In 2013, novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro published her craft/memoir Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life. This year, the book celebrates its 10th anniversary with a re-release and new foreword.

Dani joined Marrie Stone in 2013 to talk about it (that interview can be found here), and now joins her again to revisit it. They talk about that intervening decade and what’s happened in Dani’s life and career since the book’s first publication. Dani discusses what aspects of Still Writing are truer today than before, how her thinking has evolved around issues such as dealing with distractions, self-sabotage, writerly authority, memoirs versus novels, and much more. (In the interview, she recommends an essay by Alexander Chee that can be found here.)

Dani uses her own experiences across her many novels and memoirs to shed light on the writing process, its many hardships, and great gratifications.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on February 23, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett