Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels I’ll Be You, Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and This Is Where We Live. Pretty Things—named a Best Book of 2020 by Amazon—is currently being adapted for television.

Before becoming a novelist, Janelle worked as a senior writer at Salon, and began her career as a staff writer at Wired, working on seminal Web sites like HotWired and Wired News. In the 1990s, she was also the editor and co-founder of Maxi, an irreverent (and now, long-gone) women’s pop culture Webzine. All that information becomes very relevant when you read her latest, What Kind of Paradise.

She joins Marrie Stone to talk about it. What Kind of Paradise draws on that tech reporter past and subtly asks the question: What if Ted Kazinsky had a kid? They discuss how fiction, and our bestselling authors, are grappling with this technological moment. They also discuss writing in the first person and how to use other textures and devices to gain access to other major characters, capturing bygone time periods, conveying cultural messages without preaching to your readers, and much more.   

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on September 24, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)