Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

An interview from the archives with award winning writer, educator and translator Wendy Call. 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to choose one of the following sentences, and translate it into a language of your own design. 

• Tomorrow morning, as the sun shines up and over the eastern wall of your house, you will awaken to a gift of joy. 

Pick one of these sentences, or really any sentence you come up with, and translate it into a language of your own invention. Make up sounds that feel like these sounds, shape them into words, see what other sentences come out of your unusual translation. Try to create a sense of the sentence that another reader might come close to understanding, if not intellectually. Sure, it might be nonsense, but it might feel just right, too.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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An interview with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Jennifer Egan about her new novel The Candy House (Scribner).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Jennifer Egan—an exercise she assigns her students that she says has been helpful. Imagine yourself in a physical place, such as a room that you know well from an earlier point of your life. Describe what is to your left. What’s to the right? Is there a drawer open? What's inside the drawer? Move through the space mentally, looking in every direction, looking out the window and under the rugs. The second part of the prompt is to write about who comes into the space and what they do or say. Because physical spaces lead to people,  and quickly. Jennifer says the real wonder of this is to see how much detail we retain. And it’s also a way of defying the fragmentation of memory. If we imagine ourselves in a space, how much we can recall about tiny particulars of that place? And then who comes in, and what are they moved to do there?

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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An interview with 2019 Quill Prose Prize winner, Carlos Allende,  about his novel, Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love (Red Hen Press). 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest Carlos Allende. Create a character that does something reprehensible or immoral. The person can be anyone: from a child who broke the rules to a serial killer. Make that character sympathetic by making their pain salient and undeserved, so that the reader feels compassion for him or her. 

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Author Jori Lewis, whose debut nonfiction book is Slaves for Peanuts (The New Press).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Jori Lewis. If you’re working on something and it’s not moving along well, try changing the perspective. And in doing this, keep in mind  the way one focuses a camera: focus in, pull out.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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An interview from the archives with bestselling author Meg Wolitzer, about her novel for young adults, Belzhar (Dutton Books for Young Readers). One of her latest projects is hosting Selected Shorts at New York's Symphony Space, hosted by Public Radio International.

Seedlings, soil, compost, fertilizer. It’s gardening season. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a garden. Perhaps a small mystery: a missing plant, a wrong fruit, an illegally felled tree. If a mystery doesn’t inspire you, maybe write a poem or a scene that takes place in a secret or famous garden. Or a former garden, paved over and turned into a parking lot. 

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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This month, the words of celebrated Vermont poet David Budbill take center stage in Sutras for a Suffering World, a concert featuring Vermont and New York artists and music by composers William Parker, Erik Nielsen, and Evan Premo. I spoke with Vermont artists Lois Eby and Nadine Budbill, wife and daughter of the late David Budbill, about these concerts. 

As literary executor of David Budbill's estate, Nadine Budbill once said of her father's book, Broken Wing, that it was "the ultimate culmination of his legacy—encouraging all of us to slow down, to notice, to contemplate, to honor, to engage, to love and mourn and be fully alive." For a new Write the Book Prompt, try to write with these goals in mind: slowing down, noticing, contemplating, honoring, engaging, loving, mourning, and being fully alive. 

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Vermont Author Jennifer McMahon, whose new novel is The Children on the Hill (Simon & Schuster). 

Jennifer's recent reads include:

The Fervor, by Alma Katsu

My Heart Is a Chainsaw, by Stephen Graham Jones

At its heart, The Children on the Hill is an exploration of monsters and monstrousness. So my writing prompt is to create your own monster!

What type of monster is it? Does it have a name? What does it look like? What does it sound like? Where does your monster live? Who can see it? What does your monster eat? What special abilities does it have? Can it run fast? Is it super strong? Can it hibernate for years? What does your monster want most? What’s stopping your monster from getting it? What is your monster most afraid of?

Now, write two scenes, the first from the point of view of a person (maybe a character you’ve already been working with) coming across your monster. Where do they meet? Is your monster a danger to this character? How does your character feel about this creature?

Write the same scene from the monster’s point of view. What is the monster thinking and feeling? Is your monster afraid of the person, or is it longing for connection? Or is it just really, really hungry?

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Melanie Finn, winner of the Vermont Book Award in Fiction 2021, and author of The Hare (Two Dollar Radio). 

Melanie's favorite recent reads include:

This week's Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Melanie Finn, who recommends starting "outside the box" when it comes to building character. For her protagonist Rosie, the sense of smell is a strong guide; she's really aware of how things smell. When you consider your own characters, think about all their senses: color and sound, but also how a character  might feel the sensation of silk or wet grass. Melanie says that sometimes we get caught up with the obvious—what is seen or heard—and forget to convey the world through all the senses.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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