Behind the Prose

I recorded this episode in September when Dinty W. Moore’s latest book, Dear Mister Essay Writer Guy: Advice and Confessions on Writing, Love, and Cannibals hit the stands. We talk about that book and his classic memoir Between Panic and Desire.

In this interview you’ll learn how to:

Craft universality in memoir,Create “character” in nonfiction, andTrust your ear in the drafting process.

Plus, I’ve got the Writers' Check-In and a great giveaway for THE INTROVERT ENTREPRENEUR: Amplify Your Strengths and Create Success on Your Own Terms (Perigee/ Penguin Random House; November 3, 2015), a book Publisher’s Weekly said it's  “{A} winning business manual…a thoughtful, kind and helpful guide for all those who are looking to strike out on their own, but are concerned that their need for alone time may get in the way.”

Listen, learn, and write.

**Transcripts have been suspended until Thanksgiving Break.**

This week’s episode goes behind the prose of Sharisse Tracey, a fellow New School Creative Writing Program alum. Sharisse recorded this show in the middle of one of her best writing weeks ever! If you’re not on the email newsletter - why not? - here’s a reminder of why that week in early October was so amazing. (And I do mean amazing. Listen to the show and you’ll get it.)

In an email, Sharisse wrote:

"Last week was the best week of my writing career. I published four pieces back to back starting with the Salon piece. Over the next three days Yahoo Parenting ran three pieces of mine for their #NoShameParenting series. Then, on Friday while I was happily fooling around on Twitter I see my own words. The New York Times had posted my piece from July, An Adult Stepson Moves Back In. And then I get a mention later that night that The NY Times editor has shared my Ebony.com piece from January, Don't Read The Comments talking about some of the racist comments I read while participating in a Cut.com video talking to kids about sex. So, yeah, last week was bananas!"

I enjoyed talking to Sharisse because her excitement about writing is infectious. I wanted some of her go-get-em pitch-a-palooza attitude to rub off on me.

I wish I’d dug deeper into why she said she loves pitching, but I’m sure she’ll be back on a future episode very soon, so I’ll promise I’ll ask her then.

Once you hear the interview, you’ll be convinced she’ll be back on the BTP faster than you can say accepted.

In this interview, you’ll also hear about:

Why she chose to get an MFA

Six Degrees of Susan Shapiro Strikes Again

How to write a cover letter to an editor

Using emotions to fuel your drafting process

The coolest rejection letter I ever got

-GET THE FULL SHOW PAGE ON BEHIND THE PROSE-

What do you get if you cross a syndicated newspaper columnist with a business book author on a Pearson imprint with an entrepreneur who owns Pro Blog Service and novelist who's the Spring 2016 writer-in-residence at the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida?

Erik Deckers, this week’s guest of Behind the Prose.

I interviewed Erik in August, just before he relocated to Florida. (Ironically, he was already planning a move there just before learning that he won the coveted residency).

By now, I’m sure he’s settled in and enjoying the “vibrant literary community” of Orlando that he talks about in this episode.

But before we get to the Kerouac Project, we go through his decades long career as a humor columnist and his book deals on Que Publishing.

In this interview you’ll also learn:

The rhetorical move he started using in his humor and now can’t stop

How travel writing led him to making an activist move that sent one of his posts viral and cost him a job

His trick to churning out content on a weekly basis

There’s also some discussion of Pluto. And if you listened to Sean Ennis’ episode, you might find this kinda spooky. Well, it is Halloween week. Or maybe I’m just subconsciously drawing this Pluto stuff to me. (Remember the Reading-Updike-Keillor thing?)

Either way, like Erik’s buddy Karl the Curmudgeon, I’m still kinda mad about Pluto too. Get show links at behindtheprose.com.

Let me just start off by saying that after transcribing writer Sean Ennis' interview (Yeah, I'm back on that again!), I've decided that he's the most conscious self-editor I've interviewed this year.

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he’s already assessed whether it’s actually what he means, whether it’s “a dumb pun” or “too dramatic.” He often doesn’t retract what he says, just adds a disclaimer and keeps going. Somehow, the listener sees actually what he meant initially and what he means now.

The result? An interview that is thoughtful, humble, and personable. Sean's short story collection, Chase Us, fuels our discussion as we meander through the a narrative that is both engaging and mysterious.

In this episode, you'll find out:

- How the people you surround yourself with can help or impede your writing journey

- What one detail can do for an entire story

- What's Sponge Bob Got To Do With It

- The best writing advice Sean ever got

- The rhetorical move that made Sean “wiggle in his seat” when he wrote it

- The "Tom and Jerry Pitch" that landed his agent RENÉE ZUCKERBROT

The “pleasures of a good short story?”

BONUS: This is the first episode that the guest insults me! Listen to find out how. Then, learn something about writing. After, go write.

In this meta-writing hour, author and fellow New School alum Scott Alexander Hess, dissects his use  and balance of language to create scene and character in his latest book, a historical novel, The Butcher’s Son (a literary fiction hell-of-a-work if I do say so mahself.)

