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Valentine’s day is almost here, so today on Fable and the Verbivore we’re unpacking our favorite romance tropes.

In our conversation, we touch on a wide range of books and movies that have relationships we root for and enjoy - from the classic Much Ado About Nothing to the paranormal Alice in Zombieland to the rom-com The Love Hypothesis. And we dig into romance story elements that draw us in and talk a little about why.

Here are a few of the romance tropes that we explore:

Fake Dating

Forced Proximity

Friends to Lovers

Enemies to Lovers

Opposites Attract

Witty Banter

Supportive / Funny Friends

Soulmates

Towards the end of this episode, we also talk about some of the books and tropes that have surprised us. Ones we weren’t expecting to connect with, but that we’re glad we branched out and experienced.

We hope you enjoy this episode, it definitely was a fun conversation for us.

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and the Verbivore are thrilled to share our conversation with YA fantasy author Candice Pedraza Yamnitz.

Candice’s debut YA fantasy novel Unbetrothed is being released on February 8, 2022. This story has a Latin flare and revolves around princess Beatriz, who as a young child is passed over for a gift of magic which is given to all young children in her kingdom. Years later, she makes a deadly vow to venture into a place where no one has returned in order to claim the magic that should have been hers.

In this episode, Candice talks about the work over the last five years that led to finding an agent and selling her first book for publication. She discusses getting connected with critique groups with writers of many different levels of experience, asking for advice from writers at a conference about how to help readers connect with and feel for a character that starts out unlikable, and the many drafts and rounds of beta feedback it took to get her book to the point that it was ready to share with the world.

She speaks about the benefit of letting the work breath for a stretch of time, until she’s able to disconnect with how the story is in her head so that it’s easier to see what the story really is and any errors that need fixing. Also, she talks about using people watching and moments from her everyday life to help find the little human moments in her work. The funny things that feel real and relatable to the human experience, how we act when no one is watching.

Towards the end of our interview, Candice reminds us of the importance of setting aside time for writing - even as little as 15 minutes will keep the work moving forward. As well as, transitioning into the author aspects of this job – such as being more audience oriented in social media and helping to instruct and encourage other writers.

Candice was such a pleasure to speak with and had many encouraging and wise pieces of writing advice to give. We both greatly enjoyed Unbetrothed and would highly recommend checking it out.

We hope you enjoy this episode, we’re so grateful to have been a part of this conversation!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are thrilled to share an episode that’s half book discussion and half author interview featuring our friend Rachel Schroeder and her mother Amy Whitehouse, author of the poignant and powerful “Out of the Vortex: A Memoir”.

The path to this conversation was a unique one. We asked Rachel if she’d be willing to join us on one of our “conversation with a reader” segments and one of the book options she gave us was her mother’s memoir. Having already planned to discuss memoir during the month of January, it felt like it could be kismet. After reading it for ourselves and Amy graciously agreeing to join our conversation, we knew it was.

“Out of the Vortex” is a brave and unflinching memoir, focusing on the impact the vortex of alcoholism had on Amy’s life, home environment, immediate family, and their relationships with one another. Her story doesn’t shy away from the hard things of addiction, but it also renders the complicated lives of those around her with empathy and authenticity. She describes the love and bright points of her life with the same dedication and emotional honesty that she uses to paint the moments of hurt and pain. By the end of the book, you understand just how hard fought and won her sobriety is to this day - and it feels like a call for us (the reader) to engage with our own struggles.

In this episode, we explore memoir from both the lenses of readers and a writer. Rachel unpacks why she connects so strongly with memoir as a genre and this story in particular - having the gift of hearing a story that’s has such personal meaning to her in her mom’s own words. Amy talks about some of the unique challenges of writing memoir, as well as fears associated with sharing a story that is so personal, in addition to the vulnerability of sharing her writing and putting it out in the world. We also discuss together the power that memoir has to engage empathy as well as to encourage others to face their own stories from the past.

We hope you enjoy this episode! We feel grateful to have been a part of this conversation and to be able to to share it with you!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are sharing our January book club episode on Dr. Maya Angelou’s powerful memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”.

In this episode, we talk about some of the many things that stood out to us about her story and her writing:

How steeped in the past this story felt, making the reader feel as if they’re bearing witness - hearing what she heard, seeing what she saw, and feeling what she felt

The emotional honesty and visceral language

The stories truly reflected universal childhood truths and growing up experiences (wounds and joys alike), while also clearly and unflinching represented and expressed the specific time and place of what it was like to grow up a black girl in the south and what her specific experiences were

The empathy, nuanced understanding, and emotional objectivity given to all the adults in her life, however flawed. It feels as though she didn’t back down from the hurt of the circumstances, but also strove to see the decision made by the people in her life in the best possible light

That the bravery she models in the writing of this truly courageous look back into the corners of her past feels as if it compels us to be equally brave and look into the shadows of our own histories

If it’s not yet obvious, we both love Maya Angelou’s writing and feel that this book has a lot to offer - both about writing memoir and life.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

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Today, Fable and the Verbivore talk honestly about writing and sharing our personal stories.

Whether it’s a journal entry, blog post, or an episode of this podcast, facing our life stories and sharing vulnerable parts of ourselves can be unnerving, anxiety and fear-inducing, and sometimes painful. But we’ve found that the practice of writing or voicing our own narratives, however vulnerable it makes us feel, can also help us grow and connect with others.

