Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for Writers

Writing on the Margins, featuring Lidia Yuknavitch

This week’s episode is about the edges of things, about precipices and outer limits and frontiers. And what better guide to this terrain could we ask for than Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water, The Misfit’s Manifesto, and most recently, Verge. We’re talking about how to help your stories find their form, the many roles the body plays in our writing lives, and how fear informs the creative process. If you want to try the poem in today’s takeaway, please find the template on o...

Writing Raw (and in Pictures), featuring Mira Jacob

This week’s episode takes listeners into the world of graphic books and their exploding popularity with guest Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk. This is an eye-opening conversation for any writer about how to measure what’s essential to your writing, why to experiment with form, and why visual elements are complementary and supportive of our reading experiences rather than detracting. A celebration of the graphic form in all its manifestations!

Heart-Centered Marketing, featuring Dan Blank

So many writers and authors are feeling inspired to create during our national lockdown, and at the same time there’s concern and angst about how to share creativity, how to launch a book in the era of COVID-19, how to market without seeming tone deaf. Today’s episode, with guest Dan Blank, is an invitation to reframe the conversation you might be having with yourself about sharing your work. We hope you’ll appreciate this game-changing conversation about generosity, authenticity, and how to ...

Letting Go of Your Process to Write Other Worlds, featuring Veronica Roth

This week’s episode is an exploration of how to abandon your process, which is a great thing to think about in upending times. Grant and Brooke talk with Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent Series, about the fallacy of overnight success stories, giving yourself permission to try entirely new things in your writing, and drawing from real life to inform fiction, even dystopian fiction. An encouraging episode for discouraging times.

The Book You Have to Write, featuring Piper Kerman

This week’s episode is an inside look at how a single book can have far-reaching tendrils into people’s lives—informing, entertaining, and effecting change. Brooke and Grant speak with Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black, about her book, the Netflix series, and her ongoing advocacy in America’s broken criminal justice system. This is an inspiring show about how writing changes lives—and systems—for the better.

Getting Serious about the Importance of Playfulness, with Maw Shein Win

Shake-up your lockdown week with some games, writing prompts, and exercises designed to help you think outside the box—and also to have fun with your writing. While there’s a lot to worry about and be distracted by right now, for creatives, this can also be an expansive time, even an opportunity. Guest Maw Shein Win offers so many fun ideas and suggestions, even a few writing games and activities you can do with your kids (or grandkids via Zoom) to vary up their at-home days.

Exploring the Real World Through Fiction, featuring Nic Stone

Following Your Own Threads of Inspiration, featuring Elizabeth Gilbert

In this week’s episode, Brooke and Grant are joined by best-selling author and inspiring human Elizabeth Gilbert in a conversation about the paradigm shift happening around women’s power, specifically when it comes to women writers and women’s stories, as well as how Liz handles criticism by not going looking for it, and why she’s so fiercely loyal to her readership. This episode is a celebration of inspiration on a show that’s all about inspiration—and we hope it will help our listeners capt...

Finding the Poetry of Your Story, featuring Elizabeth Acevedo

Listening to Elizabeth Acevedo talk about her process, her experience, and her work is poetry in itself. In this episode we talk about how writing is a vehicle for emotional expression that might not necessarily get directed elsewhere and how poetry is edited with the ear. Listeners will also be treated to a spoken excerpt from Elizabeth’s new novel.

In Celebration of the Short Form (Short Stories and Essays), featuring Pam Houston

This week’s episode is an exploration and celebration of the short form with one of its masters, Pam Houston. Whether you write essays, short stories, interlocking essays, memoirs-in-essay, or short polemics, there’s much to discover in this conversation about structure, finding the “glimmers,” as Pam calls them, and the layers of meaning-making in the short form. We also invite you to be your own cowboy on the writing journey and to enjoy this excursion “deep into the pasture” with Pam.

The Unlikely Author, featuring Matt de La Peña

In this week’s episode, Matt la Peña shares how explores how he went from being a non-reader as a kid to becoming a writer and author as an adult, which involved falling in love with Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street. Brooke and Grant talk with Matt about #ownvoices, the power of YA to effect meaningful change in readers’ lives, and the experience of being a working-class writer.

