#AmWriting

This week we talk to Maria Konnikova about her new book, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win.

After a series of devastating health and financial setbacks, Konnikova, a former New Yorker staffer whose other books include Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock and The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It…Every Timeset out to understand how luck, skill and human behavior contribute to the trajectory of our lives. Though she’d never played a hand of poker in her life, she convinced Poker Hall of Fame inductee Erik Seidel to become her coach. Konnikova quit her job at the New Yorker and set aside a year to learn poker as a way to master her luck and her life.

One career in professional poker and more than $300,000 later, Konnikova found at least some of the answers she sought.

Links from the Podcast:

Long Form Storytelling, The Grift Podcast

Slate daily podcast, The Gist

#AmReading

Maria: Weird by Olga Khazan

KJ: The Authenticity Project by Claire Pooley

Jess: Sunny Days by David Kamp

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

This week, the How to Launch a Book series continues with everyone’s favorite: book launching on social media.

Twitter. Instagram. Canva. PicMonkey. Crello. Pinterest. Linked In. Head blowing up yet? We talk about planning your launch social media, how to use social media and image-creating apps to share and promote and why you shouldn’t feel one bit like you’re talking about your book too much when you’re launching it into the world.

We also fall apart a bit, here and there, because these are falling apart times, and we feel it.

#AmReading

KJ: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Jess: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

How to Be an AntiRacist by Ibram X Kendi

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Sarina: Pale Rider Laura Spinney

Don’t forget to check in with our sponsor, Author Accelerator. They’ve got a special book coaching class happening in June on coaching historical fiction, which I would love to be a fly on the wall for—as well as introductory and master classes on book coaching, and, as always, the ability to match you with just the right book coach to help you move your work forward.

As for us—we send out a MiniSode or a Writer Top Five every Monday to our supporters. Your support pays for the production and transcription of the podcast, and is the reason why, this week, you don’t also hear my conversation with the child who walked in while we’re recording. Also why there’s music and a fun opening. Because we hired a professional, because it’s good to do these things right.

So thanks for chipping in—and if you’d like to join us, click the button.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:01

Hey writers, it's KJ. This week we are continuing our book launch series and Sarina is schooling me on getting all my social media ready for a fiction launch. At our sponsor, Author Accelerator, they're offering some different schooling this month, June of 2020 with classes in book coaching. There are introductory classes, master classes, and (this fascinates me) a special class this month on coaching historical fiction. I love that they're getting so specific, and I would love to listen in on that one. If you're intrigued find out more at authoraccelerator.com. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 0:40

Now it's recording.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:43

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 0:47

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:48

Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three. Hi, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting, the podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, fiction, nonfiction, essays, book proposals, pitches. In short, this is, as I say every week, the podcast about settling down and getting your writing work done.

Jess Lahey 1:18

This is Jess Lahey I am the author of The Gift of Failure and the forthcoming The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my work at the New York Times, and the Washington Post, and The Atlantic, and various other spots.

Sarina Bowen 1:29

I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 35 romance novels and the most recent one is called Sure Shot.

KJ Dell'Antonia 1:35

I am KJ Dell'Antonia, author of the novel The Chickens Sisters coming out July of 2020 and the book How to Be a Happier Parent out in paperback now, as well as the former editor of the Motherlode blog and column at the New York Times where I am still a contributor. That's who we are. And this week, we're continuing our how to launch a book series, in which we sort of try to cover all the different arenas of things that you can get ready for before your book launches. We've done Amazon, Bookbub, and Goodreads. We've done websites. And now we're going to turn our attention to social media.

Sarina Bowen 2:22

That beast called social media.

Jess Lahey 2:24

Such a powerful tool sometimes. Well, and I know for a fact that when I talk to authors who are sort of contemplating the social media sort of for the first time in a professional context, they're just so overwhelmed. They're like, do I have to do all of it? So Sarina, do we have to do all of it? Do we have to do Pinterest, and Instagram, and Facebook, and do we have to be good at all of it? Because that's the thing that seems to overwhelm authors.