The author of three books, Hess masters juxtaposing elements of nature to “aggravate and propel things that are already happening” in the plot.

The novel, set in 1930s in New York City, gains its viscosity from something Hess calls “method writing” as well as immersion research. “When I’m writing a book, I basically live in a world,” Hess says. “So for a year and a half, I’m living in the 30s.”

The result?

For a day and half, the time it took me to read The Butcher’s Son, I too lived in the 30s in a Hell's Kitchen tenement with three brothers taking divergent paths that eventually lead Hess right onto my bookshelf of “writers I want to be when I grow up.”

But in the words of the first book reviewer I ever knew, “Don’t take my word for it.”

Listen. Learn. Write.

In this Behind the Prose exclusive, I interview Shapiro, who was my thesis mentor while I was an MFA student in the Creative Writing Program at The New School, where she's taught writing since 1993 and won a Distinguished Teaching Award.

The first time I took her highly popular "Instant Gratification Takes Too Long" Journalism course, I - like many of the other students -published a personal essay (on the website The Frisky.) I have to credit Shapiro with guiding my foray into the world of creative nonfiction. Once you listen to this interview, you’ll know exactly why I call her New York City’s Writer-in-Residence.

I’m not the only student whose writing life has been changed by her insight. More than 85 of her students have landed book deals over the last 10 years. The latest is Aspen Matis whose memoir Girl in the Woods is out this month from HarperCollins. Shapiro's students’ successes are reflective of a philosophy she lives by: publishing karma.

You can benefit from Sue's good publishing karma tomorrow at her open-to-the-public free Secrets of Publishing Panel at The New School, 63 Fifth Avenue, Starr Foundation Hall, UL 102, Lower Level, University Center. Joining Shapiro will be Aspen Matis, her literary agent Ryan Harbage, Heliotrope book editor Naomi Rosenblatt, and Daniel Jones, the editor of what might be the personal essayists’ holy grail, the “Modern Love” column in The New York Times.

Hey Behind the Prosers,

I know you've been waiting for part two of the awesome interview with Gwen Hernandez, and here it is! In this episode we talk about crafting introductions, how the writing software Scrivener helps "plotters" and "pantsers" - (listen to find out which one you are), how Hernandez uses Scrivener to structure her books with four parts, and what about self-publishing appealed to her and how she's done so successfully with her romantic suspense novels.

I've got many great authors cued up for you in the next several episodes including:

Dinty W. Moore's Creative Nonfiction Writers' Conference Presentation (Dinty has a great new book out by the way! If you write, you should def add it to your library.)

Scott Hess, author of the historical novel, The Butcher's Sons

Sean Ennis, author of Chase Us, a collection of short stories

Susan Shapiro, New York Times Bestselling author of What's Never Said, a novel 

You know what to do next: Listen. Learn. Write.

Many writers might covet a byline on one of the most popular educational, instructional series ever, the For Dummies line published by Wiley. 

But not many can snag that gig. For Gwen Hernandez, her story shows how a writer follows a passion that puts her in the “right place at the right time” to compete for a contract on Wiley. In other words, it’s the magic of the universe and Gwen’s quite familiar with the serendipity of things.

In this candid interview, which will be released in two parts, we break down how Gwen matched the witty and quick voice that is trademark to the stories, how she organized a 400-page book (hint, hint), and whether landing a For Dummies book deal means she’s hit the big time.

For show links – visit Behindtheprose.com

Here's the craft-packed episode you've been waiting for - the exciting and extended episode featuring the award-winning international-selling humble and personable Neil Smith. Neil is the author of Bang Crunch, a wildly successful book of short stories. A few weeks ago, he stopped by the virtual Behind the Prose studio to discuss his new novel Boo, a captivating and imaginative Young Adult whodunnit.

In this interview, which promises to show you how he wrote a novel when he didn't know how, you'll learn how stumbling upon voices can help your writing, what makes young adult narrators come more alive, and how one can become a more serious writer. Though I tried to do the interview without spoilers, we just couldn't really talk craft without some of them. If you've read Boo and want to learn about writing YA, you should pull up a chair and your annotated copy because this show is for you.

Get the full episode and show links on behindtheprose.com

In May, nearly 200 folks descended on the historic city of Pittsburgh to rub writing elbows with authors, essayists, journalists, and editors at the 2015 Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Conference.

Maybe you were there. Maybe you weren’t. If you find yourself in the latter, shame on you. Your penance is to listen to this great episode of Behind the Prose featuring an amazing structure analogy by the “Godfather of Creative Nonfiction” Lee Gutkind. If you’ve ever struggled with how to pull together the narrative in a nonfiction piece, this excerpt of his opening presentation has got your name all over it.

Plus, some folks in Michigan are giving away houses to writers. The innovative and perhaps pioneering initiative by Write A House takes the concept of a writers’ residency quite literally.

And of course, I’ve got the check in for you and my web find of the week.

Listen below or subscribe on iTunes.