The Art (and Cost) of Reckoning, featuring Kiese Laymon

In this honest and heartfelt episode about the power of writing a reckoning (rather than a tell-all), guest Kiese Laymon shares why he wrote his latest memoir, Heavy, as a letter to his mother, how writing the book came at a cost, and what having “arrived” as a writer both changes and doesn’t change his trajectory as a writer. This is a show about reinventing forms, writing the book you need to write as a soul-cleansing, and the layered meanings that reside in all of our stories.

The Persistence Payoff, featuring Nancy Davis Kho

This week’s episode is a celebration of persistence, with author Nancy Davis Kho sharing her long journey to publication, how she grew and cultivated her author platform, and her process of writing and shopping work along the way. This episode is for all the authors out there who are feeling the slog toward publication. It’s hard work, but the payoff is worth it. We hope this week’s show and theme will support you to honor and celebrate your own persistence. Write on!

Writing without Judgment, featuring Jeannette Walls

To write with dispassion, without judgment, or with distance is something many writers struggle with. In this week’s episode, Jeannette Walls, author of the best-selling memoir, The Glass Castle, shares how she was able to detach herself from judgment and tell a true story of her outrageous upbringing. In this intimate interview, Jeannette’s humility and humanity shine through—and we witness the resilient and generous spirit of that little girl in The Glass Castle who grew up to create a life...

Writer as Entrepreneur: Project Jumping, Project Juggling, featuring Joanna Penn

Popular author, blogger, and podcaster Joanna Penn joins Grant and Brooke to discuss some of her tips and best practices for staying productive and juggling multiple projects at once. To truly succeed as an authorprenuer takes a lot of discipline, and having more than a few plates spinning at once. With a good dose of her signature good humor and humility, Joanna shares how she gets it all done.

Mining the Emotional Complexity, featuring Adrienne Brodeur

This week’s guest wrestled with her memoir for forty years, and wrote it in two. In this generous interview, Adrienne Brodeur shares about the many variations this book took over the years, about finding her north star in Vivian Gornick’s words, “For the drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent,” and how, by following this advice, her mother became more nuanced and sympathetic. This is an honest and heartfelt conversation about the power of tr...

Writing What Sustains You, featuring Meg Wolitzer

This week’s show asks writers to think about what sustains them, to consider whether they’re steady and whether they stay the course when it comes to their writing. Our guest, Meg Wolitzer, is one such steady writer, a “schleper” (which we’re defining as a very positive quality when it comes to writing) and an author who’s admirable for her steadfastness. Join us today to listen in to what she has to say about writing, staying the course, and how she thinks about her own rising star.

What Every Author Needs to Know about Cover Design, featuring Julie Metz

This week’s episode is a journey into the world of book cover design with Creative Director of She Writes Press, Julie Metz. Brooke and Grant share some of their personal experiences with covers—what’s worked and what hasn’t—and Brooke shares some common places where (in her experience) authors get in their own way. Understanding book design will help any aspiring author breeze through this endeavor more easily, and getting a glimpse into the care and hard work that goes into creating covers ...

The Art of Fairy Tales, featuring Marissa Meyer

Write-Minded is delving into this new decade with an exploration of fan fiction and a fun and insightful interview with the amazing and prolific Marissa Meyer. Grant and Brooke look back to some of their favorite fairy tales from childhood, and Marissa speaks about her inspiration, her stockpile of story ideas, and how she once wrote 150,000 in the month of November for NaNoWriMo—which may well be a record (for which Grant offers extra credit).

Recharge! featuring Brooke and Grant

This week’s episode is a short foray into resolutions present and past. Brooke and Grant offer their best solutions for recharging, share a couple of their goals for the new decade, and look back to where they were ten years ago with as the ’10s were just coming into view. Happy New Year, Happy New Decade!

Making Ends Meet as a Modern Writer, featuring Caroline Leavitt

In today’s episode, Brooke and Grant tackle the side hustle—why all writers do it, how to make peace with it, and how and why now is the best time ever for writers to actually have a writerly side hustle (as opposed to a 9-to-5 job). Guest Caroline Leavitt shares how she pieces together her worklife, multitasking and creating and making ends meet, and gives both encouragement and a dose of the reality of “making it” as a modern writer/author.