Sarina Bowen 2:52

Absolutely. You will find it overwhelming because it is overwhelming and you don't have to do it all. You absolutely have my permission not to do all of it. So, of course, everybody has their favorites. So you really need to ask yourself two questions. And Jess, you've been super articulate about this, too. Like, the two questions really are, which platform is your favorite or which platform makes you hate it the least? And the corollary question, which is almost as important, which platform is your people?

Jess Lahey 3:45

Yeah, where's your audience?

Sarina Bowen 3:47

Yeah. And you and I have discovered that our answers to this question are like 180 degrees different, whereas you talk to educators all the time on Twitter, and my audience is really on Facebook and Instagram.

Jess Lahey 4:04

Yep. How did you figure that out? I mean, for me, it was fairly obvious from the get go because I think I started learning about personal learning networks and realizing, oh, that's where all the teachers were. And I was using it for teaching. But then, of course, when I started writing something that was about teaching, it was sort of a natural fit for me. But did you have to go looking and sort of figuring out where all those people were for you?

Sarina Bowen 4:28

I really did have to pay attention because there are a lot of authors on Twitter. But at one point, somebody said to me, Twitter is where I go to talk to other authors. But I reached my readers on Facebook and I thought, okay, well, that feels a little bit familiar. But I'm a really analytical person and I like data. So of course, I've been using all of these sites, at least partly, for kind of a long time. And I realized that my Squarespace website (and every website does this in some capacity, you just have to find it, but it has really good data about this) it's called traffic sources is the page that I look at. And under social media in the last 30 days, you can see, or maybe I'm at seven days here. But over some period of recent time, I have gotten 816 clicks from Facebook, 158 clicks from Goodreads, and 78 clicks from Twitter, and 18 clicks from Pinterest. So that tells a really clear story immediately about what's working. And of course, we post fewer links on Instagram and my Instagram shows up on this other page because I use a program for this and I'm getting like 200 off Instagram.

Jess Lahey 5:54

Wait, what do you mean when you say that your Instagram is showing up on another page and use an app for that?

Sarina Bowen 6:01

Well, let's let's just dive right into Instagram because lots of authors love it. So anyway, what I was trying to say is that you, you can be given permission to cut one of these out if you can see in hard numbers where people are finding you. And of course, a lot of the links that I post on social media do not lead back to my website. So this is just a little subset. But I still find it quite telling and it gave me permission to walk away from Twitter without really looking back and I actually changed my account there. It says now that it's a Sarina Bowen update account infrequently monitored, because I'm not part of the conversation. And it basically says, this is a promo account, you know, do with that what you will, I don't expect to have a grand, wonderful following there, because I have chosen not to pursue it.

Jess Lahey 6:57

You know, it's really interesting. I have a column up in TweetDeck - one for you and one for KJ, because I like to keep tabs on what people are saying about my peeps. And occasionally I'll find stuff before you guys see it. But what I often see are cross posts from Goodreads with a tweet saying what percentage they are through him via Goodreads. …

Hey all—this week, a special mini episode on diversity in sources for non-fiction work, from light-hearted articles on favorite baby food flavors to seriously researched pieces for high-profile outlets. BIPOC, non-binary and women are outweighed by white men when it comes to who gets quoted in the news, whether the voice is adding an expert perspective or just a little local color. Here’s some help finding sources that reflect the world we’re writing about.

Links from the Pod

SheSource

Informed Voices

NPR’s Source of the Week and how to use it.

Columbia University’s list of female, non-binary and BIPOC experts on the media

HARO

This mini-episode went wide, because the topic is important and we wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to hear it. Other minisodes, like the recent Pitching Yourself to Producers, and Writer Top Fives (like Top Five Ways to Boost a Writers Instagram or Top Five Ways to Start a Revision) go out to our supporters every Monday. That support pays for production and transcription (we give you all our time because we love you) and we appreciate it. Want to help? We’ll make it easy for you: click the button.

