Fifteen minutes long, because you're in a hurry, and we're not that smart.
This episode was recorded live at our 2024 Writing Excuses Cruise. (Did you know that we host a writing retreat on a cruise every year!?! You can learn more at https://writingexcuses.com/retreats/.) While on a boat in Mexico, we were joined by author Mark Oshiro and literary agent Kate McKean. In addition…
Today we have the pleasure of talking with author (and longtime listener!) Chuck Tingle. We invited him on the podcast to talk about breaking the rules—both in terms of how to publish and what to publish. Chuck told us about the business and creative rules that he has upended—he doesn’t do readings,…
This episode was recorded live at our 2024 Writing Excuses Cruise. (Did you know that we host a writing retreat on a cruise every year!?! You can learn more at https://writingexcuses.com/retreats/.) While on a boat in Mexico, we were joined by author Mark Oshiro and literary agent Kate McKean. In addition…
What does it mean to be building a career as an author in this day and age? We talk with author and speaker Andrew Buckley about everything from author brands to conferences while we ask Andrew to give us advice on how to get comfortable talking about yourself. In addition…
We had the pleasure of sitting down with N.K. Jemisin to talk about the structures and processes that helped create The Fifth Season. We talk about outlines, multiple plotlines, and planets as characters. Jemisin lets us into her writing process—ranging from the influence of poetry in her work to her process of…
We sat down with the author of Ring Shout, P. Djèlí Clark, in order to wrap up our close reading of tension. We talked with Clark about his influences, which ranged from Birth of a Nation to Beyonce’s “Formation.” We dive into contextual vs. narrative tension, why food is the unsung hero of worldbuilding,…
Today we’re taking a break from our Close Reading Series to discuss writing workshops and retreats! We dive into how to find and prepare to attend a workshop or a retreat and what to think about for organizing your own. Thing of the Week: Solo RPGs! (Strider Mode, Star Trek Adventures,…
Learning is great, but how do you translate it into doing without getting overwhelmed? What is the difference between learning in the classroom and executing when you’re on your own? Marshall, our incredible recording engineer, just finished an MFA program. Congrats, Marshall!! On today’s episode, we gril Marshall in order to understand…
We’ve spent the last month talking about “A Memory Called Empire, and now, we are so excited to welcome the author, Arkady Martine, to the show! On today’s episode, we talk with Arkady about the origins of her novel, and dive into how she navigated the dense and intricate world-building.…
Today we get to talk to the inimitable Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar. Amal and Max are on the podcast to tell us about how they wrote a book together (hint: they didn’t write it together in the form of one voice.) They talk to us about the practice of…
