#AmWriting

We’ve got a great interview for you today with a freelance journalist who does a different kind of work than any of us ever have—out in the field reporting on his favorite subject: reality adventure TV on trips rife with travel and danger and expense reports. I think you’ll love it. 

We talk about finding your topic and making that topic, well, topical by looking for what’s happening within the world you’re covering that reflects what’s happening outside of it. We also discuss MFAs (he’s a fan), email (not so much) and how to keep from “opening your email and letting somebody else dictate what you do with your time.”

fresh.ink

Longform on Twitter

Andy: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Jess: The Summer of ‘69 by Elin Hilderbrand

The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson

KJ: The Guest List Lucy Foley

#TBR: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

Find out more about our guest:

AndyDehnart.com
Reality Blurred
Andy’s newsletter
Find Andy on Twitter
See Andy’s book recs on Bookshop

And if you love the podcast, have you considered kicking in some cash? Our sponsors cover our production costs, but our time is basically sponsored by you, our loyal listeners. If we’ve added a little value to your day or week or year, please consider supporting us. How? Click the button.

Support #AmWriting

As we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop.

And if listening to all of our conversations about book coaching has made you think, hey—that’s the career for me—then you’ll want to head to Author Accelerator’s BookCoaches.com to see how you can make that happen. Or if listening to the promo this week made you wonder about book coach Kemlo Aki, find more about her here. 

Write every day. Don’t read fiction while you’re writing fiction. My way or the highway. In a burst of frustration, we’re reminding ourselves—and you—that there’s no one way to get this job done, and if your way is counter to what some of the greats might tell you (we’re looking at you, Stephen King, even though we love you), that doesn’t mean it won’t work.

A few links from the episode:

Minisode: #AmQuerying: How to write a fiction query letter that makes an agent ask for more

Becca Syme: https://betterfasteracademy.com/beccasyme/

Rachel Hawkins/Erin Sterling @LadyHawkins
Me, Writing Books: MAN, I hope this is not stupid!! Me, READING books/watching TV/consuming basically any media: THIS IS SO STUPID I LOVE IT SO MUCH ONLY HAVE ROOM IN MY HEART FOR THE STUPIDEST OF THINGS, THANK YOOOUUU!!!!!
July 17th 202023 Retweets355 Likes

#AmReading

Sarina: Notes of Silencing by Lacy Crawford

Jess: Unacceptable by Melissa Korn & Jennifer Levitz

Unspeakable Acts by Sarah Weinman

KJ: Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett


Our amazing sponsors: Dabble Writing Software, which I can’t wait to use to line up all my scenes and plot points AS SOON AS I START FIGURING OUT WHAT THEY ARE and which you should absolutely try.

And Author Accelerator. Jennie Nash is doing a Facebook Live coaching of a memoir outline on August 14, 2020—that’s next week. I can’t wait, I love watching her do these. Sign up here, or just go learn more!

Hey campers—I hate reading you all a canned intro to our authors every time, so I’m winging it with our guest, Sonali Dev. I’m a fan of hers, so I feel like I know all the things. She’s the author of four straight-up romances, but her last-book-but one is the start of a series written in homage to Jane Austen, as is her latest, both set among the members of a politically ambitious Indian family in California. Why Jane Austen? Because, as Sonali says, “those were the first books I read about women wanting things and getting them. Instead of ending up crazy or dead.”

We talk the pros and cons of writing from such revered material, whether readers are “looking for Lydia,” the need to make your heroine “likeable” (pro tip: the female Darcy is hard sledding) and supplying recipes for hungry readers. 

Links from the pod: 

Sonali Dev on IG

Newsletter with a recipe booklet, recommendations, and a really bad joke.

Sonali: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan

KJ: The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

Perfect Happiness by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

Sarina: Pale Rider by Laura Spinney

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry


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

Upgrade to Supporter

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.

Get New Episode Emails

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

This week, Jess got a message from some family members who’d read the draft of her forthcoming book, The Addiction Innoculation. They had … thoughts. 

Those thoughts turned out to be nothing drastic—but the emotional roller coaster Jess rode while waiting to hear more was a doozy, and got us all thinking about how much of ourselves is exposed when we write non-fiction with a memoir element, how real memoirists do it, and how often readers—especially those closest to you—read our fiction looking for hidden truths. It’s a fun conversation that also covers pool floats, parents, dream offices we probably wouldn’t use and more. 

