Writers on Writing

Willy Vlautin, author of The Night Always Comes, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing.  Download audio.  (Broadcast date: April 21, 2021) Music by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify, Patreon, etc.

Joshua Mohr, author of the memoir, Model Citizen, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett at the Pen on Fire Speaker Series & Salon on March 25, 2021 about his new book and about writing memoir. This event was recorded live on Zoom.  Download audio.  (An abbreviated version of this interview aired on KUCI FM on April 7, 2021) Musical intro, outro, and interludes by Travis Barrett. Find him on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Patreon.

For forty years, Trinidad, Colorado was known amongst locals, and those in the transgender community, as the “sex-change capital of the world.” An estimated 6,000 gender reassignment surgeries took place in this remote ranch town between 1969 and 2010.  Veteran journalist and award-winning author Martin J. Smithjoins Marrie Stone to talk about his latest, Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroads. He discusses finding the subjects of the book, and their willingness to open the most private aspects of their lives to him. He talks about researching Trinidad and Dr. Stanley Biber, a larger-than-life figure who perfected the surgery after serving as a trauma medic during the Korean War. And he discusses writing about this most vulnerable and misunderstood population from an outsider’s perspective, the challenges he faced, and how he overcame them. Smith also talks about how his own mindset shifted as a result of this project.  Throughout the conversation, there’s wonderful advice for aspiring journalists, nonfiction writers, and those committed to the art of storytelling. Download audio.   (Broadcast date: April 14, 2021)

Don and Mimi Galvin epitomized the mid-20th century American dream. After WWII, Don's work with the U.S. Air Force took the family to Colorado where the Galvins raised 12 children spanning the entire baby boom generation. But even as the perfect family was being assembled, it began to disintegrate. Six of the ten boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The family was plagued by sexual abuse, clergy abuse, a murder/suicide, and other stressors. Robert Kolker joins Marrie Stone to talk about Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family. He talks about finding the Galvins, and their decision to open their lives—and their painful story—up to him. He shares how he tackled the complicated science and research behind this misunderstood mental illness. He also discusses how he managed an overwhelming cast of characters—and the immense tragedies they endured—while delivering a compelling, impossible-to-resist narrative. He provides great advice to aspiring journalists about how to launch their careers, what to look for in a story, and much more.  Download audio.   Record date: March 3, 2021 Broadcast date: March 31, 2021

Russell Shorto, author of Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob (Norton) talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing memoir, especially when you had no intention of doing so. Shorto is the author of the bestselling The Island at the Center of the World, Amsterdam, and Revolution Song.  Download audio.   (Broadcast date: March 24, 2021) Intro, outro, and musical interludes by Travis Barrett. Find more of his music on Spotify and Soundcloud.

Los Angeles-based literary agent Betsy Amster talks with Barbara Demarco-Barrett about the business of writing. Download audio.   (Broadcast date: March 10, 2021)

Julia Cooke joins Marrie to talk about her latest narrative nonfiction book, Come Fly the World. She follows three primary, and two secondary, retired Pan-Am stewardesses who flew for the airline in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. At once a nostalgic romp through the heyday of glamorous air travel, the book is also a chronicle of mid-century America and the larger world. Crews ferried soldiers in and out of Vietnam, and hit the feminist and Civil Rights movements head on. They endured hijackings, attacks by the Vietnamese military, and a general air of sexism and racism. Julia talks about finding her subjects, structuring their stories, and the renewed relevance of this book sixty years after it took place.  Download audio.    (Record date: February 10, 2021)

Russell Banks returns to the show to talk about his latest novel, Foregone. He shares how his childhood upbringing and young adulthood have fed his fiction, and why this novel feels more autobiographical than most. He also talks about a wild week spent with Jack Kerouac in the 1960s, and experiencing the fall of a literary hero. He discusses how this novel couldn't have been written at any other point in his life, why his characters differ from his readers (and the importance of that difference), a tennis showdown with Chang-rae Lee, and so much more. There's a lot of advice for writers, including how to surprise your readers, why focusing on contradictions in your characters is more important than consistency, the necessity of learning how to read, and his insights into point of view. Download audio.   (Record date: February 25, 2021)

Chang-rae Lee is a Korean-American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University. He is the author of five previous novels: Native Speaker (1995); A Gesture Life (1999); Aloft (2004); The Surrendered, which was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and On Such a Full Sea (2014). My Year Abroad, published by Riverhead Books, is his latest. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about creating a sensationalistic novel, in every sense of the word. He talks about how he surprises himself (and his readers), writing food, sex, torture and much more. Karen Russell talks about her prescient novel, Sleep Donation. Written in 2014, the book that was intended to be whimsical satire on an insomnia pandemic has become a dark commentary on the times we're living through. Russell talks about the strange ways the book has taken on new meaning, serendipitous experiences she encountered while publishing it, and so much more. Download audio of Chang-rae Lee's Interview.   (Broadcast date: February 24, 2021) (Record date: February 8, 2021) Download audio of Karen Russell's Interview. (Broadcast date: February 24, 2021) (Record date: January 26, 2021)

Katherine Seligman is a journalist and author in San Francisco. As a reporter, she’s focused on social issues, from homelessness, mental health and end of life issues to the city’s boom and bust cycles. But she’s also written about everything else, from self-appointed graffiti curators, urban coyotes and embryonic sex selection to what her kids learned growing up in Haight Ashbury. Katherine joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about her novel, At the Edge of the Haight, as well as writing, craft, and process.  Download audio.   (Broadcast date: February 17, 2021)