Writers on Writing
167 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 38 ratingsWriters on Writing is a weekly podcast hosted by author Barbara DeMarco Barrett and co-host Marrie Stone, on the art and business of writing. More on the show, writers, and writing is at www.writers-on-writing.com.
Use this archive to search for an episode or to browse the episode history.
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Episodes
Gary Shteyngart, author of "Our Country Friends," on Writers on Writing
November 22, 2021 17:51 - 27.6 MBGary Shteyngart joins Marrie Stone to talk about his latest novel, Our Country Friends. Recognizing the severity of the pandemic in March 2020, Shteyngart abandoned another novel to address what was unfolding in our nation in real time. Our Country Friends has been described as Chekov meets "The Big Chill." Shteyngart talks about writing a novel contemporaneously with world events, how Russian literature informed the work, when he knows it's time to abandon a novel, avoiding stereotypes an...
Barbara Seranella (from 2006)
November 17, 2021 22:51 - 24.4 MBI've been thinking about Barbara Seranella, a wonderful mystery writer who passed away in 2007. I met her when we were both members of the Orange County Fictionaires. I wanted to hear her voice again and wanted to share this interview with our listeners. Download audio. (Broadcast date: Jan. 12, 2006)
Novelist Elizabeth Strout, Oh, William!
November 06, 2021 21:47 - 49.4 MBElizabeth Strout, author of the new novel, Oh, William!, joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about voice, character, point of view, and so much more. Download audio. (Recorded on Oct 19, 2021) Music and sound design by Travis Barrett.
Robert Olen Butler on "Writers on Writing"
October 27, 2021 14:51 - 30.1 MBIn addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize in fiction, and a number of other awards, Robert Olen Butler is a master of teaching craft and process. He's taught fiction workshops for decades, most recently at Florida State University. In 2001, Butler released a 34-hour online craft intensive (available on YouTube) which follows him in every step of the process of writing a short story. He's also the author of the craft book From Where You Dream. In this episode, Butler shares some of the highl...
Diane DiPrima on Writers on Writing
October 21, 2021 16:20 - 24.1 MBThis is a show I recorded in 2001 with the late poet Diane DiPrima when her memoir, Recollections of My Life as a Woman, was published. City Lights just released Spring and Autumn Annals, which made me remember this interview with Diane. Perhaps you heard it when it was broadcast (and podcast) 20 years ago, not long after Writers on Writing began. Download audio. (Broadcast date: June 2001)
Ha Jin, author of "A Song Everlasting," on Writers on Writing
October 16, 2021 15:12 - 30.4 MBHa Jin moved to the U.S. from China in his late 20s. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about his immigrant experience, and some of the things he experienced as a child growing up in China, including the Cultural Revolution, his own family’s experience with book burning, and how the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square solidified his decision to remain in the United States. The conversation also covers a lot of craft issues. The importance of knowing the ending of a novel before...
Lauren Groff, author of "The Matrix," on Writers on Writing
October 02, 2021 06:16 - 20.3 MBLauren Groff, author of MATRIX, joins Marrie Stone to talk about the novel. Author of six books of fiction, Groff's work has won The Story Prize and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. She talks about the surprising inspiration for the novel, her time spent in a convent with Benedictine nuns, her research process for this 12th century novel, and so much more. Download audio. (Podcast date: October 1, 2021)
Megan Abbott, The Turnout, on Writers on Writing
September 27, 2021 16:54 - 68.2 MBMegan Abbott, author of the new novel, The Turnout, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about plot, structure, and writing dark fiction. Download audio. (Broadcast date: Sept. 22, 2021) Musical intro/outro/interludes by Travis Barrett.
Tracey Lange, author of "We Are the Brennans," on Writers on Writing
September 16, 2021 16:52 - 32.5 MBDebut novelist Tracey Lange explores issues of familial loyalty, the corrupt power of family secrets, and the possibility of redemption in her novel We Are the Brennans. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about the novel, the complexities of writing about shame, and choices a character might make that may surprise an audience. She also shares craft wisdom she's learned along the way, including writing from different points of view, passing the baton of dialogue between characters, the importa...
