Dear Writer

On this talking shop episode, Sarah reviewed a book she believes every writer should have in their toolkit: 'The Emotion Thesaurus' by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Ashley reviewed a chapter on dystopian fiction in the academic book, 'Beyond the Blockbusters: Themes and Trends in Young Adult Fiction' by Rebekah Fitzsimmons and Casey Alane Wilson.

In our author spotlight this week is Kira Leigh. We had a scintillating conversation with Kira about their book series, Constelis Voss, and their process as an author. Our discussion ended up diving deep beneath the surface. We explored the topic of writing diverse characters, and discussed how important it is to ask hard questions about life and society while creating your work.

On this culturing creativity episode, we discussed how where and when we write can effect the productivity, and—in some cases—the quality of our writing. This discussion included a very amusing breakdown of barriers we have found with writing both in cafes and outdoors. We talked about our day to day writing life, and incorporating writing into our vacations.

On our 40th episode of Dear Writer, we take a look at the process of self-publishing, and explain what that's looked like for us so far. We discuss the pros and cons of self publishing, and our experience as newcomers to the trade.

Our talking shop episode this week gifted us with another of Ashley's mini-lectures, where she explained a useful article she read on the young adult dystopian genre: A Creative Exploration and Analysis of Contemporary Dystopian Fiction. Munira Ezzi. Writing in Practice. Volume 4, 2018.

Sarah, meanwhile, was struggling to find time. So, in an effort to find a useful resource to discuss, she headed over to YouTube and found a useful channel, 'Outstanding Screenplays' that had snippets of interviews from famous authors and screenwriters which she found inspiring.

In our leisure reading, Ashley discussed a book, 'The Chocolate War' by Robert Cormier, and Sarah reviewed 'When We Were Lost' by Kevin Wignall.

This author spotlight episode, we welcomed on the show C.M. Healy. C.M. is an author of children's books ranging from early readers to poetry collections, and he also has published two YA Fantasy novels in his 'Beyond the After' series. We greatly enjoyed talking to C.M. about his books and his process.

On this culturing creativity episode, we explored the benefits of cowriting, and discussed our experience as coauthors. We talked about the challenges involved, and how we overcome them.

This episode of Dear Writer, we begin a three part series on the journey so far, beginning with our attempts to be traditionally published. We discussed the reasons why traditional publishing can be attractive, and our personal reasons for pursuing this pathway.

We reviewed two great resources on this talking shop episode. Sarah chose The Magic Words: Writing great books for children and young adults by Cheryl B. Klein, and Ashley took a new approach and discussed an article she'd read:

World Line and Narrative Realism. Julia J.C. Blau and Amy Rose Capetta. Journal of Creative Writing Studies. Vol. 5. 2020. Article 9.

This week on Dear Writer we had Kaitlyn Legaspi in the author spotlight. Kaitlyn writes young adult fantasy and has published four books, three as part of her 'Dark Irregular' Trilogy, and the first of her 'Cardholder' series. It was great to chat with Kaitlyn about her experience and her process, and we enjoyed learning all about her books.