Send us a text In this episode Pat Lipsky talks about her acclaimed new memoir Brightening Glance and covers: What having a space means as an artist and the discipline necessary to endure Her life in the New York City art scene from 1960s to present day, including accounts of experiences with Tony Smith and Pierre Rosenberg The role Marcel Proust has played in her life and work And the experience of entering the publishing world from the perspective of a seasoned painter

Send us a text In this episode Marguerite Sheffer talks about Iowa Short Fiction Prize winning collection The Man in the Banana Trees and covers: the content of Marguerite's wide ranging speculative fiction stories that dive deeply into the practice of making art and some of our most critical justice issues in our culture how design thinking helped Marguerite get to a place of wildness and fierce play and pleasure with these stories what it was like to win the 2024 Iowa Short Fiction Prize an...

Send us a text In this episode T Clark talks about All This Want and I Can't Get None and covers: the content of T's feverish and honest short stories about girlhood, shame, want, and choices how T found an agent what the path to a book deal looked like how living in a certain place can foster a more balanced writing life how writing collaborative plays has informed their fiction

Send us a text In this episode Samantha Browning Shea talks about MARROW and covers: writing her own book as a literary agent for others when her first novel didn't find a publisher writing with small children writing characters in the context of their relationships worry over whether a book will work find out more about Samantha here pre-order Marrow here Learn more about the upcoming host of Writing Stories Jessica Kinnison here

Send us a text Lorraine Russell tells the story of Love and Shadows. Along the way she covers: Self-publishing on Amazon Using Fiverr to find cover designers and editors Fear of failure Getting yourself into a flow state Working with a writing coach Writing as though telling a story around a campfire Also in this episode: The Long Road to Publishing with Eva Langston Our upcoming new Writing Stories host, Jessica Kinnison (!!!) Catherine Lacey (...

Send us a text Danielle Teller tells the story of Forged and talks about: success as a writer rule-breaking the pitfalls of newspaper articles in novels Cassie Chadwick All the Ever Afters When your agent can't place your manuscript How her work as a doctor has informed her writing process Learn more about Danielle here buy FORGED here

Send us a text Christine tells the story of FLOOD and talks about: Westport Writers Workshop Christine Pakkala Copy editing your own work Thinking about text structure like architecture Agent shenanigans Woodhall Press Shampoo and sugar as essential writing tools Combatting perfectionism Jaclyn Gilbert and Drift(less) Literary Poets and their memoirs Learn more about Christine here Buy FLOOD here

Send us a text Deesha Philyaw tells the story of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies Along the way she covers: Being in the Norton Anthology of Literature Jamaica Kincaid's story Girl The ways Church Ladies is proudly Black Ways white supremacy shapes the stories we read and tell Misconceptions about race in publishing Revision for her novel Boundaries Her brilliant agent and unorthodox publishing moves Learn more about Deesha he...

Send us a text Sasha Hom tells the story of Sidework. Along the way she covers: Profluence Including multiple nows in your writing Making appreciation a discipline Polyphonic nature of restaurants and motherhood (especially when living in a tent!) Living life as an artist's residency Black Lawrence Press (Immigrant writing series) Learn more about Sasha here or here Buy Sidework here

Send us a text Jennie Case tells the story of We Are Animals. Jennie talks about: - control, safety, and risk in the creative process - speaking to the current moment - how to gesture toward the place beyond concepts in writing - agent troubles - writing a letter to your book - publishing with a university press (Trinity) Find out more about Jennie here Buy We Are Animals here

Send us a text Rebe talks about: querying (and querying again!) hiring a publicist writing about grief art vs archiving enjoying the ride the changing publishing industry Monkfish Press Find out more about Rebe here Buy My Mother in Havana here

Send us a text Libby Maxey talks about: - using sonnets to put the pandemic in a box - writing 'off of' other writers - the ancient tradition of starting a book with an author's address to the book - poetry land vs. fiction land, and how time doesn't matter - editing other poets' poems - giving dignity to small things - being 'bad' at 'pub days' Learn more about Libby here Buy Indwelling here

Send us a text Dori Lumpkin talks about: Comp titles and queries Creature Publishing Religious tea drinking Setting up a book signing Method writing (like method acting) Book tattoos Learn more about Dori here Buy Antenora here

Send us a text Emma Pattee talks about Postpartum creativity Writing by hand Navigating the distance between one's own vision and feedback and finding one's breaking point with a project Confusing a desire to make art and a desire to be famous Going on sub for only 24 hours Helen Phillips The Need Julia Phillips Margaret Malone Lidia Yuknavitch and Reading the Waves Buy TILT here

Send us a text Wayne Scott talks about Writing well-rounded characters that can surprise us Trying to sell a book that publishers don't think will sell to women Marriage as a story EM Forrester's Aspects of the Novel Publishing a Modern Love piece, getting an agent and then having your agent lose steam Memoir as coping strategy Rayhané Sanders Corporeal Writing Tin House residency Christie Tate GROUP Black Lawrence Press and Diane Goettel&...

Send us a text Mariam Rahmani talks about: Preserving voice How to know when you are ready to bring editors and other readers in to your process Racialized pay gaps and racialized double-standards in publishing Streamlining of stories in publishing Putting a manuscript of 7 years aside Challenges of short story versus novel Danielle Bukowski (agent) and Evan Hanson-Bundy (editor) Buy LIQUID here

Send us a text Cally talks about: Hardware and software in a story A need to detox from the marketplace Woeful inefficiency in the writing process Zadie Smith and 'obsessive perspective disorder ' Furious throat-clearing Pregnancy creating writing urgency Sewanee review Keeping a manuscript under wraps and writing as solitary The sense in which approval is contagious Iowa University Press Buy Atta Boy here

Send us a text Nicole Graev Lipson tells the story of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. Along the way we talk about: Sexism in publishing The 'mother shelf' Microscopic truth and Brenda Ueland Writing from "low-grade embarrassment" and "both-and-ness" Growing up with with the belief that you can be anyone you want to be and do anything you want to do (and how that might affect the ways you construct the challenges of motherhood in your thinking and writing)...

Send us a text Shubha Sunder talks about: Constructing a narrative through the things that people say to the main character Characterization as a "portrait in the negative" Writing through divorce and Covid lockdown Writing from an immigrant perspective and immigration as a step in one's path to becoming an artist Characters as caricatures and the ways some caricature can strengthen a narrative How long it took for 'the gate to open' for Ursula LeGuin's writing&n...

Send us a text Nanda Reddy talks about: Deadlines and focus Manuscripts in drawers Querytracker critiquematch.com Accepting previously rejected parts of ourselves as part of the process of writing fiction Assimilation Belonging Identity BookPage review by Stephanie Harrison