This week's guest on In Her Room is novelist, journalist, and writing teacher Kristin Oakley. We share thoughts on unschooling, writing the hard stories, goal-setting and so much more.

Writing is a way to play god...

Kristin's Website
Kristin on Facebook
Kristin on Twitter
Carpe Diem, IL

InPrint Professional Writer's Group
Chicago Writer's Association
UW-Madison Department of Continuing Studies in Writing
UW-Madison Writer's Institute
Little Creek Press
In Her Room Episode #25: Laurie Scheer

This week's guest on In Her Room is writer, teacher, and mother Amy Lee Czadzeck. Our conversation is full of grace, courage and deep wisdom.

Where I show up for my students is being the permission slip to just show up and write.

Amy's website
Small Gift :: Amy's chapbook
Amy's workshops and offerings
"How to Fly Without Leaving the Ground"
"I am Enough" :: featured by Tracey Clark

"The Invitation" :: Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Digging Deep, Facing Self
Bluestockings Bookstore
Elizabeth Lesser :: Broken Open
In Her Room Episode #14: Jen Louden
In Her Room Episode #27: Caits Meissner
 

This week's guest on In Her Room is writer, self-proclaimed cat lady, and founder of Cactus Heart Press Sara Rauch. Our conversation -- about life, writing, autobiographical fiction, and starting a literary journal -- is filled with sharp wit, insight, and infectious laughter. 

Writing is my reason for being. It's who I am.

Sara's website
Sara on Twitter
Sara on Instagram
"The Infidel Approaches Grace" :: Sara's reading (published on Hobart)
Cactus Heart Press website
Cactus Heart Press on Facebook
Cactus Heart Press on Twitter
Cactus Heart Press submissions manager

Lambda Literary
Pacific University MFA program
Marvin Bell
Sarah Waters :: The Paying Guests
Dear John, I Love Jane
Sandra Gail Lambert :: The River's Memory
Kirsty Logan :: The Gracekeepers
T

This week's guest on In Her Room is author, professor, and beautiful soul Joy Castro. Our conversation covers so many topics, from writing about trauma to intersectionality and identity to crime novels. 

Writing...is a tool for exploration.

Joy's Website
Joy on Twitter
How Winter Began :: Joy's latest collection
The Truth Book
Island of Bones
Hell or High Water
Nearer Home
Family Trouble
"Grip" :: Joy's reading

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie :: "I'm Still a Citizen" at PEN
Arundhati Roy
Bending Genre :: Brenda Miller's "Courage and Creative Nonfiction"

This week's guest on In Her Room is writer, activist, and poet in the prisons Caits Meissner. Our conversation covers such awesome topics as bridging visual and print culture, the importance of diversity in women's publishing, and so much more. 

[Writing is] not a way to answer the questions, it's a way to ask more.

Caits' website
Caits' on Instagram
Spark :: a book of prompts
The Letter All Your Friends Have Written You :: written with Tishon
Grow Fierce -- Digging Deep, Facing Self

The Wide Shore
Books Not Bars :: video
I am the Beggar of the World :: Eliza Griswold
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
The Poetry Handbook :: Mary Oliver
Ocean Vuong

This week's guest on In Her Room is writer, avid reader, and working mother Lindsey Mead. Our conversation covers so much: personal essay, finding the balance between public and private lives, and more.

I unearth things through the process of writing.

Lindsey's website
Lindsey on Instagram
Lindsey on Facebook
"Ten Things I Want my Daughter to Know Before She Turns 10"

"What's Next" :: a post from Nina Badzin
Jessica Piazza
Wendell Berry
William Merwin
H is for Hawk
Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
The Folded Clock
Hold Still
 

This week's guest on In Her Room is writer, d-girl, and media goddess Laurie Scheer. We talk about everything from manuscript development and mastering your genre to the importance of community and so much more. 

Writing is pure communication — a way to stay alive.

Laurie's website
Laurie's blog
Laurie on twitter
The Writer's Advantage
UW Madison Writer's Institute
UW Madison Department of Continuing Studies

Weekend with Your Novel
Write by the Lake
Creative Nonfiction 1  
Creative Nonfiction 2

This week's guest on In Her Room is Camille Griep, author of the new novel Letters to Zell. I loved sharing this conversation about genre, form, taking risks in our writing, and so much more. 

Writing gives a voice to all the things that we don’t have time for in the day-to-day.

This episode contains some explicit language.

Camille's website
Camille on Twitter
Camille on Facebook
Letters to Zell

The Lascaux Review
Easy Street Magazine
Cartridge Lit
You Take it From Here :: Pamela Ribon's novel in letters
Speculative Fiction
 

My guest on this special, bonus episode of In Her Room is author, activist, and foremother of the modern pagan movement Starhawk. Our conversation, in conjunction with her crowd-funding campaign for City of Refuge, shares thoughts on spirituality, permaculture, writing, and so much more. 

If you want to be a writer, schedule time to write.

Starhawk's website
Starhawk on Facebook
City of Refuge Kickstarter campaign
City of Refuge on Facebook
Earth Activist Trainings
Reclaiming Tradition

Donna Read Cooper
Belili Productions
Signs Out of Time :: The Marija Gimbutas documentary
The Women's Spirituality film series
UCLA Film Studies Dept
 

This week's guest on In Her Room is author, memoirist, and LA native Wendy C. Ortiz. Our conversation about public and private lives, boundaries and secrecy, and so much more is a thrill to share with you.

I would joke with people that, if I didn’t have time to write, I would feel homicidal.
But really, what I was saying is that I felt suicidal."

This episode contains some explicit language. And it's totally worth it.

Wendy's website
Wendy's tumblr
Wendy on Twitter
Excavation: A Memoir
Hollywood Notebook
"Newly Wed and Quickly Unravelling" :: Wendy's Modern Love essay
"Interiors" :: Wendy's reading published in PANK 

Rhapsodomancy Reading Series
Mary Karr interview in The Paris Review
Eloise Klein Healy
MFA program at Antioch University
Writ Large Press