In our conversation, we unpack our thoughts and feelings about digging in with our life stories - both the rewarding and the difficult. Touching on the practices we’ve found helpful to connect authentically with ourselves and our raw experiences, and how it can help us to start to reframe our stories so that we can mentally accept and move beyond them.

We also talk about the power that sharing personal stories has to connect us with experiences and universal truths that are a part of the human experience, both strengthening our ability to empathize with and relate to those that are different than us and to see the many ways we’re similar - as well as remind us we’re not alone.

Towards the end of our discussion, we look at several authors whose own personal stories have connected with our hearts and minds, given us a new lens to see the world, added to our vocabulary to express our experience, and encouraged us to continue the hard work of facing our own wounds.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

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For our first episode of 2022, Fable and the Verbivore are setting intentions for the year.

For the Verbivore (Laura), as she sat with hopes for 2022 the phrase “feel your way through one step at a time” sparked a feeling of purpose and excitement. A call to connect with her intuition and her voice - paying attention to what feels like the next right thing to try.

For Fable (Beth), she connected with the concept of “revision” and “reframing” - both in her writing work and in her life. The idea that digging in and asking some difficult questions, as well as giving herself the space and silence to listen for and discover the answers will help her connect with what has meaning and importance.

Both also set specific writing goals that they’re working towards but are holding them with some openess to allow for the possibility of changes in direction as the year unfolds. We also have some exciting new things that we’re planning for the podcast this year and we can’t wait to share them in the upcoming weeks!

We hope you enjoy this episode and that you take a moment to connect with your own hopes and intentions as we step into this brand-new year!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are revisiting the specific writing goals and intentions that we set for 2021 and reflecting on the year that was.

For the Verbivore (Laura), the year went in a very different direction than planned and required some significant pivoting to meet the opportunities and challenges that arose. But the intentional phrase of “do the work” was always present, even if it ended up being on some unexpected projects - like teaching online Jr. High lectures on creativity and the brain, and moving across country from Az to Mn.

For Fable (Beth), 2021 was a hard year. Her intentional phrase for 2021 was “lean in”. She did just that finishing 4 books of varying types, re-evaluating many aspects of her life, and digging in with some internal work. But it was a struggle and a grind.

For both of us, at various times throughout this year we’ve had to reframe for ourselves what success looked like and work to change our mindsets about what our work needs to be in order to have worth. Acknowledging that there are seasons that bear obvious fruit and ones where the changes and lessons learned are more subtle and below the surface, but both absolutely have value.

We hope you enjoy this episode and that as you look back on 2021 you can choose to see the work you’ve done - rather than focus on what is yet to be accomplished - and that you can start reflecting on what you hope to bring into your life for the coming year.

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

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This week, Fable and the Verbivore are back from a two-week hiatus to share - diving into cultural and family traditions, winter tales, winter soltice, and cultivating silence and engaging in the practice of rest.

Our conversation takes us many place, but here are a few things we touch on:

As we near the longest day of the year, as human beings we tend to start to shift our focus to reaching for warmth, gathering with our loved ones, and looking for the light.

We touch on the centuries old heritage of spinning tales around the fire - warm stories and ghost stories. Things that remind us we’re alive.

The diversity of winter holiday traditions and celebrations, and how it looks (and smells) uniquely for each individual. And that is part of the beauty of this time.

Rest and nourishing ourselves are things we have to work at - as well as make time and space for in our lives.

We hope you enjoy this episode and wish you all blessed holidays!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

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In honor of NaNoWriMo, this month Fable and the Verbivore are talking about beginnings, middles, and endings.

Spoiler alert! - Today, we're wrapping up this series by talking about story endings, and we’re not holding back from discussing final plot points from some of our favorites. Consider yourself warned.

In our conversation, we cover a lot of ground - talking as both readers and writers. We touch on the common writing advice that good endings are both surprising and inevitable, looking at how Veronica Roth’s ending of the Divergent series exemplified that principle.

We also look at endings that felt out of place or as if they ended at the wrong point - or that felt right but like they’re missing something we’d hoped for as readers. We dive into the satisfaction of a story that mirrors something from the beginning (and possibly midpoint) of the story - showing change, as well as ones that subtly plant seeds and then pay them off. One of of our favorite types of endings are ones that offer some hope for the future, even if the ending isn’t what we’d typically call happy.

Here are a few books whose endings we explore:

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Hunger Games / Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Wrath and the Dawn / The Rose and the Dagger by Renée Ahdieh

Caraval / Finale by Stephanie Garber

We realize how much an ending can come down to personal preference - as well as author intention and the needs of the story being told. So, one of our key takeaways as writers was how important getting beta reader feedback is to ensure that the ending lands and that there aren’t any setups that you have in your story that don’t pay off - unless you’re doing that on purpose. :-)

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Today, Fable and the Verbivore are celebrating our 2-year anniversary of this podcast!

And in honor of that milestone and the fact that it’s Thanksgiving week, we decided to do an episode on our personal comfort reads.

In this episode, we talk about the specific books that we gravitate toward and seek out when we need a lift. And, also, dive into the types of books that bring us joy or that help us get through tough times.

The list is long and definitely not definitive, but we found it restoring to just talk about some of the stories and words that have supported us along this journey so far. We’d like to hear what stories uplift and revitalize you as well.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore