The 7am Novelist

Because you do have to end your book at some point, right? Today we’ve got two questions from listeners, one about figuring out the climax of her book, how to know if she’s ending the book “the right way,” and keeping the momentum alive. The second listener wants to write an ending that is both powerful and memorable. We’ve got authors Colwill Brown (We Pretty Piece of Flesh) and Crystal King (Feast of Sorrow) 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.

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Colwill Brown's debut novel, WE PRETTY PIECES OF FLESH, will be published next spring by Henry Holt (North America), Chatto & Windus (UK & Commonwealth), and Sellerio (Italian trans.).

Crystal King is the bestselling author of THE CHEF'S SECRET and FEAST OF SORROW, and the forthcoming novel, IN THE GARDEN OF MONSTERS, out September 24. 

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A few years ago, writer Cathy Elcik hit a peculiar obstacle with her first novel: agents loved the writing but thought the subject was too “niche.” They asked: “What else do you have?” But she’d been working so hard on the “niche” novel, that she couldn’t give them the answer they wanted. Cathy went deep, trying to understand why publishing a book was so important to her, and she had a few vital epiphanies. Now at work finishing a second book, Cathy still has hopes that her “niche” novel will find its year in the sun, but she’s not letting that stop her from working. Process over product. That’s the lesson that Cathy learned from her experience, and it’s serving her well as she remembers what writing for her is all about.

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

Catherine Elcik is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Carve Magazine, Narrative, and The Boston Globe among others. She lives outside Boston with her husband and an ever-growing jungle of houseplants, most of them named.

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We hear from two listeners’ questions today: The first worries about knowing if her book is ready enough to begin querying. What does “done” really feel and look like when writing a book? The second talks about an issue that hits home with a lot of writers, though many don’t speak about it: The time a single writing project takes to finish can feel overwhelming, but what about trying to launch a whole writing career? And what if loved ones are waiting eagerly for it to happen for you? What if their age means they can only wait so long? We’ve got authors Kasey LeBlanc (Flyboy), Shalene Gupta (The Cycle), and Sara Shukla (Pink Whales) to help us find some answers.

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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.

Kasey LeBlanc (he / him) is a graduate of GrubStreet's Novel Incubator program, a contributor at WriterUnboxed, and the author of FLYBOY, his debut YA novel, which will be published by Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins in May 2024. 

Shalene Gupta is a Boston-area writer and the author of THE CYCLE: Confronting the Pain of Periods and PMDD.

Sara Shukla is an editor for Cognoscenti, WBUR’s ideas and opinions page, a graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator, and her novel PINK WHALES is publishing in June 2024 from Little A. 

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We’ve got two very different listeners’ questions today but they’re both common issues for writers to deal with. The first is trying to re-enter a 15-year old memoir manuscript the she needs to cut down enormously (either by 750K words or by 500 pages, depending on our understanding of her question. Either way: A lot!). The second wonders how he’s supposed to know what’s wrong with his query letter or sample pages when agents these days don’t offer a word of feedback. We’ve got Nancy Crochiere (Graceland), Henriette Lazaridis (Terra Nova), and Ethan Gilsdorf (Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks) to help them out.

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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.

Nancy Crochiere is a former humor columnist whose comic debut novel, GRACELAND, published in May 2023, was named a best book of summer by Parade, Woman’s World, and Deep South Magazines.

Henriette Lazaridis is the award-winning author of three novels: her debut The Clover House, the antarctic adventure Terra Nova, and her newest book coming this April, Last Days in Plaka. She is the co-founder of Galiot Press and also runs the Krouna Writing Workshop in northern Greece.

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

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We hear from a writer today yearning to find a writing community, but not knowing how to do without spending money she doesn’t really have. Plus: A lot of questions we’re getting center on motivation in one way or another, so we’re going to discuss different kinds of motivations for different kinds of personalities. We’ve got writers Jessica Bird and Henriette Lazaridis to help us out.

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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.