Finding an Agent, featuring Nathan Bransford

At Write-Minded, our hope is that our listeners will write a book they love—and then get it published, in whatever way that might manifest. Traditional publishing is the dream of many authors, so this week’s episode is a hands-on and helpful conversation about the best way to go about finding an agent, as well as do’s and don’ts, from one of the most prolific bloggers around, agent-turned-author Nathan Bransford.

The Unreliable Narrator: Writing What You Don’t or Can’t Remember, featuring Andi Buchanan

Unreliability in fiction and nonfiction has a long history, and can be something to embrace, depending on your story. This week, Brooke and Grant interview Andi Buchanan, who opens her newest book, The Beginning of Everything, with these words: “I am an unreliable narrator.” Hear the story about why this is the case, and how this ties into memory. As always, this episode is about permission—to write what you’re called to write, embracing unreliability, or imperfect or lost memory, and seeing ...

Going All In, featuring Jami Attenberg

In this week’s episode we talk about the peaks and valleys of the writing journey, the fact that it’s never a straight line, and how to weather the challenges as much as you celebrate the successes. Guest Jami Attenberg talks with Grant and Brooke about how she pulled herself up after being dropped by her publisher, and what it was like for her to “go all in” when there was nothing to guarantee that she could make it doing her art. This is an inspiring episode about hard work and resilience i...

Creating Intimacy with and Through Your Fiction, featuring Carolina De Robertis

Feeling the Fear and Doing It Anyway, featuring Jennifer Pastiloff

In this week’s inspiring episode, Brooke and Grant are joined by Jen Pastiloff, author of On Being Human, who shares the story of her leap of faith that was more like a push, the reason why “I got you” and “It’s gonna be okay” are her two favorite sets of words, and why she never wants to be seen as a guru. Join us for a conversation about listening, showing up for other people, and pursuing your dreams even when it’s terrifying and you’re not sure where you’re going to land.

Creating and Sustaining a Movement Around Your Writing, featuring Hope Edelman

Publishers love authors who generate bigger conversations, which sometimes grow into movements. While many authors will stumble into movements, others are consciously creating, or at least dreaming, into the possibility of a movement they might create. Join Brooke and Grant this week as they talk to guest Hope Edelman about starting a movement, having cohesion across your books, and being the kind of author that publishers have a hard time saying no to.

Block Doubt’s Phone Calls and Keep Writing! Featuring Kami Garcia

In this week’s episode, Grant and Brooke focus on that pesky little thing called doubt—ways to confront it, to work around it and with it, and to write through it. Guest Kami Garcia shares how she doubts almost everything about her process, and about her stories, especially initially. She shares ways to slay doubts, and to be prepared for doubt, including how writing partners and accountability and community can get you through the rough patches. Take a little inspiration from the idea that y...

The Secrets to Delighting in Your Work, featuring Jane Smiley

This week’s episode features the great American novelist Jane Smiley, who speaks with Brooke and Grant about enjoying her work, the fickle nature of critical acclaim, and how she’s able to write so ambitiously. As the author of more than 20 books, Jane has deep wisdom to impart about the role the novel plays in our lives, and how, more than ever, fiction is a pressing mirror for our times.

Finding Your Story in Another’s Story, featuring Danielle Paige

In this week’s episode Grant and Brooke talk fan fiction—finding inspiration in well-known stories or the stories of others and why reimagining old stories is such a thriving, and more important, fun(!), genre of fiction writing. Guest Danielle Paige launched her writing career with a reimagining of The Wizard of Oz in her Dorothy Must Die trilogy, and her most recent graphic novel, Mera, is a reimagining as well. Here she shares about getting her start, her writing process, and what the payo...

Rigorous Research and Its Payoff for Readers, featuring Lisa See

Brooke and Grant talk research with one of the most preeminent novelists of our time, Lisa See, who’s known for the in-depth research she’s done for her many best-selling books, most of which are set in China. Listen in as Lisa shares secrets and best practices about the research process and writing in general, and her thoughts about what it’s like to have a book (in her case Snow Flower and the Secret Fan) truly “break out” (and why she’s happy it didn’t happen to her with her debut effort).

