 2: What's this about--and how knowing the answer makes everything else easier.
July 11, 2022 04:02 - 23 minutes - 32.7 MBKids, this is a Blueprint for a Book Summer Challenge Bonus Episode. I’ll be dropping these weekly throughout the Summer 2022 Challenge. Some of you are already signed up and challenging away, turning in weekly assignments and pushing yourself to get this done. Some of you are #AmWriting supporters who’ve put your $$$ where your <3 is (that’s an old school pre-emoji keyboard heart, in case you’re wondering). We appreciate you—and so you’re getting these bonus episodes too. If this one insp...
323 What's Your Point? Blueprint for a Book Step 2
July 08, 2022 04:01 - 49 minutes - 67.7 MBI’m writing this book because I want people to read it. Step 2 in the Blueprint for a book challenge only sounds easy. In Step 1, we talked about your why. For Step 2, we invite you to find your point – which is what you want your reader to feel or know or do when they are done. It’s not the same thing! If you want to get all AP English on this, we’re talking about the theme. Or from the non-fiction perspective, maybe you want to consider this your thesis—but they really come down to the sa...
BPB Bonus 1: What's YOUR Why?
July 04, 2022 04:03 - 18 minutes - 25.7 MBKids, this is a Blueprint for a Book Summer Challenge Bonus Episode. I’ll be dropping these weekly throughout the Summer 2022 Challenge. Some of you are already signed up and challenging away, turning in weekly assignments and pushing yourself to get this done. Some of you are #AmWriting supporters who’ve put your $$$ where your <3 is (that’s an old school pre-emoji keyboard heart, in case you’re wondering). We appreciate you—and so you’re getting these bonus episodes too. If this one insp...
322 Find Your Why: Blueprint for a Book Step 1
July 01, 2022 04:01 - 45 minutes - 62.4 MBWe sit down to write because we have something to say. It’s beginning! This Episode marks the beginning of the 10-part Blueprint for a Book Series. Start here, do the work (we’ll give you an assignment every week)—and in 10 weeks, you’ll have a solid foundation for a first draft or revision of your project that will help you push through to “the end”. For the details on the challenge, and to sign up for weekly encouragement, bonuses, and the chance to win a blueprint critique, head to auth...
321 What Do You Want to Achieve this Year--and are you half-way there?
June 24, 2022 04:01 - 46 minutesIt’s the things-that-aren’t in the episode edition of your weekly #AmWriting email! First off, about 60 seconds in, I mention (this is KJ, it’s nearly always KJ) a podcast I like. But then I flake off to look up the name… and forget to ever mention it again. It’s the Crappy Friends Podcast with Kristan Higgins and Joss Dey. And it’s FICTION GOLD. Every week, a couple of people write in with stories of awful friends and angsty dilemmas and towns that are too-small-for-the-both-of-us and ther...
Blueprint for a Book Extravaganza: How to plan a book in 10 episodes
June 20, 2022 11:42 - 18 minutesWe made something amazing. It’s called the Blueprint for a Book Summer Challenge, and it’s coming your way starting July 1, 2022 in the form of 10 episodes that could guide you through the steps for a creating a blueprint for the book you’ll write this fall—or for revising the one that’s just not quite coming together. The episodes will all drop into your pod-player just as they always do—and they’re great listens whether you’re ready to work through the Blueprint or just starting to think...
320: How to Create Your Own Market
June 17, 2022 04:01 - 1 hourThis episode is for you if: you’re starting, re-starting or sparking a freelance career with a focus on something you’re passionate about OR you’ve ever thought the heck with this, I’m striking out on my own. Sometimes the best way to find a publication that reaches the readers you want is to start one. That might mean starting a Substack or a podcast—hello out there, Burnt Toast, one of the best examples I can think of of doing exactly that.* Or it might mean doing something both a little...
Write Now with Sarah Rhea Werner
June 14, 2022 13:06 - 27 minutesAs a bonus this week, we’re sharing “The Bulletproof Writer” from the Write Now Podcast—because this past few weeks have NOT been a perfect time for me to write, with guests and celebrations and also setbacks and discouragements. Not only is that often true, it’s pretty much always true. The challenge is to write anyway, and Sarah offers help and compassion for us as we sort out how to get our butts in the chair when everything is trying to yank it out from under us. We hope you like it! Fi...
But Everything is so SHINY: Episode 319, Coaching journalist Alison Myers on restarting a writing career.
June 10, 2022 04:01 - 57 minutesIt’s hard to start. It’s hard to finish. It’s hard to choose. Sometimes writers (especially those who have had to step back from a professional journalism job for family or other reasons) have all the ideas and in some sense, all the time to execute them, and the result isn’t wild productivity, but a frustrating spinning of wheels—because if everything is possible, how do you choose? What if you choose wrong? Everything looks like a shiny opportunity, but when you write the first few sentenc...
Yes You Can Write In More Than One Genre. Here's how: Episode 318 flips the shelves.