Why stick to any one genre? Our guest this week is Catherine Newman: memoirist, middle grade novelist, etiquette columnist and now the author of How to Be a Person: 65 Highly Useful, Super-Important Things to Learn Before You’re Grown-Up. While she’s at it, she writes a cooking blog, co-authored a book on crafts for kids and edits ChopChop, a kids cooking magazine. And she pens frequent funny essays for everything from O to the New York Times to the Cup of Jo website. In other words, she’s putting a pastiche of writing together and making it work with an insouciant disregard for any and all advice about self-branding or owning an niche or sticking to one topic or identity.

In fact, I’d argue that “insouciant disregard” might just BE her brand.

This episode also includes the immortal words “I’ve never had to kill anything during the podcast before,” uttered by Jess—so that’s a reason to listen right there. But there are plenty of others—this is a real nitty gritty episode on building a career and getting things done.

#AmReading

KJ: Henna Artist by Alka Joshi

Recipes for a Beautiful Life by Rebecca Barry

Jess: Sure Shot by Sarina Bowen

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Missing You by Harlan Coben

Catherine: Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Sea Wife by Amity Gaige

The Chicken Sisters by KJ Dell’Antonia

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

KJ Dell'Antonia 0:00

Hey writers KJ here. Usually I write down what I'm going to tell you in our pre episode, promotional blurb, whatever you want to call this, and I will say right away that of course we are, as always sponsored by our friends at Author Accelerator, who we love. This week, instead of writing down some great reasons why we love them I just wanted to take a minute to read to you from the email that I got from Jenny Nash this week. This is her weekly email that goes out to anyone who's on the Author Accelerator list, or read every single one of those and I cannot say that about almost any other weekly email I get, there a couple. Anyway, Jenny writes, "I was speaking with a writer this week who could see the light at the end of the tunnel on her novel. She was almost done and she was terrified. She could feel herself panicking and turning to other shiny new ideas. Anything that wasn't this almost done idea. Being done would mean that her work could be rejected. Being done would mean that her work could be judged. Being done would mean that her limitations and weaknesses as a writer would be on display for everyone to see. Being done would mean that whatever she had on the page was as good as she was able to do. Even if it wasn't anywhere close to the perfect story in her mind. Being done would mean that she would be exposed." I could really, really relate to that. And I think I'm not the only one. A lot of us start to let things go the minute we get anywhere close to the finish line, because the finish line is scary. And if that's the place where you are maybe now is the moment when you want to reach out and see about working with a writing coach. You might not need much a few weeks, a little bit of a push, a little bit of help, just to take that thing that you're working on, and get it through to not the almost best you can do (which you know allows a lot of room for imagining other things) but the actual best you could do and then make a real decision about what it is you'd like to do with it. If you're game for that, you should head over to authoraccelerator.com and click your way through to all the great places because we love them and there's also a lot of other good stuff there. While I'm here I also want to say that this episode includes a couple of small swear words here and there and also some weird commentary on vaginas. Because this is one of our dearest friends we're interviewing this week and we got a little bit weird. So letting you know that so if you have tiny ears around that you are concerned about? Honestly, it's no big on this one. I don't think that it will bother you, but I wanted to give you a heads up. Alright. Enjoy it. This is a great episode. Is it recording?

Jess Lahey 2:51

Now it's recording.

KJ Dell'Antonia 2:53

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.

Jess Lahey 2:57

Alright, let's start over.

KJ Dell'Antonia 2:58

Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.

Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia. And this is #AmWriting. The podcast about writing all things, from fiction, to nonfiction, pitches, proposals, emails, essays. This is the podcast about sitting down and getting your writing work done.

Jess Lahey 3:27

I'm Jess Lahey, I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and the forthcoming book The Addiction Inoculation, Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence, who the subtitles are always so tricky, and you can find my work on the old interwebs at The Atlantic and the New York Times and The Washington Post and lots of other places.

