Good Writing Podcast

Good Writing Podcast

By Ben K & Emily DEducationArtsBooksHow To
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Good Writing Podcast episodes

  • Grief, Meaning, and Section Breaks in Molly

    Blake Butler's Molly is a memoir about the suicide of his late wife, poet and memoirist Molly Brodak. It's one of the most controversial alt lit book of the past year – rightfully! – and, with photographs integrated and no line or chapter breaks, it's also a fascinating work of art.

    (New tardiness record: we recorded this in April.)

    Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod

    1 hr 31 min
  • Dialogue and Description in Suttree

    Haha this was recorded like months ago. Please excuse the mess. More Good Writing coming on a reliably unreliable schedule.

     

    Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod

    56 min
  • Facts in Fiction in The Book of X

    What are more tools we can use to further develop theme and the point-of-view character's worldview? In her novel The Book of X, Sarah Rose Etter regularly breaks the action with lists of facts.

    • Find the photo of Ben that reminded Emily of Edward Cullen in the Two Dollar Radio Tattoo Club
  • Don't Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine
  • Louie Zong's new album Rat Taxi

    • Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod

    1 hr 8 min
  • Fruiting Bodies and Being Mean to a Child

    Point-of-view characters. You love them. You understand them. They still do mean things. How can you keep your reader empathizing with your point-of-view character even if they do something villainous?

    Also: Ben (a philosophy major) and Emily (an outdoor enthusiast) interpret the climax pretty differently.

    • Read this short story before listening to the episode: "Algal Bloom" by Kathryn Harlan in Michigan Quarterly Review
  • Buy the whole collection Fruiting Bodies (Emily's short story collection of the year!) here
  • A poem that rocks: "Taking a Visitor to See the Ruins" by Paula Gunn Allen

    • Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod 

    59 min
  • How to Write Non-Chronologically in Enjoy Me Among My Ruins

    Do you have to write about a topic in the chronological order that it happened in to understand it better? No, definitely not. In fact - maybe you shouldn't?

    This episode, we discuss Enjoy Me Among My Ruins by Juniper Fitzgerald (2022). It's a memoir that uses 3 forms (diary entry, flash about an influential woman in her life, and essays) to explore sex work, academic theory, and how having a daughter changed her.

    Order this book from The Feminist Press here

    Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod 

    56 min
  • The Energy of Youth in Burn You the Fuck Alive

    In this episode we consider what it takes to write young people in a way that feels both honest and honoring with a difficult piece of fiction by B.R. Yeager from his newest collection, Burn You the Fuck Alive.

     

    Burn You the Fuck Alive by B.R. Yeager

     

    Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod 

    1 hr 17 min
  • Our Wives Under the Sea: How to Establish Themes When Your Point-of-View Character is Clueless

    Carmen from Julia Armfield's debut novel Our Wives Under the Sea isn't necessary for the plot, but Emily got obsessed anyway (of course). In this episode, we discuss bringing side characters to life and using them to establish themes that your point-of-view character is too clueless to pick up on.

    Other links:

    • B.R. Yeager (friend of the pod)'s new story collection Burn You the Fuck Alive 
  • Here's a ContraPoints video about incels that we reference
  • Great news for the timing of this episode! Our Wives Under the Sea is now out in paperback

    • Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod 

    1 hr 1 min
  • Conceptual Constraint in Having and Being Had by Eula Biss

    Emily has Ben read sections from Eula Biss's Having and Being Had this week because she knows he loves to think about capitalism. 

    How can you come up with rules to how you write about a topic? Eula Biss sets out with constraints that make her essays both dreamlike and punchy.

    Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod 

    56 min
  • Getting the Story through Creeped-Out Characters in The Haunting of Hill House

    Happy (belated) Halloween, Good Writing subscribers! In today's episode, we discuss Shirley Jackson's 1959 gothic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House.

    What makes this "psychological ghost story" work so well? Subjectivity. The characters tell us their subjection version of the events, which leaves the reader to fill in the gaps with maximum spookiness.

    Plus, we discuss a sentence that Ben called "a literary kickflip" and a terrifying walk that Emily is nominating for most romantic moment of 1959.

    • Emily recommends Abandon Me
  • Ben recommends (with caveats) the 2022 movie The Whale

    • Good Writing is a podcast where two MFA friends read like writers and lay out craft ideas for fellow writers to steal. Co-hosted by Emily Donovan and Benjamin Kerns.

    Twitter: @goodwritingpod 

    1 hr

About Good Writing Podcast

From the publisher's feed

The Good Writing Podcast is a show for creative writers who want to nerd out on craft.