S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears, on Writers on Writing
September 08, 2021 21:05 - 68.7 MBS.A. Cosby, author of Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about his new book, writing noir, and...spoilers, but they come 15 minutes before the end of the interview and are carefully announced. You'll have time to get away if you don't want to hear them. Download audio. (Broadcast date: Sept. 8, 2021) Music (intro, outro, intersticial pieces...) by Travis Barrett
Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade, on Writers on Writing
September 03, 2021 15:00 - 35.1 MBAimee Bender is the author of six books, including both novels and short story collections. Her latest novel, The Butterfly Lampshade, came out in July of 2020 and was listed by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the best novels of the year. Bender joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book’s inspiration and construction. In the process, she exposes the creative fodder that’s gifted to us by our own childhoods. She talks about how imposing time limitations on her writing allows her access to s...
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois," on Writers on Writing
August 24, 2021 18:39 - 38.4 MBPoet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers produced a stunning debut novel. Before its publication, The Loves Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois was already named by Oprah as her next book club pick. The novel, clocking in at 816 pages, is a sweeping ancestral saga chronicling the American South from before the Civil War to present day. Scholar W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about the problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,” the sensitivity that every African American possesse...
Writing Noir Fiction with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Alex Espinosa, and Rob Roberge
August 21, 2021 17:28 - 84.9 MBPalm Springs Noir (Akashic) contributors Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Alex Espinoza, and Rob Roberge talk with literary maestro Corey Roskin about writing noir fiction. Download audio. (Recorded via Zoom on August 5, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett.
Tod Goldberg, The Low Desert, on Writers on Writing
August 12, 2021 14:12 - 63.3 MBTod Goldberg, author of The Low Desert, a new collection of short fiction, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing short stories. Download audio. (Broadcast date: August 11, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett.
Hear Us: Writing from the Inside During the Time of COVID on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
August 09, 2021 06:58 - 32.6 MBHear Us:Writing from the Inside During the Time of COVID is a collection of over 50 essays, poems, pieces of fiction, and artwork from—or about—inmates serving time in U.S. correctional facilities. The incarcerated are infected by COVID at a rate five times higher than the general population. Crowded conditions, lack of sanitation, and inadequate medical care all contribute to the desperate conditions inside our prison system. Alongside COVID, our national conversation regarding race, racism...
Dan Duling, scriptwriter/playwright
August 04, 2021 18:17 - 72.6 MBDan Duling, scriptwriter for Pageant of the Masters (Laguna Beach, CA) and award-winning playwright talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the pageant and playwriting. Download audio. (Recorded on August 3, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett
Halley Sutton on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
July 28, 2021 17:20 - 68.7 MBHalley Sutton, author of The Lady Upstairs, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about her noir thriller and about the art, craft, and business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: July 28, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett.
Laurence Jackson Hyman on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
July 22, 2021 15:38 - 31.5 MBEven casual readers will be familiar with Shirley Jackson's classic works: The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and her iconic and widely anthologized short story "The Lottery." Stephen King called The Haunting of Hill House "one of the most important horror novels of the 20th century." In the course of her two-decade career, Jackson wrote six novels, two memoirs, and over 200 short stories. A film based loosely on her life, starring Elisabeth Moss, was release...
Chris Offutt on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
July 14, 2021 20:41 - 68.9 MBChris Offutt, author of the new novel, The Killing Hills (Grove Press) talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about his new work, as well as the art, craft, and business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: July 14, 2021 Musical intro/outro and interludes by Travis Barrett.
Jane Alison, author of Meander, Spiral, Explode, on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
July 09, 2021 15:21 - 35.2 MBTwo years ago, Jane Alison set out to redefine how writers might think about structure in their work. Most novelists are trained on the narrative arc (better known as Freytag’s Pyramid)—arguing that a story should begin with an enticing incident, build to a climax, and fall into some form of resolution. By examining patterns in nature, Alison argues there are many other ways novelists can structure a story. Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Patterns in Narrative provides eight examp...
