Tana French is the New York Times bestselling author of eight previous books, including The Searcher, The Likeness, and The Witch Elm. Her novels have sold over three million copies and won numerous awards, including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She’s been called a mystery writer for people who don’t read mysteries. She lives in Dublin with her family.

Tana French joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about her latest novel, The Hunter. They discuss her attraction to crime fiction, how her acting background helps her get into character, how characters come to her, how she’s not a plotter, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on January 10, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Eric Puchner is the author of two story collections — Music Through the Floor and Last Day on Earth. His first novel, Model Home, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction. His latest novel, Dream State, publishes February 18. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about it.

They discuss controlling time in a novel, since the book takes place over generations and moves not linearly but fluidly through time. They also talk about anticipating the future, because the novel projects ahead in time. They discuss point of view, bringing real world issues like climate change and environmentalism into your work in non-moralizing ways, and what he advises his students about writer’s block. They also discuss the current world of agents and editors and what he's learned in his decades of publishing, and so much more.   

As a bonus, Eric and his wife, novelist Katherine Noel, collaborated on an essay entitled I Married a Novelist, a fun, funny, and delightful read.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on February 5, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Renee Fountain is president of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Lit Mgmt. She’s been in the publishing industry for more than 30 years. She’s worked at Harcourt and Simon & Schuster with some of the best writers and illustrators in publishing, has managed iconic classics like Raggedy Ann and Nancy Drew, and brokered film and television options. Renee also spent five years with the CW Television Network as a book scout and story analyst for scripted television. Renèe represents fiction and non-fiction, from YA to adult but doesn’t represent picture books, middle grade, or previously published work. She attends writers’ conferences where she provides manuscript critiques, fields author pitches, and teaches masterclasses. She offers free resources for writers at Reneefountain.com/podcastjumpstart and on her Substack page. In addition to agenting, Renèe helps writers hone their craft and books with developmental editing and coaching through her company Gryphon Quill and as a faculty member of The Manuscript Academy.

Renee joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about what she wishes a writer would send her, how she finds her clients, how the words on the page are more important than MFAs and a writer’s age, query letters, what to do about your bio if you have no writing credits, comps, the state of the publishing biz, social media, and so much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on January 31, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Danielle Prescod is a 15-year veteran of the beauty and fashion industry. She is also the author of the memoir Token Black Girl, which was one of the buzziest books of 2022, and cited as a must read by People, USA Today, Town and Country, Ebony, The LA Times, and landed her on NBC’s Today Show and elsewhere.

Her debut novel is The Rules of Fortune. It’s published by Mindy Kaling’s Book Studio, an imprint at Amazon, and hits shelves February 1, 2025. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about it, as well as Mindy’s Book Studio and working with an Amazon imprint, how she found her agent, how she taught herself to write fiction and what she’ll do different next time, the difference between writing her memoir and writing a novel, and so much more. You can follow her here on Instagram.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on January 23, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Kim (Freilich) Dower (City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood from October 2016 – October 2018) has published six highly acclaimed collections of poetry all from Red Hen Press. Her newest What She Wants is called, “witty, sultry and thoughtful,” by the Washington Post. The bestselling, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom, an Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist, was called a “fantastic collection” by The Washington Post, “impressively insightful, thought-provoking, and truly memorable” by The Midwest Book Review and Shelf-Awareness said, “These gorgeous gems are energized by the sheer power of her wit and irreverent style.” Air Kissing on Mars, Kim’s first collection, was described by the Los Angeles Times as, “sensual and evocative . . . seamlessly combining humor and heartache.” Slice of Moon was called “unexpected and sublime,” by “O” magazine, Last Train to the Missing Planet, “poems that speak about the grey space between tragedy and tenderness, memory and loss, fragility and perseverance,” said Richard Blanco, and Sunbathing on Tyrone Power’s Grave, won the 2020 Independent Publishers Book Award Gold Medal for Poetry. Kim’s work has been featured in numerous literary journals including Plume, Ploughshares, Rattle, The James Dickey Review, and Garrison Keillor's "The Writer's Almanac," and her poems are included in several anthologies, notably, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond. She teaches poetry workshops for Antioch University, UCLA Extension Writer’s Program, and the West Hollywood Library. Born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and a graduate of Emerson College in Boston, Kim lives with her family in West Hollywood, CA. To learn more about Kim visit her website: www.kimdowerpoetry.com

 Kim joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about the attributes of a poet, whether studying the classic poets and traditional forms is necessary if you want to write poetry, what is poetry?, and limerence. Kim reads three poems from the collection and talks about the process of writing them.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on January 17, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Bradford Morrow is the author of 10 novels, as well as short stories, children’s books, essays, anthologies, and illustrated books. He is also the founder and editor of the literary journal Conjunctions, which has been in publication since 1981. Professor Morrow has taught literature at Bard College for 35 years.

His latest is The Forger’s Requiem. It’s the third in a trilogy, following The Forgers and The Forger’s Daughter. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about these novels, as well as his techniques for reading like a writer, his work at Conjunctions, his use of journals for novel-writing, his writing routine, his love of the Oxford English Dictionary, and so much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on January 9, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Rebecca Renner is a journalist and fiction writer from Daytona Beach, Florida. She’s a seventh-generation Floridian, and is committed to making life in her state better for everyone through writing about politics, social issues, and the environment. She has a Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing from Stetson University, the oldest university in the state of Florida. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Glamour, VICE, New York Magazine and more. She’s author of the narrative nonfiction/true crime book, Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades.