KJ Dell'Antonia 3:58

I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the author of the novel The Chicken Sisters coming out on July 1 of this year, which is 2020. For those of you listening in the future, when I hope things are not what they are now, but that is not what we are going to talk about today. We have a guest, our guest is Catherine Newman, who we've actually been trying to record with Catherine since like since like our 10th episode. But wait, I want to tell you about Catherine, she is a memoirist, a middle grade novelist, and etiquette columnist and now the author of How to Be a Person: 66 Highly Useful, Super Important Things to Learn Before You're Grown Up.

Jess Lahey 4:57

It's actually 65, but I think that we should invent a 66 while we're here.

KJ Dell'Antonia 5:22

Okay, no, I wasn't done. I wasn't done - because while she's at it, Catherine writes a cooking blog, she co-authored a book on crafts for kids, and she edits Chop Chop, a kid's cooking magazine, which I didn't even know till I just recently read her bio because I never read the bios of my friends because I'm supposed to know all this stuff, but I didn't. And she pens frequent funny essays for everything from O to The New York Times to The Cup of Joe website. In other words, she's putting a pastiche of writing together and making it work with an insouciance disregard for any and all advice about self branding, or owning a niche, or sticking to one topic or an identity, and in fact, I would argue that insouciance disregard might just be Catherine Newman's brand.

Catherine Newman 6:10

Oh, my God, that's it. I just feel like that's the mic drop. I'm so happy. I also feel like you just fully explained all the problems I have. It's my insouciance disregard.

Well, I loved your intro. My intro really would have been you know, this is Catherine Newman for me is the writer that, not only a person I adore and know personally, but as a writer she's the one who always figures out the new way to say the thing I have been feeling and yet felt so cliched that I never wrote it down. She always has some new amazing way to state it and then I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, how has no one ever said it that way before?' and it's so true and perfect and beautiful. And you know, for a lot of writers that write about parenting and this whole racket that we call life, often if they have a favorite piece, I often will say let me guess was it by Catherine Newman because her pieces just rank as people's favorites.

Jess Lahey 8:00

We love your stuff. But you guys, you and KJ have a much longer relationship than you and I do, Catherine. So KJ, tell them where you guys met.

KJ Dell'…

When your book launches, you want to meet your readers where they are: anywhere people are talking about—or better yet, buying—books. Of course we want to support our local Indies (that’s why the links here are all to Bookshop.org)—but if there are readers on Amazon, we’re going to be there too. This week, we’re talking about how to get yourself set up on Amazon, Goodreads and Bookbub—and why you absolutely should.

For more info, check out our past Writer Top Fives on setting up your Amazon, Goodreads and Bookbub pages. Usually, Top Fives and Minisodes go out to our supporters, but we’ve made these three available to everyone—because the info in them is so great, and maybe a little because this way, you can see what you’re missing. If now’s your time to sign up to support the podcast, click the button.

She might just have the perfect job. This week, Jess and I interview Abbe Wright, Senior Editor at ReadItForward.com and co-host of The Adaptables, a podcast that hashes over every detail of the movies and shows that are adapted from the books we love.

Links from the pod:

I wanted to break up. Then he got a tattoo of my name.

Read It Forward Podcast

The Adaptables

The Longform Podcast

Bookbento (Read It Forward’s Instagram)

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Normal People by Sally Rooney

#AmReading

Abbe: All Adults Here by Emma Straub

Jess: Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller

Nerve by Eva Holland

Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui

KJ: The Address Book by Deirdre Mask

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

Back in December 2019, we set #WriterGoals for 2020.

We had no idea. This week, we go back in and revisit—which goals still stand? Which do we have to let go, and which just don’t feel right any more? Was there any point in setting these goals in the first place?

In the end, we decide (not very cheerfully, it has to be admitted) that while our goals are necessarily changing, they’re always worth setting and revisiting. We’ll all be settling down to think differently about what we hope for in what’s left of 2020.

Are you revising your 2020 goals, or sticking to plan A? Head over to the #AmWriting Facebook group and tell us about it.

