The 7am Novelist

Today you get a sneak peak of what our summer interviews will like. Listeners will also get a chance to be a part of the summer podcast episodes, so listen for announcements about that opportunity in our SubStack notes and on our Facebook page. We’re going to start the summer off early (please, yes!) by hearing from Samantha Harvey, who latest novel, ORBITAL, was released in November. Samantha and I will be talking about the dynamic relationship between structure and point of view and how she rediscovered her own late in her drafting process. Samantha will also be at Porter Square Books in Cambridge tomorrow, April 3, at 7pm with author Jamie Quatro, so if you’re local to Boston, I encourage you to check it out. I’ll be there as well.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

To find Harvey’s book and many books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. 

Samantha Harvey is the author of five novels, The Wilderness, All Is Song, Dear Thief ,The Western Wind and Orbital. She is also the author of a memoir, The Shapeless Unease. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian First Book Award, the Walter Scott Prize and the James Tait Black Prize, and longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Baileys Prize, the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize and the HWA Gold Crown Award. The Western Wind won the 2019 Staunch Book Prize, and The Wilderness was the winner of the AMI Literature Award and the Betty Trask Prize. Orbital, was published in November 2023 by Jonathan Cape (UK) and Grove Atlantic (US). She lives in Bath, UK, and is a Reader in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

We talk to Christine Byl after launching her debut novel, Lookout. A professional trail-builder in Alaska for 28-years, Byl knows the importance of quiet, patience, and spending the time that your book needs instead of allowing the outside world to muddle your instincts. How does she do it? Listen in.

To watch a recording of our interview, click here. These recordings are only available for a few days. Missed it? Check out the podcast version of the 7am Novelist on your fave podcast platform.

To find Byl’s novel and many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Christine Byl is the author of the novel Lookout, shortlisted for the Center for Fiction's 2023 First Novel Prize and a Great Group Reads selection; and Dirt Work: An Education in the Woods, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Willa Award in nonfiction. Christine is an associate editor at Alaska Quarterly Review; teaches writing workshops in public schools; and has worked as a professional trail-builder for 28 years. She lives in Interior Alaska on the homelands of Dene' people.

The last listener’s question in our January series is about joy. We’ve got authors Suzanne Berne, Shalene Gupta, and Christine Murphy to talk about the good that can be found in the writing process.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Check out my interview with AE Osworth about “Joy First Drafting” here.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Suzanne Berne is the author of five novels: her most recent, The Blue Window, released last January, as well as The Dogs of Littlefield, The Ghost at the Table, A Perfect Arrangement, and A Crime in the Neighborhood, which won Great Britain’s Orange Prize, now The Women’s Prize.  

Shalene Gupta is a Boston-area writer and the author of The Cycle: Confronting the Pain of Periods and PMDD, which will be released in February.

Christine Murphy is a graduate of GrubStreet's Novel Incubator program. Her debut novel, Notes on Surviving the Fire, is under contract and forthcoming in 2025. 

Photo by Adrian Moise on Unsplash

We’ve got two very different questions today as we begin to wrap up our January series. The first asks about submitting shorter works to literary magazines and other venues. The second wonders how she can improve her use of subtext. Authors Mark Cecil, Erica Ferencik, and Whitney Scharer help us find the answers.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Mark Cecil is the author of the novel Bunyan and Henry; Or, The Beautiful Destiny, the host of The Thoughtful Bro podcast, and he has taught writing at Grub Street in Boston.

Erica Ferencik is the author of the critically acclaimed, best-selling novels The River at Night, Into the Jungle, and Girl in Ice.

Whitney Scharer is the author of the international bestselling and award-winning novel The Age of Light as well as short fiction and essays in numerous publications. and she’s the co-founder of the Arlington Author Salon in Arlington, MA. 

Photo by Cristian Tepaz on Unsplash

Today, we talk about the trials and tribulations of writing from real life: Can I write a memoir if I don’t have concrete memories? Am I trying to stay too close to my original experience in turning that experience into a novel? And when does writing fiction based on real life become exploitive of others? Some tough questions, but we’ve got writers Anjali Mitter Duva, Alex Ferraro, and Ethan Gilsdorf to help us out.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Anjali Mitter Duva is the author of the historical novel Faint Promise of Rain and the co-founder of Galiot Press, a new publishing company ushering in a sea change for the written word.

Alex Ferraro is a graduate of the Novel Incubator and is working on his novel, a twisty Texas noir called Like Thunder in the Next County.

