#AmWriting

By KJ

What's #AmWriting about?

Entertaining, actionable advice on craft, productivity and creativity for writers and journalists in all genres, with hosts Jessica Lahey, KJ Dell'Antonia and Sarina Bowen.

amwriting.substack.com

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#AmWriting episodes:

04.19.2024
Daring to Kickstarter with Rachael Herron
If you do not already know Rachael Herron, host of the Ink In Your Veins Podcast (formerly known as How Do You Write) and author of 13-ish novels (including 2 thrillers under the not-exactly pseudonym RH Herron), soon-to-be two memoirs...
04.12.2024
Episode: 395 Who Owns an Idea?
The idea for Sarina Bowen’s thriller, The Five Year Lie, is an incredible and suspenseful hook for a story – and she first heard it from a writer friend. In this episode, Jennie Nash interviews Sarina about the concept of...
03.29.2024
Flashback Friday: Writing While #Broken
Hey #AmWriters! It’s been almost three years since our interview with Jenny Lawson first aired, but we know the struggle is REAL - so we thought this is the perfect time to bring this episode back out for a listen....
03.22.2024
Things Jess Learned This Month, Ep. 394
Hey hey Jess here! I had a couple of great learning opportunities this month, so in the interest of flattening learning curves, I took notes for all of you! First up, I took a call from a company...
03.15.2024
I want to sell books. But I'm also writing what I want to write. Episode 393 with Jo Piazza
You KIDS. If you’re not already following Jo Piazza, queen of the highly suspicious influencer side-eye, what even are you DOING on Substack and Instagram? Go follow her now. We’ll wait. Okay, now listen while we talk about Jo’s many-booked...
03.08.2024
How to Be a Good Literary Citizen: Volunteer at a Writing Conference
Whenever I see a writer on social media incessantly talking about their own work, their own book, and their own launch, the thing that comes to mind is this: “They’re not being a good literary citizen.” Being a good literary...
03.01.2024
Flashback Friday: How Do You Write a Non-Fiction Book in less than a Year?
Hey #AmWriters, Jess here! There's a very specific reason I wanted to re-up this coaching call with Emily Edlynn. I did an interview with AJ Jacobs day before yesterday, but it's not going to drop until May. I love AJ...
02.23.2024
Why You Should Take a Plot-walk
✍️ Writers: when you’re stuck on a plot, go outside and take a walk with a friend. You’ll still be stuck, but you will get your steps in for the day, and have someone to b***h to. Follow us for...
02.16.2024
Coaching call with author, educator & speaker Katie Kinder
Jess here. I love love love coaching calls, and opt to talk rather than trade emails when someone needs a comprehensive education in speaking career building. I met Katie at a recent speaking event and she grabbed my attention on...
02.09.2024
How to Create a Substack that Delivers (for you and your readers) Episode 389 with Dan Blank
Wanna start—or fix—your email/Substack? We GOT YOU. Dan Blank is, truly, THE GUY when it comes to helping writers identify our audience, find ways to reach them and also feel great about the process. Before you do anything else, go...
02.02.2024
What’s on the Cutting Room Floor?
Deciding what to leave in and what to take out is something every writer has to face; from the moment they start conceiving of an idea to the moment when it goes to press. What strategy do you bring to...
01.26.2024
Ep 387: The Art of Manifesting for Tired and Skeptical Authors
I think of myself an analytical person. Fine, a cynical one. So when my friends began talking about manifesting as a way to improve one's writing career, I struggled to wrap my head around it. Even if I was privately...
01.19.2024
Episode 386: Under the Weather Productivity
“It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to happen” - Seth Godin, The Practice “F*ck it, I feel like sh*t” - Jess Lahey Hi everyone! Jess here. We actually managed to get Sarina, Jennie, KJ and Jess...
01.12.2024
Ep 385: What I Think About When I Think About Job Offers
Jess here. We have talked about the lure of shiny objects, those glowing opportunities on the horizon that may (or may not) be worth the potential downsides. We have all fallen victim to the hypnotic glare and some of us...
12.29.2023
Unapologetically Re-creating our Abundant Zone of Genius
Writers, some thoughts: first off, I HATE the word of the year I declared in this episode. I chose… poorly. It’s such a weak work, so unadventurous, so poky. So I have already reframed, and searched long and hard for...
12.22.2023
Flashback Friday: Become a #BetterStrongerFaster Writer with Becca Syme
Crew, we love us some Becca Syme over here. We will listen to any podcast she’s on, sometimes twice. We (okay, me) watch her YouTube channel while we work out. We read her email newsletter religiously. Because she gets writers...
