Cecilia Rabess previously worked as a data scientist at Google and as an associate at Goldman Sachs. Her nonfiction has been featured in McSweeneys, FiveThirtyEight, Fast Company and FlowingData, among other places. Everything’s Fine is her debut novel.



Katherine and Cecilia discuss: 






Early writing life 

Donald Trump is Destroying My Marriage - article in NY Magazine that inspired Everything's Fine  
Writing an 'opposites attract' love story, when the opposites part is that people are on opposing sides of the political spectrum 
Working to humanise Josh 
Wringing out your prose, making it as clean as possible 
How she went about getting an agent 
Having your book be at the centre of a Tiktok controversy and her theories on why this happened 
Writing infographs for McSweeneys

Cecilia's writing advice: It doesn’t have to be perfect, but you have to finish. No one has ever published an unpublished manuscript. 



Debut book recommendation: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck



Check out show notes for this episode on our website www.thefirsttimepodcast.com or get in touch via Twitter (@thefirsttimepod) or Instagram (@thefirsttimepod).



You can support us and the making of Season Six via our Patreon page. Thanks for joining us!

S6 Ep235: Interview: Cecilia Rabess

A podcast about the first time…you publish a book.

One part reality show, one part writers’ master class. Novelists Katherine Collette (https://www.katherinecollette.com/) (The Helpline, The Competition) and Kate Mildenhall (https://katemildenhall.com/) (Skylarking, The Mother Fault, The Hummingbird Effect) discuss the feels and logistics of writing and publishing and speak to Australian and international writers about their books and creative process.

Now in its sixth season, The First Time podcast has features more than 200 authors including industry icons Helen Garner, Claire G Coleman, Christos Tsiolkas, Tony Birch, Sarah Winman and George Saunders.

The First Time Podcast includes Featured Book segments supported by a range of Australian publishers.

Society & Culture

Personal Journals

History

Philosophy

Places & Travel

Arts

Literature

Performing Arts

Design

Food

Fashion & Beauty

Visual Arts

Books

Have you ever wanted to own your own business but not known where to begin? Like, literally all you know is that you WANT a business and nothing else? This interview with coach and entrepreneur Luisa Zhou is for you.



Luisa Zhou is the founder of LuisaZhou.com, which teaches people how to go from employee to entrepreneur, and scale their businesses to 6- and 7-figures. She’s helped thousands of people make their first $10K to $100K in less than a year.



Luisa has appeared in numerous online and print publications including Forbes, Business Insider, Money, Inc, Entrepreneur, Success magazine, and more.



In this interview, Katherine mentions the content Luisa puts out for free via her YouTube channel – if you're keen to explore that, here are some places to start: 







Starting your coaching business in less than 24 hours (YouTube)

How to put together your first coaching package (YouTube)

All you need is this one sentence marketing plan (YouTube)

Books mentioned:


Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Think and Grow Rich (mentioned in the context of auto-suggestion) by Napoleon Hill

Show notes for this episode are available at katherinecollette.com.

 

You can subscribe to The Next Step / The First Time via your podcast app and if you like what you hear, please leave a review! If you don't like what you hear, recommend us to someone you hate.  

 

Get  in touch via Instagram @katherinecollettewriter. 



This episode is sponsored by Fremantle Press and the book People Want to Shoot Me by Wayne Bergmann and Madelaine Dickie.  






S6 Ep270: HOW TO GROW YOUR OWN BUSINESS (FROM SCRATCH) Interview: Luisa Zhou (The Next Step)

Brigid Delaney is currently a political speechwriter. She was a journalist for The Guardian, and wrote popular weekly column, 'Brigid Delaney's Diary',’ which we little a little about in this interview. She wrote that column for eight years. It is so good. Like unbelievably and consistently funny, it’s stood the test of time. Read the cheese story and the mansion story mentioned in the episode—they’re incredible!  



Brigid also wrote Wellmania, the book that the Netflix series is based. But the main thing that Katherine and Brigid talk a lot in this interview about is stoicism, which is the focus of her most recent book, Reasons Not to Worry. 



