Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels The Winner, The Great Man Theory, Apartment, Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A former columnist for the New York Times and McSweeney’sand a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He has developed films and series from his novels with Columbia Pictures, HBO, MGM Television, and others. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the writer Kate Greathead, and their children.

Teddy joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about his path to writing, how to make unlikeable characters empathetic, writing characters who are outsiders, his unusual way of plotting, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You’ll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners.

(Recorded on July 12, 2024) 

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