Celebrating NaNoWriMo’s 20th Anniversary, featuring NaNoWriMo Founder Chris Baty

It’s NaNoWriMo prep season—and its 20th anniversary, so this week’s episode celebrates some of the organization’s achievements and milestones, and Brooke and Grant talk about word counts, community, and what keeps them writing. We’re reairing last year’s fabulous interview with NaNoWriMo’s founder, Chris Baty, which is sure to inspire anyone thinking about doing NaNoWriMo to jump in with both feet this November. We hope you will.

The Art of Writing Lost Stories, featuring Rachel Kadish

Today’s episode celebrates what guest Rachel Kadish calls the work of “repair”—which refers to a repairing of a history that so often showcases the exploits and successes and stories of men. Writers are increasingly taking on histories that deserve deeper consideration, or historical figures who were overlooked by the history books. With that comes research and also a responsibility to portray things as they might have happened, thus repairing the record and honoring histories both lost and f...

Why Fantasy Is Important, featuring Victoria “V.E.” Schwab

Escapist, other-worldly, and mind-expanding. These are just a few of the things that describe what fantasy is to its readers. In this week’s episode, Grant and Brooke talk with Victoria Schwab about creating fantasy that pushes the boundaries of our known power structures and why it matters to her to write accessible fantasy. Plus, we discuss how important fantasy literature is to children, and how and why The Harry Potter series is the most influential and important series of an entire gener...

Writerly Hang-ups, Obsessions, and Distractions—and Ways to Course Correct, featuring R.O. Kwon

In today’s episode, debut novelist R.O. Kwon, author of the acclaimed novel, The Incendiaries, talks about the book that took her ten years to write, her obsession with language and how she learned to sideline those obsessions in order to finish the book. She talks about her inspirations, the dead-end of following a bad metaphor, and strategies for finishing a book that went through some 50+ versions.

The Magic of Memoir, featuring Linda Joy Myers

Join Grant and Brooke for today’s episode, a celebration of memoir and an exploration of what makes this genre so magical. This week’s guest is Linda Joy Myers, President of the National Association of Memoir Writers, who shares about the genre she loves, what draws people to memoir, why it’s important, and why people should write their stories. And, Brooke and Linda Joy are teaching some memoir classes this fall that we invite listeners to check out at: www.magicofmemoir.com.

Brooke’s new book: Write On, Sisters! featuring co-hosts Brooke & Grant

We’re celebrating the publication of Brooke’s new book, Write On, Sisters! and in today’s episode Grant interviews Brooke on a wide range of topics that highlight many of the most important and provocative points of this new book—how women writers don’t champion other women authors as much as they need to, how women hold themselves back, how the world at large doesn’t value women’s stories the way they do men’s, and how women are still fighting not just to be published and read, but to be val...

We’re One! Write-Minded Anniversary Episode

Brooke and Grant extend a giant thank you to their listeners for making the first year of Write-Minded so much fun and such a success. In this week’s episode, to celebrate a year of shows, they answer four prompts as a way to remember some of their favorite guests from Year One: 1) something that changed their writing; 2) something they learned; 3) something they passed onto others; and 4) something that inspired them.

Best of: Following Your Own Genius: Kwame Alexander and Abigail Thomas

It’s our final week of summer mash-ups and Grant is flying solo today, but not for long. Brooke and Grant will both be back next week with a new format and a celebration of completing a year of podcast episodes. Today take a moment to enjoy Kwame Alexander and Abigail Thomas, two authors who don’t listen to what the industry says is best. There’s lots of wisdom and inspiration in today’s short episode.

Best of: Ignoring the Critics and Doing You: Jessica Valenti & Daniel José Older

It’s Week 2 of our summer mash-ups and Brooke takes off for Jordan this week. Grant and Brooke are choosing to highlight two activist-educator authors with Jessica Valenti and Daniel José Older. These are two writers who will make you think, whose passion on the page translates into passion in the real world, and they’re changing lives with their words and their books.

Best of: Be a Smarter Writer: Mignon Fogarty & Jane Friedman

In this summer episode, Brooke is packing for her trip to Jordan, so Brooke and Grant hatch a plan to share with you a few of their favorite episodes. First up are Mignon Fogarty (aka, Grammar Girl) and Jane Friedman, two powerhouse women who know their stuff when it comes to grammar and publishing. If you missed these original episodes, we encourage you to go back in your queue and listen to the entire thing.

