Welcome to On Good Writing, a kind of pocket podcast on the writing life. Each week, host Bret Lott offers a quote and a few thoughts to carry with us into the work of writing or any good endeavor that occupies our waking hours. We like to think of this as the start of a conversation on writing and art and what it means to pay attention to the preciousness of life. This week, we hear a quote from Toni Morrison, a Nobel Prize recipient and author of Beloved, a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Return to On Good Writing next week to hear a quote from Eudora Welty.

Bret Lott is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels ⁠Ancient Highway⁠, ⁠The Hunt Club⁠, ⁠A Song I Knew by Heart⁠, and ⁠Jewel⁠ (an Oprah’s Book Club selection). Formerly editor of ⁠The Southern Review⁠, Lott was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 2006. He taught creative writing for nearly forty years at the College of Charleston. He and his wife, Melanie, live in the country outside Charleston, South Carolina.

On Good Writing is a Cy.press Studios production. Cy.press Studios is a project of the Cypress Writers’ Workshop, a creative writing program supporting writers who seek to master their craft and cultivate the unity between art and reverence. Learn more at ⁠cy.press⁠.

The music in this episode is "Stories" by Judah Earl/Musicbed.com.

“Stories and novels are makeshift things,” says Richard Ford. “And there is nothing wrong with that.” This week, host Bret Lott shares a longer quote from Ford and reflects on what it has to say to us about the messy process that is writing.

Return to On Good Writing next week to hear a quote from Toni Morrison, a Nobel Prize recipient and the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Beloved.

Bret Lott is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels ⁠Ancient Highway⁠, ⁠The Hunt Club⁠, ⁠A Song I Knew by Heart⁠, and ⁠Jewel⁠ (an Oprah’s Book Club selection). Formerly editor of ⁠The Southern Review⁠, Lott was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 2006. He taught creative writing for nearly forty years at the College of Charleston. He and his wife, Melanie, live in the country outside Charleston, South Carolina.

On Good Writing is a Cy.press Studios production. Cy.press Studios is a project of the Cypress Writers’ Workshop, a creative writing program supporting writers who seek to master their craft and cultivate the unity between art and reverence. Learn more at ⁠cy.press⁠.

The music in this episode is Drifter Hymn by Lane King / Musicbed.com.

In this first episode of On Good Writing, Bret Lott quotes Walker Evans, 20th century American photographer. He invites us to see that a writer or an artist or anyone who wants to make something true and good and beautiful is someone who stares and stares, trying to understand what’s going on, instead of assuming you know. “Assuming shuts down discovery and smothers it,” Bret Lott says, “which will kill a book or a story before the first sentence is ever written.”

Bret Lott is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels Ancient Highway, The Hunt Club, A Song I Knew by Heart, and Jewel (an Oprah’s Book Club selection). Formerly editor of The Southern Review, Lott was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 2006. He taught creative writing for nearly forty years at the College of Charleston. He and his wife, Melanie, live in the country outside Charleston, South Carolina.

On Good Writing is a Cy.press Studios production. Cy.press Studios is a project of the Cypress Writers’ Workshop, a creative writing program supporting writers who seek to master their craft and cultivate the unity between art and reverence. Learn more at cy.press.

The music in this episode is Birds in The Clover - Instrumental by Thomas LaVine / Musicbed.com.

Here at the start of this podcast On Good Writing, Bret Lott shares a kind of credo, words to guide us in the art of creative writing. We hope you will find some sustenance in knowing that you are not alone in this often lonely and shaky work that is writing. This is a conversation on creative writing, art, and what it takes to make good work. By sharing quotes of great artists and writers who have come before us, we look for guidance and wisdom in the long apprenticeship of becoming better writers. New episodes release on Saturday mornings.

Bret Lott is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels ⁠Ancient Highway⁠, ⁠The Hunt Club⁠, ⁠A Song I Knew by Heart⁠, and ⁠Jewel⁠ (an Oprah’s Book Club selection). Formerly editor of ⁠The Southern Review⁠, Lott was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 2006. He taught creative writing for nearly forty years at the College of Charleston. He and his wife, Melanie, live in the country outside Charleston, South Carolina.

On Good Writing is a Cy.press Studios production. Cy.press Studios is a project of the Cypress Writers’ Workshop, a creative writing program supporting writers who seek to master their craft and cultivate the unity between art and reverence. Learn more at cy.press.

The music in this episode is Manna or Poison - Instrumental by John Lucas / Musicbed.com.

This is a conversation on creative writing, hosted by Bret Lott. By sharing the words of writers who have mastered their craft, Bret Lott guides us in the long apprenticeship in the art of writing truthfully of the human condition.

Bret Lott is the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels ⁠Ancient Highway⁠, ⁠The Hunt Club⁠, ⁠A Song I Knew by Heart⁠, and ⁠Jewel⁠ (an Oprah’s Book Club selection). Formerly editor of ⁠The Southern Review⁠, Lott was appointed to the National Council on the Arts in 2006. He taught creative writing for nearly forty years at the College of Charleston. He and his wife, Melanie, live in the country outside Charleston, South Carolina.

On Good Writing is a Cy.press Studios production. Cy.press Studios is a project of the Cypress Writers’ Workshop, a creative writing program supporting writers who seek to master their craft and cultivate the unity between art and reverence. Learn more at cy.press.

The music in this episode is Let The New Begin (Reset) - Instrumental by CHPTRS / Musicbed.com.