June 03, 2022 04:01 - 42 minutesOh yeah we’ve been there. Heck, we are there. Pigeonholed. Safe in our little bunker. Maybe just a tiny bit typecast. Jumping genres can be exciting, scary, nerve-wracking. But it can be done. Everybody gravitates to one genre or another when we get started. Maybe nonfiction feels a little less threatening—or maybe it feels too hard and fiction is your starting place of choice. Maybe you’ve been writing rom-coms but are sure you have a thriller in you, or the other way around. Are you givin...
How Writing Middle Grade is Different, and How It's Not: Episode 317 with Jamie Sumner
May 27, 2022 04:01 - 50 minutesI don’t think we’ve ever talked about middle grade on #AmWriting, which was why I was so delighted to talk to Jamie Sumner, author of Roll With It, One Kid’s Trash, Tune It Out and the forthcoming, literally any day now The Summer of June, which you should order for your kid’s beach bag right now. (And if you happen to be in Nashville, scroll down for a link to an event next week.) Jamie and KJ talk about the mechanics of writing and pitching middle grade fiction, touch on the horrors of yo...
Living with Writer Envy. Episode 316: We wanted to call this conquering it but we can't.
May 20, 2022 04:01 - 48 minutesSome of us, which might be all of us, have spent a decent amount of time writhing in the throes of writer envy lately. Can’t IMAGINE what we’re talking about? Never opened Facebook to see news of yet another Netflix deal, or celebrated a friend’s fantastic New York Times review while just a little bit kind of secretly asking yourself where yours was? Well, bully for you. Go listen to another podcast this week. Meanwhile, we’re owning all the envy—and if you think being successful in any way...
When Your Agent Doesn't Like Your Idea as Much as You Do: Episode 315 with Kristen Green
May 13, 2022 04:01Jess here. On this week’s episode, I talk with New York Times bestselling author Kristen Green about her first book, Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, a Virginia Town, a Civil Rights Battle and her new book, The Devil’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South’s Most Notorious Slave Jail. We go into the process of writing a research-intensive historical nonfiction book, particularly when that book requires the author to investigate and imp...
How to Write a Cozy Mystery (the rules are changing): Episode 314 with Mia Manansala
May 06, 2022 04:01 - 44 minutesShownotes up front—but scroll down, there’s an announcement! Mia P. Manansala (she/her) is a writer and book coach from Chicago who loves books, baking, and bad-ass women. She uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture. She is the author of 2 books so far in the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen Mystery series: Arsenic and Adobo and Homicide and Halo-Halo. I was excited to talk to Mia because I read my way through hundreds of...
One Man's Quest to Find the Next Big Book Idea: Episode 313 with A.J. Jacobs
April 29, 2022 04:01 - 57 minutesJess here. A.J. Jacobs has long been my inspiration for both writing and writerly mentorship, so I was thrilled when his forthcoming book, The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life landed on my doorstep. I adore A.J.’s work and this book might be a new favorite. We talk about the book, yes, but we also discuss where the ideas come from, how to stay curious and the effect that curiosity has on the writing, and the w...
Essays that start light, then hit hard: Episode 312 with Mary Laura Philpott
April 22, 2022 04:04 - 50 minutesFave return guest alert! We talked to Mary Laura Philpott in episode 71–#YouandYourBookstore, back when she was a Parnassus Books guru. And then in Episode 150: #NeverReady, when MLP (as we like to call her) launched her first book of essays, I Miss You When I Blink, into the world—and then again, for episode 163 #BookTourReality. And now she’s back with a new book of essays: Bomb Shelter: Love, Time and other Explosives. (Read an excerpt here. And here. And then go order the book here.) Th...
Where Should Your Energy Go NOW? Episode 311--everything evolves with Jess and KJ
April 15, 2022 04:01 - 42 minutesWhere should your energy go? KJ here, and in this episode Jess and I catch up on what’s worth it and what isn’t when it comes to travel, the importance of getting over any (non-pandemic-related) hesitation around taking the time for conferences and work events and also, in our usual digressive fashion, covers, paperback launches and boots. Links from the Pod Sana, a rehab in Stowe Vermont For info on the Sana Scholarship Fund Oliver Burkeman 4 Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals ...
Jodi Kantor Chases the Truth: Episode 310 is a Primer on Investigative Journalism
April 08, 2022 04:01 - 38 minutesNew York Times investigative journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assaults in 2017 and harassment and won a Pulitzer Prize for their efforts. Their book about the Weinstein investigation, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, came out in 2019 and the film version will be out this November. Now, Jodi and Megan offer the lessons of their investigation - the process involved and the rules that governed it...
Nonfiction Masterclass: Combining Narrative Structure, Lived Experience and Geopolitics in Episode 309 with Scott Carney and Jason Miklian.
April 01, 2022 04:01 - 48 minutesLike all great stories, The Vortex: A True Story of History’s Deadliest Storm, an Unspeakable War, and Liberation was born out of writerly curiosity and a deceptively simple question: Why would India build a wall around Bangladesh? I (Jess) spoke with co-authors Scott Carney and Jason Miklian about their collaboration and the work involved in answering this question. I’ve known Scott for a while, as I became a fan of his work about a decade ago when I read The Red Market: On the Trail of...