11.24.2023
Flashback Friday: Episode 293, how to build a literary life with Zibby Owens.
Writers, if you're paying attention at all, you've heard from Zibby Owens in the past 2 years. She's the host of the Moms Don't Have Time to Read Podcast and the creator of Zibby Media, which at this point includes...
11.17.2023
When Inner Dialogue Isn't "Telling" and When It Is in Memoir and Fiction
Hey writers—I’m in a funny phase of novel drafting right now where I’m really only doing the prewriting—which is an odd style of drafting wherein, for me, I basically write only dialogue and statements of movement and the very most...
11.10.2023
How to Restart Your Work after an Unplanned Pause
Ok, we probably don’t feel as cheery as that little subtitle sounded after we’ve been away from a project for a while. Most of the things that yank us away from our work unexpectedly aren’t good things. (There must be...
10.27.2023
How Sarina's Reading Journal Makes Her a Better Novelist: Episode 382
Hi.
10.20.2023
How to Find the Right Speaking Agent: Ep 381
Jess here, with detailed answers to the questions raised in the #AmWriting Facebook group about finding, contracting, and working with a speaking agent. I have tried both going it alone and managing my own speaking career and working with...
10.13.2023
National Novel Planning Month (that should be a thing)
I’m a fan of NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month, in which the plan is to write 50,000 words of a novel in November. It’s about 1666 words a day, a little more if you take off for Thanksgiving, and it’s do-able...
10.06.2023
A Million Little Pieces that can Make or Break a Speaking Engagement: Episode 379
Hello #AmWriters! Jess here. I have been getting a lot of messages via the #AmWriting Facebook group and email about details that can make or break a speaking engagement. I like having a podcast episode to point these people to,...
09.29.2023
Six Seasons in One Episode: Cookbooks as Memoir with Gesine Bullock-Prado, Ep 378
I’ve been wanting to talk cookbook writing with Gesine Bullock-Prado for some time now, and was thrilled to get the chance to sit in her home and baking school in what was once Freegrace Tavern, built in 1794. Portraits of...
09.22.2023
Writing for Tweendom: Jamie Sumner on writing difficult topics and the glory of middle grade fiction
Jess here! Jamie Sumner and I talked over the summer about her middle grade books, mainly because I’m a fan. She does not shy away from difficult topics - substance use disorder, financial insecurity, physical disability, autism, and anxiety. She’s...
09.15.2023
Flinging a Fall Book out into the world
Sarina’s on the struggle bus. Jess is back to non-fiction and killing it on TikTok. KJ’s in book launch mode and also killing it on TikTok. Want to help share Playing the Witch Card with the world? Everything you need...
09.08.2023
Reinvention Marketing: Selling Your Book for Years After Pub Day
Hi #AmWriters! Jess here to talk about what I’ve been up to this summer and hoping some of it proves helpful for you. That’s why we started this podcast years ago - to flatten the learning curve for other writers....
09.01.2023
From Idea to Execution: Building a Book
Hi all! Jess here! Welcome to a new season! We are back with our usual #AmWriting content and I’m incredibly excited about this episode. Seven years ago, I was speaking in the school library of a small elementary school...
08.25.2023
Never Carved in Stone: Letting Ideas Evolve
In our Idea Factory wrap-up, Jennie and I talk about the ways ideas need to change and evolve throughout the writing process—while you develop them and even in between drafts. Don’t let the idea take charge—the writer has to keep...
08.18.2023
Ideas and Nonfiction: Your Book Idea Contains Multitudes
That first non-fiction book may seem easy—it’s your THING, the thing you know—but you still have to hone it down. Is it advice, information, the story of how you learned what you know? Inspirational, confrontational, aspirational? And then comes...
08.11.2023
When Good Ideas Go Bad (the most common mistakes writers make)
You’ve no doubt heard people say of non-fiction books “that should have been an article”. Not every idea can sustain an entire book or story. Many things that feel like ideas are really set-ups: what if there was...
08.04.2023
Memoirs for the Marketplace: A Blueprint for Success
Part two of the memoir conversation: yes you do need an idea for a memoir. Gotta narrow things down, figure out what you want to share and why and most of all, why anyone would want to read it. There’s...
07.28.2023
You Are the Protagonist (memoirs need ideas too) with Rachael Herron
But wait, isn’t a memoir a book about my life? What do you mean, I need an idea? We mean, you need an idea. Because your whole life is… really not book material. But one thematic chunk of it? One...
07.21.2023
How to Decide if Your Book Idea is Solid (or Solid Enough)
This is the third in our 2023 Summer Idea Factory series. Jennie Nash is back, and this time, she and I are talking about the process of testing out ideas, talking through them, and spending enough time with them to...
07.14.2023
The Airport Game (or, how to come up with 8 ideas on a 3 hour long flight)
THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING EVER. Jennie Nash and I (KJ here) are talking ideas this summer: getting them, keeping them, taking them from baby spark idea to big-enough-to-hold-a draft idea. In this episode, I lay out my favorite technique...
07.07.2023
Welcome to the Idea Factory (Good Writing Comes Last, Part 2)
Writers, I have IDEAS. Usually a lot of them. 99% of them go nowhere. You can feel me bubbling over with ideas in every episode and even in the title of many episodes. There is so much I always want...
07.01.2023
How to Start a Novel (and keep going) Episode 365
I did a call with a writer this week who really is just getting started, with a few short stories finished and dreams of the future, and after we talked at probably unnecessary length about the fundamental truth that writing...
06.23.2023
Summer Reading for Writers (plus a #FlashbackFriday: Episode 269)
Two years ago, Jennie Nash and I (this is KJ) got into a debate about what was the best, most helpful book for a writer’s bookshelf. Almost instantly we realized that we couldn’t choose just one (although if we could,...
06.16.2023
Satire: writing just below "over-the-top" with Jane Roper Episode 364
The book is The Society of Shame and one of the many, many ways you can tell it’s satire is that it keeps making people who don’t get it mad. Satire is fiction, hopped up on humor and then amped up...
06.09.2023
How to Hate Your Work and Also Sell It-- at the same time. Episode 363
Howdy from KJ’s office, where I’m trapped because outside these doors, an angry child lies in wait, ready to tell me all I’ve done wrong as a parent over lo these many years. Good thing I had Jess and Sarina...
06.02.2023
Talking Fat Talk and Substack Success: Episode 362 with Virginia Sole-Smith
SO. Virginia’s Substack—here it is right here—which also features a podcast, went from 700 people to 4500 people to 28K subscribers. BEFORE her new book, Fat Talk, hit the NYT best-seller list. Wouldn’t you like to hear how? We’ve got...
05.26.2023
Flashback Friday: Episode 288 with Joni Cole
How 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...
05.19.2023
Scrivener Tips: It's only taken Jess 361 episodes to deliver on her promise
Jess here. I know, I KNOW. I’ve been meaning to get to this for ages but who has time to just sit and watch videos about software? Not me. However, last week Sarina told me about some of her Scrivener...
05.12.2023
Summoning My Accountability Buddies: Because Sometimes Writers Need Deadlines, ep 360
Jess here. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I know how my brain works, which is to say it doesn’t, unless a hard and fast deadline looms large in my calendar. I’ve been known to tell my agent or editor...
05.05.2023
Dealing with Goal Fatigue What to Do When the Goals Aren't Getting You Anywhere, Ep. 359
Dana Bowman is the author How to Be Perfect Like Me and Bottled Up: A Mom’s Guide to Early Recovery. She was the 2016 recipient of the Kansas Notable Book Award, making her the only podcast guest to share that...
04.28.2023
Flashback Friday: Jodi Kantor Chases the Truth
Jess here! This week, I’m coming to you from somewhere in Indiana, tired but happy. Getting out on the road and speaking to students, teachers, and communities is both exhausting and incredibly invigorating, and this week I got to speak...
04.21.2023
Intoxication for Inspiration: Do drugs and alcohol unleash the muses? Episode 358
As a former member of the “write drunk, edit sober” club, I thought it might be interesting to look at the research on alcohol, weed, stimulants and their effect on creativity so we can figure out what’s working for us,...
04.14.2023
The Anxious Writer: Turning fears into superpowers. Episode 357
Actually, there is no action without anxiety. We all feel it, and we’re all driven by it—and almost no one is completely at peace with it. Morra Aarons-Mele, author of The Anxious Achiever and Hiding in the Bathroom: How to...
04.07.2023
Writerly Tech: the hardware, the software and the why. Episode 356
We’ll admit it. We like our writerly gear. We get a little rush from visiting our favorite Vermont stationery store together. (In fact, we just did this last week.) But in all seriousness, we spend a lot of time on...
03.31.2023
In My Expert Opinion: Pitching, Prepping, and Nailing Interviews for TV and Radio
Becoming an expert takes years of work and many of you have asked how you can take that expertise out for a spin in the media. I don’t blame you. From the moment the my first Atlantic article, “Why Parents...

