Episodes

  • Deep Memoir, featuring Jennifer Leigh Selig

    Deep Memoir, featuring Jennifer Leigh Selig
    May 13 2024
    We’re living through a golden age of memoir, and guest Jennifer Leigh Selig’s Deep Memoir is a new contribution to the “how-to” space for memoirists who want to explore the how and the why of memoir writing. This episode will help listeners consider their own “why” when it comes to that age-old question of why to keep at it, and also to celebrate a genre that’s finally getting its due. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    38 mins
  • Grief: The Hardest Emotion to Write, featuring Claire Jiménez

    Grief: The Hardest Emotion to Write, featuring Claire Jiménez
    May 6 2024
    This week’s Write-minded takes on grief, and why, as our guest Claire Jiménez says, “it’s where language collapses.” Jiménez’s new book deals with loss and grief and what happens in a family in the aftermath of a disappearance of a child, and yet, she weaves in humor and the history of American colonization of Puerto Rico and so much more. Grant and Brooke share their own experiences with grief, and also writing and thinking about grief as it manifests on the page and in the body, and why feeling grief is a gift of the human experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    40 mins
  • Creating New Forms—and Rearranging the Alphabet, featuring Elwin Cotman

    Creating New Forms—and Rearranging the Alphabet, featuring Elwin Cotman
    Apr 29 2024
    This week Write-minded is interviewing an established writer whose star is on the rise. Elwin Cotman’s new story collection blew us away for how he played with form and takes readers on an expected journeys. His stories don’t fit into any box—including length, and we loved it! On this week’s show Grant also announces his departure from NaNoWriMo and what some of his new ventures will be. We’re celebrating creation and recreation and taking on new forms, on the page and in real life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    37 mins
  • The Art of Intimacy, featuring Stacey D’Erasmo

    The Art of Intimacy, featuring Stacey D’Erasmo
    Apr 22 2024
    This week Write-minded reaches broadly into the topic of intimacy to explore its many permutations—not just romantic, but innocuous, violent, collective, and more. Guest Stacey D’Erasmo invites us to consider intimacy in writing, how we do it, how we feel it as readers, and also to consider acts of intimacy, like an older actress showing her authentic self as she ages. Intimacy is felt, and not always something we know how to put words around, so this conversation is a particular treat, thought-provoking and enticing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    50 mins
  • The State of the Book Review, featuring John McMurtrie

    The State of the Book Review, featuring John McMurtrie
    Apr 15 2024
    This week’s guest is John McMurtrie, the esteemed former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle’s book review section. Join us as we explore the transition of book reviews from traditional media like TV and radio to online outlets like Amazon and Goodreads. His is an interesting take about how things were and how things are, along with insight about what a book reviewer is looking for when considering what books to review. Join us as John shares valuable insights on breaking into book reviewing and what he considers to be the key elements of a great book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    42 mins
  • Social Responsibility in Fiction, featuring Naomi Kanakia

    Social Responsibility in Fiction, featuring Naomi Kanakia
    Apr 8 2024
    What does it really mean to consider your own social responsibility as a fiction writer? Guest Naomi Kanakia confronted that very question as she considered her modeling as a trans author writing YA books for teens. What if hers was the first book a genderqueer or trans kid ever read? What did she owe her reader? These are some of the questions at the heart of this week’s episode, but we also look under the hood of the publishing industry a bit, too, from the perspective of an author who’s “inside/outside,” who’s writing across many genres, from sci-fi to lit fic, and who has a certain kind of privilege but still lives on the margins. A truly interesting episode with a guest who’s not afraid to speak truth to power. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • Getting Real About Book Publishing, featuring Kathleen Schmidt

    Getting Real About Book Publishing, featuring Kathleen Schmidt
    Apr 1 2024
    Strap on your seatbelts ’cause we’re going for a ride—into the wild world of book publishing. Guest Kathleen Schmidt is a leading voice in publishing. Her popular Substack, Publishing Confidential, is a go-to source for tell-it-like-it-is realities about the industry and what authors can and should expect. We talk shop this week, touching upon author platform, Barnes & Noble, and why advances make no sense. This is a not-to-be-missed episode for anyone who’s ever published or wants to be published. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • The Big Familia of Writing Inspiration, featuring Tomas Moniz

    The Big Familia of Writing Inspiration, featuring Tomas Moniz
    Mar 25 2024
    An episode about friendship, writing about friendship, and how friendship influences our writing lives. As a community-minded podcast, Write-minded has often touched upon the importance of a broader net of friendship on our writing. This week we get a bit more specific with guest Tomas Moniz, who’s written a new book about male friendship and whose entry into the writing world was shaped by his community of writer friends. This week we’re reminding you to reach out to a friend, thank a friend, be grateful for our friends, and we thank our listeners for being a friend to Write-minded! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    40 mins