Novelist Patricia Engel, Infinite Country
July 03, 2021 16:46 - 68.7 MBPatricia Engel, author of Infinite Country, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about writing about immigration, class, and the art, craft, and business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: June 30, 2021)
Joan Silber on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
June 28, 2021 14:35 - 32.9 MBJoan Silber is the author of nine books of fiction. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about the most recent, Secrets of Happiness, which came out last month. They talk about what Marrie has coined as “The SilberMethod" of storytelling, which uses the short story structure to create a novel-length work. Silber shares her proclivity for being a miniaturist working on a big canvas, and how she discovered that form. She talks about how travel has influenced her writing, her research methods, org...
Mary Camarillo, The Lockhart Women
June 22, 2021 15:34 - 68.7 MBMary Camarillo, author of the debut novel, The Lockhart Women, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the challenges of being a debut novelist, why her novel is set during the OJ Simpson trial, and more. Download audio. (Broadcast date: June 16, 2021)
Lionel Shriver on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
June 16, 2021 14:32 - 33.8 MB"LionelShriver’s contrarianism has made her famous, but fiction is what she believes changes minds,” said the New Yorker last year. Since her 2003 breakout novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin (later turned into the 2011 filmstarring Tilda Swinton), Shriver has pushed people’s political buttons. She’s a pro-Brexit, anti-woke, #MeToo-skeptical Democrat who eats one meal a day, dislikes babies, and refuses the comforts of either heat or air conditioning. Her novels have tackled tricky Ameri...
Lisa Scottoline, author of Eternal, on Writers on Writing
June 10, 2021 19:49 - 68.7 MBLisa Scottoline, author of the novel, Eternal, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: June 2, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett
Jo Ann Beard on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
May 28, 2021 14:01 - 33.4 MBWhen essayist Jo Ann Beard came on the show in 2018, she swore she was done publishing books. While some writers knock out novels every year, Beard takes decades to assemble a small collection. But she realized these past 23 years had produced nine pieces and, together, they worked. The consequence of taking this much time at craft are essays so distilled, the reader feels like an ant under Beard’s sun-pierced glass. Not all the pieces are pure nonfiction. Beard blends factual events ...
Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Plot
May 20, 2021 13:46 - 68.7 MBJean Hanff Korelitz, author of The Plot, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: May 19, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify or here.
A.J. Jacobs on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
May 14, 2021 17:07 - 32.9 MBA.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written several New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self-help. A.J. read the Encyclopedia Britannica in its entirety (The Know It All), spent a year following every last biblical commandment (The Year of Living Biblically), assembled the world’s largest family tree (It’s All Relative), and got himself into superhuman shape (Drop Dead Healthy). He joins Marrie Stone to ...
Jonathan Small on Writers on Writing
May 10, 2021 12:49 - 65.4 MBJonathan Small, writer, editor, and host of the podcast Write About Now, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: May 5, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett.
Ethan Rutherford on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
May 05, 2021 15:26 - 33.3 MBEthan Rutherford returns to talk with Marrie about his latest collection, Farthest South. He shares how his writing has changed since his last publication, letting projects go, following his instincts, and how different writers get their work done (Ethan writes about 47 words a day to his wife’s several thousand). He talks about the advantages of working with a small publishing house (A Strange Object), and how he was able to incorporate images into the stories. Their conversation covers cra...
Willy Vlautin on Writers on Writing
May 01, 2021 14:02 - 68.7 MBWilly Vlautin, author of The Night Always Comes, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: April 21, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify, Patreon, etc.
Memoirist Joshua Mohr at the Pen on Fire Speaker Series & Salon
April 27, 2021 13:17 - 98.6 MBJoshua Mohr, author of the memoir, Model Citizen, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett at the Pen on Fire Speaker Series & Salon on March 25, 2021 about his new book and about writing memoir. This event was recorded live on Zoom. Download audio. (An abbreviated version of this interview aired on KUCI FM on April 7, 2021) Musical intro, outro, and interludes by Travis Barrett. Find him on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Patreon.
Martin J. Smith, author of "Going to Trinidad," on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
April 15, 2021 13:59 - 34.1 MBFor forty years, Trinidad, Colorado was known amongst locals, and those in the transgender community, as the “sex-change capital of the world.” An estimated 6,000 gender reassignment surgeries took place in this remote ranch town between 1969 and 2010. Veteran journalist and award-winning author Martin J. Smithjoins Marrie Stone to talk about his latest, Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroads. He discusses finding the subjects of ...
Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road, on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
April 02, 2021 14:40 - 35.3 MBDon and Mimi Galvin epitomized the mid-20th century American dream. After WWII, Don's work with the U.S. Air Force took the family to Colorado where the Galvins raised 12 children spanning the entire baby boom generation. But even as the perfect family was being assembled, it began to disintegrate. Six of the ten boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The family was plagued by sexual abuse, clergy abuse, a murder/suicide, and other stressors. Robert Kolker joins Marrie Stone to tal...
Memoirist Russell Shorto on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
March 26, 2021 20:03 - 54.6 MBRussell Shorto, author of Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob (Norton) talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing memoir, especially when you had no intention of doing so. Shorto is the author of the bestselling The Island at the Center of the World, Amsterdam, and Revolution Song. Download audio. (Broadcast date: March 24, 2021) Intro, outro, and musical interludes by Travis Barrett. Find more of his music on Spotify and Soundcloud.
Literary agent Betsy Amster
March 16, 2021 16:02 - 68.7 MBLos Angeles-based literary agent Betsy Amster talks with Barbara Demarco-Barrett about the business of writing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: March 10, 2021)
Julia Cooke, "Come Fly the World," on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
March 11, 2021 22:01 - 29.6 MBJulia Cooke joins Marrie to talk about her latest narrative nonfiction book, Come Fly the World. She follows three primary, and two secondary, retired Pan-Am stewardesses who flew for the airline in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. At once a nostalgic romp through the heyday of glamorous air travel, the book is also a chronicle of mid-century America and the larger world. Crews ferried soldiers in and out of Vietnam, and hit the feminist and Civil Rights movements head on. They endured hijackings, a...
Russell Banks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
March 06, 2021 19:21 - 33.1 MBRussell Banks returns to the show to talk about his latest novel, Foregone. He shares how his childhood upbringing and young adulthood have fed his fiction, and why this novel feels more autobiographical than most. He also talks about a wild week spent with Jack Kerouac in the 1960s, and experiencing the fall of a literary hero. He discusses how this novel couldn't have been written at any other point in his life, why his characters differ from his readers (and the importance of that differe...
Chang-rae Lee & Karen Russell on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
March 01, 2021 01:35 - 17.6 MBChang-rae Lee is a Korean-American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University. He is the author of five previous novels: Native Speaker (1995); A Gesture Life (1999); Aloft (2004); The Surrendered, which was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and On Such a Full Sea (2014). My Year Abroad, published by Riverhead Books, is his latest. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about creating a sensationalistic novel, in every sense of the word. He talks about how he surprises ...
Katherine Seligman, At the Edge of the Haight, on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
February 23, 2021 16:50 - 68.5 MBKatherine Seligman is a journalist and author in San Francisco. As a reporter, she’s focused on social issues, from homelessness, mental health and end of life issues to the city’s boom and bust cycles. But she’s also written about everything else, from self-appointed graffiti curators, urban coyotes and embryonic sex selection to what her kids learned growing up in Haight Ashbury. Katherine joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about her novel, At the Edge of the Haight, as well as wr...
Rebecca Sacks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
February 16, 2021 16:08 - 41 MBBefore receiving her Masters from the Program in Writing at UCI, Rebecca Sacks moved to Israel, spending time understanding Israeli and Palestinian culture, learning Hebrew and Arabic, and immersing herself in the cultures, their people, and their conflicts. Her debut novel, City of a Thousand Gates, tackles these tensions from a variety of points of view. Sacks joins Marrie Stone to talk about her writing process, accessing her characters, keeping 29 points of view balanced and organi...