#AmReading

KJ: Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

The Body in the Garden by Katharine Schellman

Sarina: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Jess: Audible Original: David Sedaris, Themes and Variations

Rat by Stephen King (found in the If It Bleeds novella collection)

Hey—now is a great time to check out our sponsor, Author Accelerator, where you can launch a career as a book coach or get paired with the right coach to get your project moving.

And if you’d like to support the creation of #AmWriting, we’d appreciate your help! Supporters get weekly Minisodes or Writer Top Fives—and our undying gratitude. Want in? Click the button.

KJ (00:01):

Hey everyone. KJ. Here we are talking writer goals again this week. It's our midyear review - pandemic style. If you're setting your own goals for the rest of 2020 our sponsor Author Accelerator can help you start a new side gig as a book coach or match you with a coach who can help you work through challenges both on the page and in the calendar for getting your current project done. Find out more at authoraccelerator.com/amwriting. Is It recording?

Jess (00:33):

Now it's recording. Go ahead.

KJ (00:35):

This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.

Jess (00:39):

Alright, let's start over.

KJ (00:40):

Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, fiction, nonfiction, essays, pitches, proposals, and as we say every week, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.

Jess (01:11):

I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and a forthcoming book about preventing substance abuse in kids called The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my writing at places like the Atlantic and the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Sarina (01:25):

And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of some romance novels. My most recent USA Today bestseller was Heartland, which came out in early 2020.

KJ (01:35):

And I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the author of the novel, The Chicken Sisters, which is coming out in June of this year as well as How To Be a Happier Parent already long out in hardback, but coming out in paperback this summer. And actually that's still happening, which I'm pretty pleased about. And the former editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times where I am still a reasonably regular contributor. And that's who we are. And where we are is in our houses, which is actually where we all are. But you know, it bears mentioning on this the 9th of May, 2020. Yeah.

Jess (02:15):

Which contributes to our topic today. You want to tell everybody what we want to talk about today?

KJ (02:22):

Oh sure. So we're gonna revisit our goals. Every year around this time we like to take a little mid-year review. We usually do it in June, so I guess we're doing it a touch early, but it has occurred to us that perhaps some of our goals are not going to be the same for the rest of the year. So it seemed like it was a good time to sit down and take a look at what we thought we were going to achieve, what we have achieved and what we're still hoping to achieve. So we've all got them lined up right here in front of us and away we go.

Jess (02:56):

Who wants to go first?

Sarina (02:57):

I would love to open.

Jess (03:00):

Oh, please do.

Sarina (03:02):

Well, you know, we all are fans of Dan Blank who has been a guest on this podcast and also has his own terrific podcast as well. And Dan Blank's podcast is called The Creative Shift. So he sends out a weekly newsletter that is pure gold and you should subscribe.

KJ (03:26):

It really is, it's one of the best ones I know of.

Sarina (03:29):

So, two Fridays ago, he sent one out that began with sharing a New Yorker cartoon that really speaks to what it's like to be a writer right now. And it's a picture of a guy in a rowboat in the middle of a choppy body of water. And you can see there's a shark, and there's a ship sinking behind him, and there's lightning, and it's raining. And the caption says, 'This is it - the time to finish your novel.' And I love it desperately because, you know, remember back in March when we were all like, Hey, what are we going to accomplish while we're stuck at home? Or how about when the three of us (and I'm so happy we did this, I wouldn't change a thing), but we sat and recorded an episode in December right before our office party where we go out together for lunch and we very cheerfully made a list of goals for 2020. Not having any clue that 2020 would shape up to be quite unlike most of the other years that we've sat around planning things together. So I think we should revisit those goals and see what is capable on here. And what have we learned about goal making from our lists.

Jess (04:54):

I was going to say the first thing I've learned is to be flexible, and to shift, and to adjust to your surroundings. Cause clearly that's the theme of the day. Alright. So what'd you have on there, Ms. Sarina?

