How I Wrote This

Julia Franck was born in 1970 in East Berlin in the former GDR (German Democratic Republic), a part of Germany that, at the time, was behind the Iron Curtain. As a child, she fled with her mother to the West and lived for nine months in a refugee camp, where they were interrogated by agents of the secret police. Five years later, when she was just thirteen, she left her mother’s home and returned to Berlin, this time living on the Western side with friends. 

Julia is the daughter of an actress and granddaughter of a sculptor whose family history has provided the backdrop for some of her most powerful books. The Blind Side of the Heart (called the Blindness of the Heart in the US), tells the story of a woman who abandons her son on a railway platform in 1945 after surviving the horrors of the Second World War. It was a story based on her own father’s childhood, a man she only met at the age of fourteen. The novel won the German Book Prize, the highest honour for literature in Germany, and went on to sell over a million copies. Two more of her books have been translated into English: Back to Back, based on her uncle’s life at the time when the Berlin Wall was being built; and West, which was adapted for the screen.

Julia’s recommended reads:

Herta Müller 

Judith Hermann

Katja Oskamp

Dana Vowinckel

How I Wrote This is presented by KnockAbout Media. Listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.

Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

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An introduction to Season 3 of the podcast, this time featuring authors based in Brooklyn, New York, USA

Follow on Instagram @HowIWroteThisthePodcast

Promotional support from the Quebec Writers’ Federation

Adelle Waldman is the author of two novels: Help Wanted, published in 2024, and The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. which was named one of the year’s best books in 2013 by The New Yorker, The Economist, The New Republic, NPR, Slate, Bookforum, The Guardian and others. In this illuminating conversation that took place shortly after the US election, Adelle talks about the job she took at a big box store before writing a book about the exploitation of low wage workers; the US legislative proposal she recently drafted for a policy thinktank; and her love of expansive, psychological nineteenth century novels, especially those written by Jane Austin.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1977, Adelle attended Brown University in Rhode Island, worked as a reporter in Connecticut and Ohio, and wrote her breakout novel after moving to Brooklyn with her husband. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. She joined Pamela in the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio.

How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley

Presented by Knockabout Media. 

Original music by Tyler K. Rauman

Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adelle Waldman is the author of two novels: Help Wanted, published in 2024, and The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. which was named one of the year’s best books in 2013 by The New Yorker, The Economist, The New Republic, NPR, Slate, Bookforum, The Guardian and others. In this illuminating conversation that took place shortly after the US election, Adelle talks about the job she took at a big box store before writing a book about the exploitation of low wage workers; the US legislative proposal she recently drafted for a policy thinktank; and her love of expansive, psychological nineteenth century novels, especially those written by Jane Austin.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1977, Adelle attended Brown University in Rhode Island, worked as a reporter in Connecticut and Ohio, and wrote her breakout novel after moving to Brooklyn with her husband. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. She joined Pamela in the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio.

How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley and presented by KnockAbout Media. Original music track “Attention to Details” by Tyler K. Rauman. You can listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio and follow us on Instagram @howiwrotethisthepodcast

Adelle Waldman is the author of two novels. In this bonus episode, she reads from her latest, Help Wanted. Our full interview will be available on March 25.

More about Help Wanted:

"At a big-box store in a small town in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every morning at 3:55. Under the eye of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before customers arrive. When a golden opportunity for a promotion presents itself, the diverse members of Movement―among them a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging to her “cool kid” status from high school, a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together and set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot into motion. A darkly comic workplace caper that explores the aches and uses of solidarity, Help Wanted is a deeply human portrait of people trying, against increasingly long odds, to make a living."

How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley

Presented by Knockabout Media. 

Original music by Tyler K. Rauman

Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joseph O’Neill has written a family history and five novels including This is the Life, The Breezes, Netherland (which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award), The Dog (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize) and most recently, Godwin. He also writes political reviews and essays as well as short stories, several of which have been published in The New Yorker and included as part of his 2018 collection, Good Trouble.

Born in Ireland, Joe moved around as a child, living in Mozambique, Turkey and Iran until his parents settled in the Netherlands. In 1998, he moved to the US after earning his law degree at Cambridge and working as a barrister in the UK. Since 2011, he has been a distinguished visiting professor of Written Arts at Bard College. 

In this conversation, Joe talks about his love of language and sport, his interest in the American bourgeoisie, and how the damaged masculine specimen depicted in his latest novel, Godwin, became such an important political figure. He joined Pamela in the Brooklyn studio shortly after the US election.

How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley and presented by KnockAbout Media. Original music track “Attention to Details” by Tyler K. Rauman. You can listen and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, and iHeartRadio.

Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

Joseph O’Neill has written a family history and five novels including This is the Life, The Breezes, Netherland (which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award), The Dog (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize) and most recently, Godwin. He also writes political reviews and essays as well as short stories, several of which have been published in The New Yorker and included as part of his 2018 collection, Good Trouble.

Born in Ireland, Joe moved around as a child, living in Mozambique, Turkey and Iran until his parents settled in the Netherlands. In 1998, he moved to the US after earning his law degree at Cambridge and working as a barrister in the UK. Since 2011, he has been a distinguished visiting professor of Written Arts at Bard College. 

In this conversation, Joe talks about his love of language and sport, his interest in the American bourgeoisie, and how the damaged masculine specimen depicted in his latest novel, Godwin, became such an important political figure. He joined Pamela in the Brooklyn studio shortly after the US election.

How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley

Presented by Knockabout Media. 

Original music by Tyler K. Rauman

Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.