Poet Tommye Blount on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
February 10, 2021 16:33 - 38.4 MBTommye Blount, finalist of the National Book Award in poetry last year, joins Marrie Stone to talk about his collection, Fantasia for the Man in Blue. They are daring poems about race, power, desire, sex, and a redefinition of beauty. Blount's work captures the experience of being black and queer in Michigan, about an encounter with the Michigan police, his role as a son, and his observations as a poet. He talks about his journey into poetry, finding his voice, using media and art in his wo...
Lynell George, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler
February 05, 2021 22:11 - 68.4 MBLynell George, author of A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler, published by Angel City Press, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about her new biography of Octavia E. Butler. Download audio. (Broadcast date: Feb. 3, 2021) Musical intro, outro and interludes by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify and Patreon.
George Saunders on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
January 31, 2021 17:11 - 42.4 MBFor twenty years, George Saunders has taught a select group of graduate students in Syracuse’s MFA program. Relying on 19thcentury Russian masters, Saunders breaks down the prose—sentence by sentence, line by line—to show students how it’s done. Now he’s broadened his audience. George acts as literary tour guide through seven short stories by four Russian authors in his latest, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. George joins Marrie Stone for their third interview, imparting his gentle wis...
Noir author Vicki Hendricks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
January 26, 2021 16:55 - 68.7 MBVicki Hendricks, called the "Queen of Noir," is Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's guest for the entire hour. Hendricks's novels include Miami Purity, Iguana Love, and Cruel Poetry. She also has a story in Miami Noir (Akashic) and other noir anthologies. Download audio. (Broadcast date: January 20, 2021) Musical intro and outro and interludes by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify.
Mariana Enriquez on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
January 14, 2021 15:13 - 36.2 MBArgentinian author Mariana Enriquez knows horror first hand. Born in 1973, three years before the U.S.-backed Dirty War that rained state-sponsored terror down on its citizens for seven years, Enriquez grew up in a world where death squads were common and neighbors disappeared. Enriquez joins Marrie Stone to talk about her second collection of short stories, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, published in 2009 in Argentina, but translated and released in the U.S. this month. One of the st...
Ken Layne, Desert Oracle, KUCI-FM
January 03, 2021 16:06 - 68.7 MBKen Layne, author of Desert Oracle, Volume 1: Strange True Tales from the American Southwest, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing, along with fairies and unexplainable goings on in the desert. Download audio. (Broadcast date: December 23, 2020) Musical intro, outro and interludes by Travis Barrett. Find his music on Spotify and also find him on Patreon.
Mystery Writer Anthony Horowitz on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
December 30, 2020 22:44 - 39.8 MBAnthony Horowitz might be the most prolific and successful author living in the U.K. today. He’s murdered more characters, fictionally, than any other living writer. Creator of the Alex Rider series, commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate to write two new Sherlock Holmes mysteries and the Ian Fleming estate to write a James Bond novel, Horowitz has penned over 50 books. He’s also written for television and screen. Horowitz joins Marrie Stone to talk about the second in his latest series, M...
Essayist Michele Morano on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
December 17, 2020 06:20 - 39.6 MBUnrequited love and unconsummated romance is the subject of Michele Morano’s latest memoir-in-essays, Like Love. These fourteen essays explore romantic friendships, dangerous crushes, familial infatuations, and the complicated emotions surrounding parental love. Morano’s essays feel at once daring, vulnerable, insightful, and full of familiar emotions most of us dare not name. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about love, longing, and desire, but also about craft, technique, and the art of writ...
Literary agent Betsy Amster on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
December 12, 2020 15:50 - 69 MBLiterary agent Betsy Amster talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about publishing. Download audio. (Broadcast date: Dec. 9, 2020) Musical intro/outro/interludes by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify and Soundcloud.