Jessica Bird is a scholarship graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program, a past scholarship resident at Salty Quill Writers’ Retreat for Women, and was a finalist for the 2023 Edith Wharton Writers in Residence Program; she’s currently at work remapping her manuscript The Only Brother, the story of a man searching to discover why his older brother, presumed dead, survived his abduction when they were children but never returned to their family.

Henriette Lazaridis is the award-winning author of three novels: her debut The Clover House, the antarctic adventure Terra Nova, and her newest book coming this April, Last Days in Plaka. She is the co-founder of Galiot Press and also runs the Krouna Writing Workshop in northern Greece.

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We’re talking about two listeners’ questions today. The first worries that her book has lost its “freshness” after so many revisions and worries how to “get it back.” Is this a common worry among writers? Oh, yes it is. The second worries whether it’s time to break up with her book, how a writer knows, and how best to make decision. We have authors Emily Ross and Virginia Pye 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.

Emily Ross is the author of Half in Love with Death, an International Thriller Writers Thriller Awards finalist for best young adult novel, and she’s currently shopping her second novel, The Black Sea, an adult mystery / thriller set in her hometown of Quincy MA.

Virginia Pye is the author of four award-winning books of fiction, including two post-colonial historical novels set in China, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix, the short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, and her fourth book that debuted this last fall, The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann. 

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Jealousy and Exhaustion are two of the most common, and most difficult, obstacles to deal with in your writing career, yet we all suffer from them at one time or another. How do you tamp down your jealousy of other writers when the feeling makes you feel like an awful person in the first place? How do you deal with the long process of writing and publishing when you’re already exhausted by the idea of it? We’ve got writers Marjan Kamali, Liesl Swogger, and Alex Ferraro 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.

Liesl Swogger is a graduate of Novel Incubator, with a new pretend deadline of March for her current revision of her novel, A Single Season. Her novel is based in part on her own experience in the world of ballet.

Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Stationery Shop, a national and international bestseller, and Together Tea, a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship. Her new novel, The Lion Women of Tehran comes out in July 2024.

Originally from Texas, Alex Ferraro is at work finishing his dark and gritty Novel Incubator thriller about a sheriff gone bad and the Texas Ranger trying to bring him to justice.

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When Michael Giddings wanted to publish his in-between-sized debut, Kelly Marie Wants to Talk to You, he turned to the the award-winning publisher, Cupboard Pamphlet, and their chapbook contest. But for Giddings, Kelly Marie exists in a much larger world of interconnected stories and images. What do you do when a character’s fictional world becomes a much-larger world of its own? Giddings talks about his inspirations, his intuitive writing process, and his love and fear of “scaffolding.”

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 Giddings’ chapbook and the Cupboard Pamphlet contests, click here.

Michael Giddings is a writer, cartoonist, and musician from Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. Recent work can be found in Defunct Magazine and Suburbia Journal. His chapbook, Kelly Marie Wants to Talk to You, is available from the Cupboard Pamphlet. Michael teaches preschool and is an associate fiction editor at Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine. He is at work on a novel, The Homeschooler, in which Kelly Marie will return.

We hear from two listeners today: The first worries about narrative dissonance and his ability to spot it, the second is aching for a room of her own. Authors Sara Johnson Allen, Cara Wood, and Joanna Rakoff join us.

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.

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 book of nonfiction about her 17th century home in coastal Massachusetts. 

Cara Wood is a professional writer and marketer with a master's degree from Clark University. A graduate of GrubStreet Novel Incubator, her fiction is set in a future only slightly more terrifying than the present. 

Joanna Rakoff is the author of the bestselling memoir My Salinger Year and the novel A Fortunate Age. 

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We hear from two listeners today who share two very common writing issues. The first talks about the emptiness she feels about both her ideas and confidence in getting them on the page when she finally pushes life aside and sits down to write. The second worries about the strength of her stories, a worry that is causing her desire to write to fade away. We’ve got authors Hesse Phillips (Lightborne) and Ron MacLean (We Might As Well Light Something On Fire) 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.

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.

Ron MacLean is author of the story collections We Might as Well Light Something On Fire and Why the Long Face? and the novels Blue Winnetka Skies and Headlong.

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