How to Love Writing What You Can Sell: Episode 308 with Seressia Glass
March 25, 2022 04:01 - 47 minutesUrban fantasy. Paranormal romance. Historicals. Plus the occasional billionaire, and now a rom-com, complete with a cute graphic cover that tells you exactly who you’ll be rooting for and what to expect. What do all of these things have in common, besides being written by todays’ guest, Seressia Glass? Two things. First, they’re all—as she says on her website— tales of overcoming the odds to achieve love and acceptance–universal desires for everyone no matter who or what they are. Second? ...
How to Be on Bookstagram Episode 307 with #bookmarkedbya
March 18, 2022 04:01 - 46 minutesAbby Kincer is a reader and a bookstagrammer, a fun person, an enthusiastic consumer of bookish socks and t-shirts, a user of filters, a wearer of glasses, a possessor of many tote bags and—that’s what I know about her! Because her Instagram is bookstagram through and through, and that’s why she’s here. We asked Abby everything we ever wanted to know about bookstagramming, from how she got started to how she chooses books to how she prefers to interact with authors (kinda not much!). Abby ...
Does Your Author Website Answer the Right Questions? Episode 306 with Anne Le Tissier
March 11, 2022 05:01 - 40 minutesCrew, Anne Le Tissier is a listener with a question: What should I have on my website—and how can I get there without breaking the bank? She’s also the author of six traditionally published inspirational titles, some out of print, a speaker and the creator of a rather genius non-blog blog idea that I may just have to steal for myself. We critique her website and offer ideas for making it more professional without learning to code or spending big bucks—because there are some absolute must-hav...
But what if my old boss is pissed? Episode 305: Workplace Memoir with Cate Doty
March 04, 2022 05:01 - 59 minutesY’all, it’s an uber-informative, down in the trenches episode about writing memoir when it feels like your topic is on the lighter side—but of course, no truly successful memoir ever stays on the surface. Cate Doty is the author of Mergers and Acquisitions: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages. She is a writer and former editor at The New York Times, where she covered the news of food, weddings, business, New York, and more. To write Mergers and Acquisitions, Cat...
Sometimes You Can't Go with the Flow: Hacking Writing Energies in Episode 304 with Jess and KJ
February 25, 2022 05:01 - 49 minutesHere’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...
Where Do You Get Your Ideas? Episode 303 with Sarina, Jess and KJ
February 18, 2022 05:01 - 45 minutesYour 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 ...
Writer De-Snobbification: Episode 302 with Katherine Center
February 11, 2022 05:01 - 41 minutesHere’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 i...
Do Morning Pages Work? Episode 301: Is this, or is it not, the Artist's Way?
February 04, 2022 05:01 - 36 minutesKJ 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 tr...
BONUS: Listen to The Book Dreams Podcast with Guest Kathryn Schulz
February 02, 2022 05:31 - 37 minutesHey 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 ...
ALWAYS WIPS Episode 300--Podcast #Goals, Translating Earnings, Talking $$ and Craft and Interview Skillz
January 28, 2022 05:01 - 50 minutes300 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 sendi...
How to Sell Any Book to Any Publisher-- Episode 299: More Info Than You Ever Thought Possible with Multi-genre author and teacher extraordinaire Sue Shapiro
January 21, 2022 05:01 - 49 minutesHow, 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 ...
How to Travel for Research (even before you sell the book)--Episode 298 with Sarah Stewart Taylor
January 14, 2022 05:01 - 53 minutes“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 ...
How to Build a Platform in a Zillion (Not) Easy Steps: Episode 297, A coaching call with Alison Zak
January 07, 2022 05:01 - 39 minutesAlison 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 sp...
[announcer yells] GOALS: Episode 296
December 31, 2021 13:33 - 37 minutesWords 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 N...
Heck of a Year: Episode 295 is 2021 in review
December 24, 2021 05:01 - 45 minutesWhat 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...
Butter Up Your Writing: Episode 294 Using Universal Fantasy to Write Better and Sell More with Theodora Taylor
December 17, 2021 05:02 - 41 minutesWho 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 sp...
How to Build a Literary Life: Episode 293 with Zibby Owens
December 10, 2021 05:01 - 44 minutesEver 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 Se...
A Busload of Books: Illustrator Robbi Behr and Writer Matthew Swanson Take Their Work and Their Family on the Road in Episode 292.
December 03, 2021 05:01 - 50 minutesCan 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 writ...
How Do You Write a Non-Fiction Book in less than a Year? Episode 291: Coaching Call with Emily Edlynn
November 26, 2021 05:01 - 50 minutesOur 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...
What Not to Do, Self-Pub Edition Episode 290 with Cate Frazier-Neely
November 19, 2021 05:01 - 39 minutesHi 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 b...
Why Can't I Finish My Novel? Episode 289: A Coaching Call with Ophir Lehavy
November 12, 2021 05:01 - 48 minutesWhy 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 ben...
Non-Toxic Feedback: Building workshops and writing groups. Episode 288 with Joni Cole
November 05, 2021 04:01 - 58 minutesHow 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...
I Have This Idea...Structuring Non-fiction and Memoir: Episode 287 Coaching Call with Emily Henderson
October 29, 2021 04:01 - 45 minutesThe 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...