A short post-election break from our regularly scheduled programming.

Website Mentioned in This Episode:

• Postcards to Voters: postcardstovoters.org

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

Ted is joined by Kirthana Ramisetti, author of the novels Advika and the Hollywood Wives and Dava Shastri’s Last Day, a Good Morning America Book Club selection optioned by Max. Her books have been praised by TIME, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, Buzzfeed, The Associated Press, and others. Beyond her novels, Kirthana’s writing has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Elle, and Salon.
 
She just finished the copyediting stage for her next novel, a case of mistaken identity titled The Other Lata. It comes out in April of next year, and it was a great time to talk with her about what her process looked like for this book in particular. In addition to humoring a question from Ted about Oxford commas and punctuation in general, she discusses the challenge of avoiding dangling plot lines that leave the reader hanging as well as the music-fueled writing sessions that allowed her to complete a first draft in one month.
 
They then move onto what will be Kirthana’s fourth book, one she is just in the early stages of writing right now and for which she is pushing herself to go in a direction she hasn’t tried in her first three. She compares drafting to going on a hike, with her synopsis acting as the path to help her plot her way—even as she and Ted agree that synopsis writing is not among their favorite tasks—and highlights the importance of the little ways writers can make the process fun for themselves.

Finally, as has become tradition these several last months, Kirthana hits Ted with a rom-com recommendation to wrap things up.
 
Find Kirthana Online:

• Kirthana’s website: kirthanaramisetti.com

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

Ted is joined by Laura Hankin, an author, screenwriter, and performer. Her books include The Daydreams, one of the “Best Beach Reads of 2023” (Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and more); Happy & You Know It, a Book of the Month and Library Reads selection; and A Special Place for Women, as seen on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Laura and Ted’s conversation begins with her most recent book (and second Book of the Month pick) One-Star Romance, which The Washington Post calls “real, refreshing and romantic.” It’s about a struggling writer who has to walk down the aisle at her best friend’s wedding with a man who gave her book one star on Goodreads and the ways the two keep being brought into each other’s lives over the subsequent decade.

This prompts Laura and Ted to have a very real conversation about the highs and lows of reading Goodreads reviews of their own books and why Laura has put in place some self-imposed boundaries that, by his own admission, Ted could stand to learn from. He also picks her brain about the way she managed flashbacks in One-Star Romance and the real-life backstory that inspired the novel.

Then it’s onto Laura’s work in progress, a book she just recently finished outlining that she plans will be a romantic comedy that will explore the theme of female friendship, as well. She and Ted talk about “clicking” with a new manuscript, the line between editing and overediting as you go, and learning to love editorial notes.

Last but not least, Laura shares some rom-com recommendations and her thoughts on the applicability of screenwriting to the process of writing a novel.

Find Laura Online:

• Laura’s website: laurahankin.com

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

Ted is joined by Alyssa Neece, his real-life coworker who shares his passion for making funny stuff outside of the office. For Alyssa, though, it’s not about writing books but coming up with and performing comedy for audiences.

Alyssa’s comedy journey started in college but didn’t really take off until some years later when they received a simple piece of advice: Focus less on what they should do and more on how they wanted to feel—and Alyssa realized they wanted to laugh more.

That led them to start taking classes at The Second City in Chicago, where they progressed from a series of improv offerings open to anyone to auditioning for and being accepted into the 13-month conservatory program, which they finished earlier this year.

Alyssa and Ted talk about the full-length Grad Revue Showcase sketch comedy show Alyssa and their classmates produced as the culmination of the program, the similarities and differences between improv and sketch as well as how that compares to Ted’s experience crafting jokes for books, the dynamics of working as a team versus writing on your own, and how Alyssa is now applying their Second City experience on a comedy podcast. Then, in honor of Ted’s newly released romantic comedy, Date Week, Alyssa shares some thoughts on their favorite rom-coms.

More From Alyssa:

• Second City Grad Revue Showcase: Customer Service Sketch
• Podcast: The Weekly Quarterly Report

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

Ted is joined this month by Lauren Aliza Green, author of the just-released novel The World After Alice, a “most anticipated” book by Vogue, Town & Country, and LitHub, among others. Her chapbook, A Great Dark House, won the Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship, and she was named to Forbes’ 2024 30 Under 30 list.
 
After a quick overview of The World After Alice—which Ann Napolitano called “A lovely debut novel that glimmers with fine writing and notes of human insight”—Lauren and Ted discuss the swirl of emotions surrounding publication day, something that’s top of mind for both of them at the moment.
 
They then move into a conversation about Lauren’s second novel and work in progress, a modern-day interpretation of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Set in New York City, it follows three grown siblings as their father announces he’s leaving his multimillion-dollar art collection to his youngest child, cutting the older two out of the will.
 
Lauren and Ted talk about how closely (or not) her book follows the valleys and peaks of King Lear, writing in first- versus close third-person, what she describes as her “complete disorganization of process” and its parallels to working a jigsaw puzzle, giving the muse ample chances to visit you, and the emotion of having to set aside a project you’ve devoted years to. Then, in honor of Ted’s newly released romantic comedy, Date Week, they wrap up by trading thoughts on some of their own favorite rom-coms.
 