 On the show we talked about the misbelief about alligators, the everglades, doing research, finding sources and convincing them to be a part of your project, and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on April 12, 2024)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

One of the questions I often get this time of year is who were my favorite interviews and what were my favorite books? This year, the question prompted me to begin digging through my 25+ hours of recordings to find the gems from 2024. I decided to edit some of them together and share them here. Of course, this is just a small sampling and doesn’t include Barbara’s many treasures.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to try doing more reading and less watching. If you’re in that boat too and looking for some good places to start, maybe this episode will help you out. All the complete interviews can be found in our archives at www.writersonwriting.com.

Here’s a quick list of the authors and books mentioned in this episode: Steve Almond’s Truth is the Arrow, Mercy is the Bow, Kevin Barry’s The Heart in Winter, Bonnie Jo Campbell’s The Waters, Kristin Hannah’s The Women, Jonathan Lethem’s Brooklyn Crime Novel, Hisham Matar’s My Friends, Joyce Maynard’s How the Light Gets In, Alice McDermott’s Absolution, Ben Shattuck’s The History of Sound, Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy, and Elizabeth Strout’s Tell Me Everything.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. Listen to past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

I have a Christmas and Hanukah gift for you: my show with Stephen Dunn. This is one of my favorite shows and he was one of my favorite poets. He published something like 21 collections of poetry. The show you’re about to hear from 2001, the first time he was a guest on the show. Writers on Writing was on the radio then. Podcasting wouldn’t be along for four more years and it would be a number of years—I’ve lost track—before my cohost Marrie Stone joined us.  

I first learned of Dunn back in the early 1980s. I was on a bus in San Francisco, looking up at the placards that lined the roof of the bus and there was a poem of his. It may have been his poem, “Contact,” which he reads during the following interview. Back then the City posted poetry on MUNI busses (I think it’s doing that again). Dunn and I never met in person but he graced me and the show with his presence a half dozen times.

Stephen Dunn was born on June 24, 1939, in Forest Hills, Queens. He graduated from Forest Hills High School in 1957. He earned a BA in history and English from Hofstra University, attended the New School Writing Workshops, and finished his MA in creative writing at Syracuse University. Dunn’s books of poetry include the posthumous collection The Not Yet Fallen World (W. W. Norton, 2022); Pagan Virtues (W. W. Norton, 2019); Lines of Defense (W. W. Norton, 2014); Here and Now: Poems (W. W. Norton, 2011); What Goes On: Selected and New Poems 1995-2009 (W. W. Norton, 2009); Everything Else in the World (W. W. Norton, 2006); Local Visitations (W. W. Norton, 2003); Different Hours (W. W. Norton, 2000), winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry; Loosestrife (W. W. Norton, 1996), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; New and Selected Poems: 1974–1994(W. W. Norton, 1994); Landscape at the End of the Century (W. W. Norton, 1991); Between Angels (W. W. Norton, 1989); Local Time (William Morrow & Co., 1986), winner of the National Poetry Series; Not Dancing (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1984); Work & Love (HarperCollins, 1981); A Circus of Needs (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1978); Full of Lust and Good Usage (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1976); and Looking For Holes In the Ceiling (University of Massachusetts Press, 1974). He is also the author of Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry (BOA Editions, 2001), and Riffs & Reciprocities: Prose Pairs (W. W. Norton, 1998).

About Dunn’s work, the poet Billy Collins has written:

The art lies in hiding the art, Horace tells us, and Stephen Dunn has proven himself a master of concealment. His honesty would not be so forceful were it not for his discrete formality; his poems would not be so strikingly naked were they not so carefully dressed.

Dunn’s other honors include the Academy Award for Literature, the James Wright Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He has taught poetry and creative writing and held residencies at Wartburg College, Wichita State University, Columbia University, University of Washington, Syracuse University, Southwest Minnesota State College, Princeton University, and University of Michigan.

Dunn has worked as a professional basketball player, an advertising copywriter, and an editor, as well as a professor of creative writing. Dunn was the distinguished professor of creative writing at Richard Stockton College and lived in Frostburg, Maryland with his wife, the writer Barbara Hurd. He passed away on June 25, 2021.

He won a Pulitzer Prize for Different Hours, the focus for our talk on this day in 2001. We also talk about the poets’ state of mind, writing poems during and after the moment, existing in the world of ambiguity, being a retrospective poet, how his focus has changed over the years, how he taught poetry, good training for a poet, hearing from readers, National Poetry Month, and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds upon hundreds of past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded in 2001 in the KUCI-FM studio at University of California Irvine campus.) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the bestselling author of Deep River, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, and What It is Like to Go to War. His latest, Cold Victory, is out in paperback by Grove Press.

Karl joins Marrie Stone to discuss it. He talks about writing books based on direct experience versus writing books based on research, how he turned his experience in Vietnam into fiction, what he learned from Danielle Steel and Louis L’Amour, how to use Excel spreadsheets to plot your novel, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. Listen to past interviews on our website. If you'd like to support the show and indie bookstores, consider buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on December 10, 2024) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)