Joan Silber is the author of ten books of fiction, as well as The Art of Time in Fiction which looks at how fiction is shaped and determined by time, with examples from world writers. She’s been on the show three times in the past to talk about Fools, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; Secrets of Happiness, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year; and Improvement, which won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Her latest is Mercy. It’s told in six chapters, or six stories, each from a different character’s point of view (POV). It takes place over the course of 50 years and comes in at a lean 240 pages. Joan joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, using it as a craft lesson to discuss managing time in fiction and POV choices, how to write about drug use and sex, and how to treat characters with generosity. One chapter appeared as a standalone piece in the New Yorker (“Evolution”), and Joan discusses that chapter in detail (she also talked about it with the New Yorker). Along the way, they also discuss how she’s been influenced by Alice Munro, Anton Chekov, and Grace Paley. Paley was one of Joan’s undergrad instructors and Joan shares one of Paley’s writing prompts. She also discusses the writers she teaches with respect to character generosity (including Chekov and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie).
For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners!
(Recorded on October 30, 2025)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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Joan Silber is the author of ten books of fiction, as well as The Art of Time in Fiction which looks at how fiction is shaped and determined by time, with examples from world writers. She’s been on the show three times in the past to talk about Fools, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; Secrets of Happiness, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year; and Improvement, which won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Her latest is Mercy. It’s told in six chapters, or six stories, each from a different character’s point of view (POV). It takes place over the course of 50 years and comes in at a lean 240 pages. Joan joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, using it as a craft lesson to discuss managing time in fiction and POV choices, how to write about drug use and sex, and how to treat characters with generosity. One chapter appeared as a standalone piece in the New Yorker (“Evolution”), and Joan discusses that chapter in detail (she also talked about it with the New Yorker). Along the way, they also discuss how she’s been influenced by Alice Munro, Anton Chekov, and Grace Paley. Paley was one of Joan’s undergrad instructors and Joan shares one of Paley’s writing prompts. She also discusses the writers she teaches with respect to character generosity (including Chekov and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie).
For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners!
(Recorded on October 30, 2025)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
Born in Seattle, Caroline Fraser holds a Ph.D. in English and American literature from Harvard. Formerly on the editorial staff of The New Yorker, she is the author of three previous nonfiction books, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and Rewilding the World: Dispatches from the Conservation Revolution. She served as editor of the Library of America edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books and has written for The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic Monthly, Outside Magazine, and The London Review of Books. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband, Hal Espen. Her new nonfiction book, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, published by Penguin Press, is the focus of today’s talk.
Caroline joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about the genesis of Murderland, how she decided on structure, the memoir aspect of the book, why she thinks readers and viewers are fascinated with crime, her relationship with research, and much more.
For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners!
(Recorded on June 6, 2025)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
Writers on Writing
Joan Silber is the author of ten books of fiction, as well as The Art of Time in Fiction which looks at how fiction is shaped and determined by time, with examples from world writers. She’s been on the show three times in the past to talk about Fools, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; Secrets of Happiness, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year; and Improvement, which won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Her latest is Mercy. It’s told in six chapters, or six stories, each from a different character’s point of view (POV). It takes place over the course of 50 years and comes in at a lean 240 pages. Joan joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, using it as a craft lesson to discuss managing time in fiction and POV choices, how to write about drug use and sex, and how to treat characters with generosity. One chapter appeared as a standalone piece in the New Yorker (“Evolution”), and Joan discusses that chapter in detail (she also talked about it with the New Yorker). Along the way, they also discuss how she’s been influenced by Alice Munro, Anton Chekov, and Grace Paley. Paley was one of Joan’s undergrad instructors and Joan shares one of Paley’s writing prompts. She also discusses the writers she teaches with respect to character generosity (including Chekov and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie).
For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners!
(Recorded on October 30, 2025)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