Katherine has wanted to speak to Brigid about stoicism for a long time. Brigid wrote an article about stoicism when COVID first started, and it felt like it offered a sort of solace that wasn’t anywhere else. The concepts are so useful, particularly for creatives and people putting art/writing into the world. 



Check out show notes for this episode at katherinecollette.com, subscribe via your podcast app or get in touch via Instagram @katherinecollettewriter.



This episode is sponsored by Fremantle Press and Marie O'Rourke's book 'Kintsugi'. 

S6 Ep269: Interview: Author/writer Brigid Delaney (The Next Step)

It's surprising how much the discussion about thoughts and thinking in basketball can apply to creativity. This episode is with BriAnna Garza, a professional basketball shooting coach. She currently coaches players in the (American) NBA, WNBA (as well as the NCAA and youth players) on both shot development and thought development. 



BriAnna is also the founder/owner of Shooters Shoot— a mentorship program that focuses on the same two things. The training model was inspired by BriAnna’s passion for coaching both the science and the mindset of shooting.



Katherine first learned of BriAnna via Instagram. You MUST follow her! True to her philosophy, her Insta is half basketball and half thought development. It's super interesting and a lot of what she talks about can be adapted to the creative realm. 



Katherine and BriAnna discuss A LOT including: 

- neutral thinking 

- the role of emotion  

- visualisation - how to to do it and how to get the most out of it 

- the importance of a 'culture of error' 

- the Pygmalion Effect

and more... 



Many listeners to the show would have heard Katherine talk about Ben Crowe, BriAnna reminds her of Ben Crowe, except she’s young – not that he’s old -- and a woman. But she has a similar way of thinking that's about inspiring people to do and be their best and live with purpose. 



KC is such a big fan of BriAnna and thinks you will be too, after hearing her speak.



Check out show notes for this episode at katherinecollette.com, subscribe via your podcast app or get in touch via Instagram @katherinecollettewriter. 



This episode is sponsored by New South and Anna Jacobson's book 'How to Knit a Human'.  

S6 Ep268: Interview: (NBA, WNBA) basketball shooting coach BriAnna Garza


Jack Druce is a comedian. Katherine thinks he's the best comedian in Australia (he's also the most humble). If you have the chance to see his stand up, GO. He's not at the Melbourne Comedy Festival this year unfortunately, but you can see his stand up special Rat Paradise on YouTube. It featured in New York Magazine. 



Katherine gets excited telling people about Jack Druce because he’s genuinely hilarious and she knows they’re going to like him if they go see him, and somehow she thinks this reflects well on her. As if people will go to one of his shows and enjoy his comedy but mostly what they’ll take away from the experience is the thought ‘Wow Katherine has great taste’... 



Jack has headlined shows nationwide, including Splendour in the Grass.  He’s written for Channel 10’s The Project and appeared at comedy festivals all over Australia. Since 2022, Jack’s been building a following making high quality sketch comedy on Youtube.



Check out show notes for this episode at katherinecollette.com, subscribe via your podcast app or get in touch via Instagram @katherinecollettewriter. 

S6 Ep267: Interview: Comedian Jack Druce (The Next Step)

This interview is with Jessica Weisberg. Jessica Weisberg is an award-winning writer and producer. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, Harper’s, and Atavist, among other publications, and been nominated for a National Magazine Award. She ran the features unit at Vice News Tonight on HBO, for which she was nominated for an Emmy, and is a senior producer at Serial Podcast.  Her first book, Asking for a Friend, came out in 2018.



Katherine read it last year and LOVED it. The book is about advice givers – people who have offered up advice to others throughout time.



Some examples of prominent advice givers featured are: 

Dale Carnegie who wrote, How to Win Friends and Influence People 
Cheryl Strayed, author of Dear Sugar
Dear Abby, a popular newspaper column in 1950’s
Life coach Martha Back 

The books is super interesting, as is Jessica. We talk about a bunch of stuff including the fact that her intention for the book was to take advice givers seriously.



Check out show notes for this episode, subscribe for regular updates or get in touch via katherinecollette.com or Instagram @katherinecollettewriter. 






S6 Ep235: Interview: Cecilia Rabess

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