What's #AmWriting about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

#AmWriting episodes:

Daring to Kickstarter with Rachael Herron

Episode: 395 Who Owns an Idea?

Flashback Friday: Writing While #Broken

Things Jess Learned This Month, Ep. 394

I want to sell books. But I'm also writing what I want to write. Episode 393 with Jo Piazza

How to Be a Good Literary Citizen: Volunteer at a Writing Conference

Flashback Friday: How Do You Write a Non-Fiction Book in less than a Year?

Why You Should Take a Plot-walk

Coaching call with author, educator & speaker Katie Kinder

How to Create a Substack that Delivers (for you and your readers) Episode 389 with Dan Blank

What’s on the Cutting Room Floor?

Ep 387: The Art of Manifesting for Tired and Skeptical Authors

Episode 386: Under the Weather Productivity

Ep 385: What I Think About When I Think About Job Offers

Unapologetically Re-creating our Abundant Zone of Genius

Flashback Friday: Become a #BetterStrongerFaster Writer with Becca Syme

Flashback Friday: Episode 293, how to build a literary life with Zibby Owens.

When Inner Dialogue Isn't "Telling" and When It Is in Memoir and Fiction

How to Restart Your Work after an Unplanned Pause

How Sarina's Reading Journal Makes Her a Better Novelist: Episode 382

How to Find the Right Speaking Agent: Ep 381

National Novel Planning Month (that should be a thing)

A Million Little Pieces that can Make or Break a Speaking Engagement: Episode 379

Six Seasons in One Episode: Cookbooks as Memoir with Gesine Bullock-Prado, Ep 378

Writing for Tweendom: Jamie Sumner on writing difficult topics and the glory of middle grade fiction

Flinging a Fall Book out into the world

Reinvention Marketing: Selling Your Book for Years After Pub Day

From Idea to Execution: Building a Book

Never Carved in Stone: Letting Ideas Evolve

Ideas and Nonfiction: Your Book Idea Contains Multitudes

When Good Ideas Go Bad (the most common mistakes writers make)

Memoirs for the Marketplace: A Blueprint for Success

You Are the Protagonist (memoirs need ideas too) with Rachael Herron

How to Decide if Your Book Idea is Solid (or Solid Enough)

The Airport Game (or, how to come up with 8 ideas on a 3 hour long flight)

Welcome to the Idea Factory (Good Writing Comes Last, Part 2)

How to Start a Novel (and keep going) Episode 365

Summer Reading for Writers (plus a #FlashbackFriday: Episode 269)

Satire: writing just below "over-the-top" with Jane Roper Episode 364

How to Hate Your Work and Also Sell It-- at the same time. Episode 363

Talking Fat Talk and Substack Success: Episode 362 with Virginia Sole-Smith

Flashback Friday: Episode 288 with Joni Cole

Scrivener Tips: It's only taken Jess 361 episodes to deliver on her promise

Summoning My Accountability Buddies: Because Sometimes Writers Need Deadlines, ep 360

Dealing with Goal Fatigue What to Do When the Goals Aren't Getting You Anywhere, Ep. 359

Flashback Friday: Jodi Kantor Chases the Truth

Intoxication for Inspiration: Do drugs and alcohol unleash the muses? Episode 358

The Anxious Writer: Turning fears into superpowers. Episode 357

Writerly Tech: the hardware, the software and the why. Episode 356

In My Expert Opinion: Pitching, Prepping, and Nailing Interviews for TV and Radio