Sarina (05:10):

Well, you know, many of my goals could really stand up in terms of getting the same things done. Especially where I had goals about helping other people, and helping other authors, and helping other women. And those things are all still true and I've been trying to do more of that. But of course I had some goals about like how much I was going to accomplish in terms of writing. And, you know, I'm not teaching anybody to read right now because my kids are old enough to handle this stuff by themselves. But, I didn't count account for my own potential anxiety and the difficulties of making career decisions when the whole world seems to be shifting. So goal I'm having the most trouble with is the one where I was writing an entire book to give to my agent to sell in a new genre for me and that suddenly feels insurmountable even though my work day could look the same because I don't know if that part of publishing is going to be there for me when I'm done. And that's like a mental obstacle to doing that.

Jess (06:19):

You mean the YA genre?

Sarina (06:21):

Yeah. Well, you know, unfortunately I have a lot of knowledge of economics and I'm watching businesses fail around me. And I have like a mental block about writing into a publishing world that might not exist when I'm done.

Jess (06:42):

Yeah, I hear that. Absolutely.

KJ (06:47):

I am still plowing through, my top number one goal was to finish a book that has now got a different title than it had in my list of goals, but that is fine. Who knows what the title is going to be, but that was my top number one goal was to finish it, and then hopefully get it out, and pitch it to editors. And that is still my top goal despite the obvious changes in the publishing market. I'm not struggling with that as much, but it's probably because I don't have the alternative that you have. Like you could put your time into stuff that you can independently publish and you know you will be there, and readers will be there, and digital book sales will be there. So, it's different, you've got a different choice there.

Sarina (07:42):

I was just going to say that the fact that most of my publishing is digital is such a blessing and I just don't discount it at all. And also my f…

Check out this Minisode where Jess discusses the mistakes she made writing her first book, and her new tricks to avoid making them again.

Usually, Minisodes and Top Fives go out weekly to our supporters. But once in a while, we send one out to everyone—like this one.

If you’d like more Minisodes (coming soon: Jess on Pitching Podcast Producers), or Top Fives like the Top Five Things to Know About Writing Under a Pseudonym or Top Five Ways to Start a Revision, become a #AmWriting supporter with just one click. And, uh, your credit card. Because while the podcast is free for you all (and we love doing it) it’s not free to create, and we truly appreciate the help from everyone who can chip in to help us make it, and make it better.

Our guest today is Anne Bogel, most recently the author of Don’t Overthink It, which came out on March 3, 2020. Followers of this podcast who’ve taken my advice may have checked out her podcast, What Should I Read Next, where she talks books, reading and recommendations with guests—because I’m a huge fan. Anne is also the author of I’d Rather Be Reading and Reading People: How Seeing the World Through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything, the host of a second podcast, One Great Book and the blogger behind the Modern Mrs. Darcy.com.

We talk about genres, owning your expertise, finding your voice and launching a book in a global pandemic. Some favorite advice goes straight to the title of Anne’s latest book: don’t overthink it. Sometimes, the right idea for a book is the one that’s always with you, that you’re interested in, that feels easy and obvious to you because it is—but isn’t such a cakewalk for everyone else.

#AmReading

Anne: Musical Chairs by Amy Poeppel (available July 21st, 2020)

The Switch by Beth O’Leary, who also authored The FlatShare

KJ: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Jess: Wild Horses of the Summer Sun by Tory Bilski

The Boy from the Woods by Harlan Cobin

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

This week, it’s Jess and I (KJ) talking to Olivia and Meghan from the Marginally podcast, which we love for its frank conversations about challenges and setbacks and day jobs and the struggle to keep your butt in the chair (sound familiar?).

We talked about finding your writing people, the joys of keeping that day job, and the things that grow from grabbing a friend and starting the thing you wish someone else would start.

#AmWriting

Meghan: Followers by Megan Angelo

The Glass Hotel by Emily St John Mandel

Olivia: Emma by Jane Austen (and all the movies)

Independence Square by A.D. Miller

Jess: Wow, No Thank you by Samantha Irby

KJ: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn

Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below:

But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode.

Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.