A writing podcast for writers and curious readers, featuring interviews with authors, poets, agents and editors. Twice chosen as one of Writer’s Digest Magazine’s 101 Best Website for Writers. Vermont-grown.
Episodes
Monday Dec 27, 2010
Monday Dec 27, 2010
Vermont Writer Kenneth M. Cadow, author of Alfie Runs Away published by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, a division of MacMillan. This week's Write the Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Kenneth Cadow, though he wanted to be sure I credit the true creator of the exercise, Emily Silver, who is an English Teacher at Thetford Academy. Ken and Emily co-teach from time to time. On one occasion, when the class was studying The Catcher in the Rye, Emily Silver gave the class the following exercise: write about your pet peeve, using your stream of consciousness to really go off on the subject. See where it takes you. Ken said that this exercise really got the students writing. His own pet peeve is vending machines. Good luck with this prompt and please listen next week for another. Alfie Runs Away read with permission. Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students).
Monday Dec 27, 2010
Monday Dec 27, 2010
Interview with Louella Bryant, author of While In Darkness There Is Light. This week's Write the Book Prompt is pretty straightforward. If you tend to love the holidays, write about your worst holiday memory ever. And if you don't enjoy the holidays, write about your best. Good luck with this prompt and please listen next week for another. Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)
Sunday Dec 26, 2010
Sunday Dec 26, 2010
New Hampshire Novelist Toby Ball, author of The Vaults, published by St. Martin's Press. This week's Write the Book Prompt is inspired by my guest's novel, The Vaults. In our conversation, Toby Ball mentioned his decision to create an unidentifiable city in which to base his story. This week, study the setting of your book and decide to what extent it is identifiable, and if the geography of your work conveys all that you'd like it to convey. Perhaps, like Toby, you'd rather the place in your present piece NOT be specifically identifiable, with roads and highways that you'd find in your Garmin. Or maybe place is vital to your work, and you need to study the way you've presented it on the page, see if it adequately represents the real thing. Good luck with this prompt and please listen next week for another. Excerpt of The Vaults read with permission from St. Martin's Press, a division of MacMillan. Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students).
Friday Dec 10, 2010
Friday Dec 10, 2010
Vermont Poet Pamela Harrison, author of the new collection, Out of Silence. This week's Write the Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Pamela Harrison. In her creative writing classes, she will sometimes ask students to read and study Archibald McLeash's Poem "Eleven," which captures a particular time in the intellectual and emotional life of an eleven year old boy. He is asked by the adults in his life to "think, think, think!" But he's not ready to think. He's still living deep inside his body. He hasn't arrived at his intellectual capacities yet and hasn't awakened to his separate self. The poem, says Pamela, beautifully captures that time in the life of a child. Your prompt this week is to find the poem "Eleven" and read it. Look at each line as it develops. Then find or remember a place in your own life that was your hideaway, your safe place as a child, where you were most alive inside your body and where you had a sense of wholeness; then write. It's amazing, says Pamela, what this exercise inspires in her students. Good luck with this prompt and please listen next week for another.