Find Lauren Online:

• Lauren’s website: laurenagreen.com

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

To mark the release of his new rom-com, Date Week, which is out June 25, Ted is joined this month not by another writer but his longtime literary agent, Jessica Sinsheimer, the person responsible for helping him develop and then selling both this novel and his first, Schooled.

An agent at Context Literary Agency, Jessica has been campaigning for her favorite queries since 2004 and is known for co-creating #MSWL and ManuscriptWishList.com—and, like Ted, for drinking way too much coffee.

The concept for Date Week started with Jessica, and she talks about why she suggested this story to Ted in the first place, sharing the mix of highbrow inspiration and decidedly less highbrow reality TV-watching that led to the idea. They then move beyond his work specifically to discuss what she sees as an emerging trend of power arcs in fiction more generally as well as what she looks for in a potential client’s writing when assessing whether she is the one to help that person take their work in progress to the next level.

Through the course of their conversation, Jessica and Ted also open up about the challenges, from both the author and the agent sides, of navigating a highly subjective industry built on a strange mix of creative endeavor, business realities, and the unrelenting push to be productive.

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

Ted is joined by Johnny Compton, a Stoker Award-nominated, San Antonio-based author of horror stories whose debut novel, The Spite House, was released in 2023. In its review of the book, Esquire noted that “You can trace the tradition of the American ‘Bad Place’ from Edgar Allan Poe through Shirley Jackson, Richard Matheson, and Stephen King, all the way to Johnny Compton and The Spite House.”

Johnny’s work in progress (at least for the purposes of the discussion here) is a book you’ll be able to read later this year. Titled Devils Kill Devils, it’s about a woman who believes she has a guardian angel who has saved her life multiple times—only to see that same entity show up on her wedding night and murder her husband. This begs the question: What has this supposed angel been saving her for?

Johnny and Ted start out talking about pacing, which in Johnny’s case, changes depending on the type of horror he’s writing. He then unpacks the connection he’s always seen between writing horror and writing comedy and the challenge that arises in both from readers knowing what type of story they’re in while the characters don’t. Johnny also discusses not wanting to kill a particular character even though he knew he had to and his relationship to horror movies.

And because he is technically done writing Devils Kill Devils and is already onto his third novel, Johnny and Ted talk about that one, too, including the 3-D chess writers play with themselves when trying to title the book they’re working on, knowing full well that it may have to change down the road.

Find Johnny Online:

• Website: johnnycompton.com 

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

In this solo pod, Ted talks about the challenges—both external and internal—that come with navigating the months in between when you submit your final manuscript and when the book actually comes out. For him (and many others), that task is complicated by the anxious and depressive intrusions that come with just living life in general.

He goes on to discuss how one of his most effective strategies for managing these feelings is to get started on a new project, the ability to get words down on the page offering a degree of control in an otherwise largely uncontrollable process. It’s only fitting, then, that he shares the very beginning stages of his own new work in progress, a novel where he plans to play with dual timelines (sort of).

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

Ted is joined by Lauren Wilkinson, whose debut novel, American Spy, was a Washington Post bestseller, an NAACP Image Award nominee, an Anthony Award nominee, and an Edgar Award nominee. President Obama also included it on his 2019 Recommended Reading List, a fact that continues to fill Ted with no small amount of envy.

Lauren’s work in progress is a classic whodunit murder mystery set in the present and featuring a Black woman who is a social media influencer as the detective. With this novel, Lauren aims to both follow the beats characteristic of the genre and subvert some of those expectations in the third act.

Or at least that’s the plan at the moment. She just started writing this book in the last few months and is therefore still seeing how it takes shape. In addition to talking about her vision for the story, Lauren and Ted discussed the importance (and the challenge) of getting a novel’s first 50 pages right, those expected beats of murder mysteries, how her recent work as a TV writer is influencing her approach, and using your writing to shed light on issues beyond your pages.

Find Lauren Online

• Website: lauren-wilkinson.com

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.

Ted is joined by Bianca Marais, author of the bestselling The Witches of Moonshyne Manor, the beloved Hum If You Don't Know the Words and If You Want to Make God Laugh, and the Audible Original The Prynne Viper.

Alternatively, we could’ve just told you that Ann Patchett (yes, that Ann Patchett) has declared “Bianca Marais is a genius.”

When she’s not authoring, Bianca co-hosts the popular podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, which is aimed at helping emerging writers become published.

Her work in progress is a novel titled A Most Peculiar Tale, Indeed. A closed-room mystery chock-full of puzzles for readers to solve, it has been pitched as “Glass Onion meets the magical family equivalent of Succession” and will be published by Mira in early 2025.

Just a couple of weeks removed from sending her manuscript to her editor, Bianca talked with Ted about plotting versus pantsing (i.e., flying by the seat of yours), how she approaches editing her own work before her editor sees it, letting your books tell you what they want to be, managing multiple points of view and backstories, and entertaining your readers while still making them think. She also shared a most outstanding wrinkle to the puzzle-solving in A Most Peculiar Tale, Indeed, that serves the dual purpose of keeping down the publisher’s printing costs.

Find Bianca Online:

• Website: biancamarais.com
• Podcast: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing

Working Drafts episodes and info for requesting transcripts as well as more details about Ted and his books are available on his website, thetedfox.com.