Yard Pods

Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley

Mrs. Everything by Jen Weiner

KJ and Sarina’s Pool Floats

KJ: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld

I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

Jess: Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford

Sarina: Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlane


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

Upgrade to Supporter

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.

Get New Episode Emails

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

Kari Lizer is best known for her work in television, as writer and co-executive producer of Will & Grace and the creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine. When her essays about parenting took the shape of a book, she found that her real life provided more than enough material for a comedic memoir. Aren’t You Forgetting Someone? has it all - chickens, Kate Middleton’s bangs, psychics, and the promise of happy endings.

Jess: Beach Read by Emily Henry

Sarina: The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

Kari: Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout


Subscription links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #MinisodeMonday that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, July 20th: How an Editor Considers an Essay. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #BonusContent with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month.

Upgrade to Supporter

As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. 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 with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode.

Get New Episode Emails

To support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email.


This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.

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

If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.

Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)

We have trouble believing you haven’t already heard of our guest this week, Susan Wiggs, but just in case—she’s the author of many many novels, a multiple #1 New York Times bestseller and an overall amazing storyteller. Her current novel, The Lost and Found Bookshop, is on sale now and her most recent bestseller, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, is just out in paperback.

We talk crafting a story, starting from the emotional journey versus the physical plot, building a character, choosing a setting and our collective addiction to writing books, and Susan reveals that she does indeed read fiction while she’s writing fiction—and it’s a good thing, too, because her reading list is long indeed. 

Links from the Pod

Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman

This American Life, Promised Land (the “I Wish” song episode)

Aging in Place by Aaron D Murphy

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

On Ocean Boulevard by Mary Alice Monroe

House Lessons by Erica Bauermeister

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid


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

Upgrade to Supporter

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.

Get New Episode Emails

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

This episode springs from a question asked in the #AmWriting Facebook group (if you’re not in it, you should be): Sarina has talked about her decision to be independently published, but we’ve never heard from Jess and KJ about why they go the traditional route.

We discuss the three things you should think about when making the Indie/Traditional call, why you need to think hard about airport bookstores and finding the print ratio—and the good and bad reasons for making this choice.

Sarina: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

KJ: The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron

Jess: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor

(listen to the #AmWriting episode with Sarah here)


As we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop.

And if listening to all of our conversations about book coaching has made you think, hey—that’s the career for me—then you’ll want to head to Author Accelerator’s BookCoaches.com to see how you can make that happen. 

Here’s what we don’t always say: Man we love recording the podcast. But every hour spent on it is an hour not writing! Our production costs are now covered by our lovely (and carefully chosen) sponsors, but our time in pulling it all together is supported by you, our listeners. We’d love it if you joined that team (if you’re not already on it!) 

Supporters get weekly #WriterTopFives like The Top Five (Free) Ways to Get Your Shiny New Book Cover in Front of People’s Eyeballs or #Minisodes like Don't Make the Same Mistakes Twice—and thanks to the magic of substack, those minisodes drop right into your pod-player once you’re set up. Want in? Support #AmWriting

You listen to podcasts. You love podcasts. (Perhaps we’re assuming here, but after all, we ARE a podcast.) And you’re a writer, with books or articles or ideas or other projects you want to get out into the world. Which just might mean you’ve imagined yourself as a guest on a podcast, sharing your work. (It’s the writer version of the sportscaster doing an imaginary play-by-play while a kid shoots hoops—we imagine ourselves being interviewed by our favorite podcasters.)

This week’s guest, Lauren Passell, can help with that. She loves podcasts (she even created a weekly email that’s essentially a love letter to the big, the small, the great and the weird in the podcast world: Podcast, the Newsletter). And she loves writers. And she loves connecting writers with podcasts, so much so that she’s turned it into her business: TINK Media, a PR company specializing in podcasts. We talk about creating a podcast-worthy story, finding the right podcasts to pitch, perfecting those pitches and making your voice a part of the podcast world. It’s an amazing and useful episode. I think you’re gonna love it.

Links from the pod

Subscribe to Podcast the Newsletter and take the quiz

ListenNotes.com

Player.fm

Pocketcast

Stitcher

[Castro]

Friday Black, a short story collection by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

The United States of Anxiety: I Did Not Watch the Video

Jess: Longform

CBC Podcasts: Finding Cleo, Someone Knows Something

KJ: How Do You Write with Rachael Herron

Lauren: Threshholds, produced by LitHub

Articles of Interest, from 99% Invisible


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

Upgrade to Supporter

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.

Get New Episode Emails

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

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

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:

Upgrade to Supporter

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.

Get New Episode Emails

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.

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