Ethan Gilsdorf is an essayist, critic, journalist, the author of the memoir Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks and teaches GrubStreet’s Essay Incubator program.

Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash 

We get to talk to Mary Carroll Moore who lays bare her own past writing challenges, how she dealt with them, and the kinds of issues she finds early writers struggle with most.

To watch a recording of our interview, click here. These recordings are only available for a few days. Missed it? Check out the podcast version of the 7am Novelist on your fave podcast platform.

To find Moore’s most recent book, a list of my favorite craft books, and many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. 

Mary Carroll Moore is a bestselling and award-winning author of 14 books in 3 genres, including thePEN/Faulkner-and Lambda Literary Awards nominated young adult novel, Qualities of Light, the prequel to A Woman’s Guide to Search and Rescue. She received her MFA from GoddardCollege and has taught throughout the US and abroad at various writing schools and universities since 1998. Her writing-craft book, Your Book Starts Here, won the New Hampshire Literary Awards “Reader’s Choice” award. Before moving into fiction, she worked as a chef, a cooking-school owner, a cookbook author, and a syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Her first cookbook won a JuliaChild/IACP award. Over two hundred of her essays, stories, and articles have appeared in magazines and literary journals. She lives in New Hampshire with her family.

We hear from a writer today who recently got some feedback that her “narrative structure” needed some work. She’s dealing with multiple POVs and timelines, so where should she go from here? The question opens up a slew of issues about choices in POV and handling time as well as structure. We’ve got authors Mark Cecil and Jane Roper to help her figure it all out.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Mark Cecil is the author of the novel Bunyan and Henry; Or, The Beautiful Destiny, the host of The Thoughtful Bro podcast, and he has taught writing at Grub Street in Boston.

Jane Roper is the author of  two novels, The Society of Shame and Eden Lake, a memoir, Double Time: How I Survived–and Mostly Thrived–Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins, numerous personal essays and humor pieces, and a very eclectic Substack, Jane’s Calamity.  

Photo by Matúš Kovačovský on Unsplash

Two important questions today from listeners. The first is worried about issues involving writing a series. The second wonders about close third-person point of view. We’ve got award-winning authors Allison Amend and Hank Phillippi Ryan to help us out.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

Allison Amend is the author of four award-winning books, including her short story collection, Things That Pass for Love, and three novels: Stations West, a finalist for the Oklahoma Book Award, as well as A Nearly Perfect Copy and Enchanted Islands, both published by Doubleday. Allison lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at Lehman College in the Bronx and at the Red Earth MFA.

Hank Phillippi Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of 15 psychological thrillers. She’s won five Agathas, five Anthonys, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. She is also on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, with 37 EMMYs and dozens more journalism honors. Her newest is the page-turning standalone thriller, One Wrong Word, which will be released next month.

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The idea of “interiority” is all the talk these days, but what actually is it? How is it different from exposition and simply telling a reader about a character’s thoughts and feelings? How do you access that deeper level of character development and voice from which great interiority comes? We’ve got two master writers and teachers today to help us out: Dawn Tripp and Christopher Boucher

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page.

I also recommend the following Substack articles about Interiority, the first from Brandon Taylor and the second from Courtney Maum.

Christopher Boucher is the author of the novels How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, Golden Delicious and Big Giant Floating Head (a 2019 Massachusetts Book Award Finalist). He’s also an Associate Professor of the Practice of English at Boston College and the managing editor of Post Road Magazine.

Dawn Tripp is the author of the novel Georgia, which was a national bestseller and a finalist for the New England Book Award, and three previous novels: Game of Secrets, Moon Tide, and The Season of Open Water, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction. Her new novel, Jackie, about Jacqueline Kennedy, will be released in June.

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Revision, it’s a monster. It’s also an absolute must. And it makes the difference between writers who are able to forge ahead and those who get stuck. But how do you go about it? And how do you avoid feeling like you’re doing it all wrong? We’ve got authors Hesse Phillips (Lightbourne) and Sara Johnson Allen (Down Here We Come Up) on board to help us out.

Watch a recording of our live webinar here. The audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.

Looking for a writing community? Join our new Facebook group.

Hesse Phillips is a Novel Incubator graduate whose debut novel Lightborne, about the mysterious death of queer Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, comes out in the UK on May 2nd 2024.

Sara Johnson Allen is a professor and author whose debut novel, Down Here We Come Up, was the winner of the 2022 Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press. She is currently finishing a second novel and starting a work of creative nonfiction, an exploration of cultural and political history through personal narrative, centering on her 17th century home in coastal Massachusetts.

Photo by Jas Min on Unsplash