Apology and Taking Ownership Over Your Freedom, featuring of Eve Ensler

Today’s episode is an on-stage interview of Eve Ensler by Write-Minded host Brooke Warner. This interview explores Eve’s newest book, The Apology, in which Eve envisions the apology she wishes her father would have given her before he died for all the abuse and violence he perpetrated upon her when she was young. This interview touches upon how apology can set free survivors of abuse, as well as the impact of real apology on the perpetrator—and we delve into a bit of politics too.

What Every Writer and Author Needs to Know about Ingram, featuring Robin Cutler

Ingram and Amazon are arguably the two most important companies when it comes to how the book industry functions—and while Amazon gets a lot of visibility and media attention, Ingram tends to be a bit more amorphous for authors. This episode breaks down what’s what at Ingram—helping authors break down the many branches of Ingram and why it all matters. Guest Robin Cutler of IngramSpark gives an insider perspective about this all-important player in the book publishing space.

How to Make Your Hard Work Work for You, featuring John August

For anyone who’s ever thought that artists are simply divinely inspired and you’ve either got it or you don’t, this week’s episode about hard work, putting in the hours, and how to be productive in a sane and relatively healthy way should inspire some thinking about the nature of busyness. Grant and Brooke talk with John August, one of the busiest artists they know, about screenwriting, choosing the best medium for a new project, and work ethic.

The Radical Author: “The Dystopia Is Now,” featuring Cory Doctorow

Today’s dystopian fiction seems to be closer to reality than the dystopian fiction of the past. Brooke and Grant explore this new reality with Cory Doctorow, whose socially conscientious science fiction novels delve into topics of political consequence. From the ways in which anxieties fuel science fiction writers to how fiction has the power to change the way we think and operate in the world, today’s episode emphasizes the importance of dystopian fiction for its capacity to shed light on wh...

On Creating New Forms in Fiction and Following What’s True, featuring Rachel Cusk

This week’s special episode is an interview between Write-Minded host Brooke Warner and the writer Rachel Cusk, who’s been hailed for “reinventing” the novel. Brooke asks Rachel about form, and how she approached this reinvention, whether she could have done it without the insights she had through writing her memoir, and what it means to call oneself—or be called—a feminist, or “post-feminist,” writer. In this clear-eyed and thought-provoking interview, Rachel gives insight into why she thoug...

Cultivating Stillness, featuring Pico Iyer

In this week’s episode, Brooke and Grant meander through the topic of stillness with Pico Iyer, “arguably the world’s greatest living travel writer,” according to Outside. In an “on-demand” world that demands productivity, especially from writers, Iyer suggests ways to steal little moments, even just pockets of time, to help writers stay fresher, more centered, more intimate. Join us for this treat of an episode to see how you might bring even just a little more stillness into your mind and i...

Giving Voice to Secrets, featuring Dani Shapiro

In today’s episode, guest Dani Shapiro talks about her recent New York Times best-selling memoir, Inheritance, and how she’s been circling around family secrets for her entire life. She reveals how the secret she never knew, until recently—that the father who raised her was not her biological father—is likely the thing that made her a writer. In this deep conversation with co-hosts Brooke and Grant, Dani delves into the “unthought known,” the impact of those things we withhold, and how the pa...

Writing Advice from a Writing Advice Guru, featuring James Scott Bell

Do you remember the first writing advice book you ever read? Or the writing advice book that moved you and made you rethink your writing life? In this episode, James Scott Bell, author of more than 20 writing advice books, talks about his circuitous path to becoming a writer—and shares best and worst writing advice, blunders writers should avoid, tips for becoming a more prolific writer, and so much more. Tune in to hear Brooke and Grant’s best and worst writing advice, as well as the first w...

Telling on Yourself with Your Fiction, featuring Tayari Jones

This week’s episode features an onstage interview with Tayari Jones, author of the New York Times best-seller, An American Marriage. Brooke and Tayari sat down at the Bay Area Book Festival in early May—and we’re thrilled to be able to share what transpired on Write-Minded. Tayari is forthcoming and funny. We gain insight into her motivations to write, her perseverance as a novelist, and how, in her words, novelists tend to tell on themselves through their fiction. What we learn about Tayari ...