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
Wednesday Feb 23, 2011
Wednesday Feb 23, 2011
Interview with James Kochalka, Vermont's First Cartoonist Laureate. This week, James Kochalka offered one Write the Book Prompt and I offered another:
James' prompt: Think back to an encounter you had with someone today and write a paragraph about it. My prompt: Draw a cartoon of yourself with a person that you know and a pet. James then suggested there might be a way to combine these prompts ... Cool.
Good luck with these 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).Tuesday Feb 15, 2011
Tuesday Feb 15, 2011
Interview with Julie Metz, graphic designer and author of the memoir Perfection. This week's Write the Book Prompt comes to us from a listener in Westford, Vermont. Mark Peloquin writes that he's had good luck with this prompt:
Describe your room as a child. Describe why you felt safe there or perhaps, why you did not. Describe what you would see when you looked out the window or through the key hole. Describe any things that were on the walls and why there were significant.
Good luck with this prompt, many thanks to Mark for sending it, and please listen next week for another. Excerpt of Perfection read with permission from Hyperion Books. Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students).Tuesday Feb 15, 2011
Tuesday Feb 15, 2011
Interviews from the Archives: Literary Agent Douglas Stewart and Vermont Author and Illustrator Amy Huntington. I never announced the prompt on today's show (oops!) but here's one to try, inspired by Amy Huntington's latest work: Grandma Drove the Snowplow. Consider a line of work that might seem unlikely for a certain character, and try to bring them together. How about a librarian with a boisterous personality and loud, grating laugh? A pharmacist with a tremor? A real estate agent who's afraid to be alone in strange places? You can try to make the combination seem absurd or poignant. Play around and see what might emerge. 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).
Friday Feb 04, 2011
Friday Feb 04, 2011
Writer of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry Richard McCann, author of Mother of Sorrows. This week's Write the Book Prompt comes to us from the writer Dorothy Allison, by way of my guest, Richard McCann. In teaching writing at American University, he will occasionally offer this prompt to his students. First, he has them read Dorothy Allison's essay, SURVIVAL IS THE LEAST OF MY DESIRES, which is included in her collection, SKIN. In the essay, she suggests that writers make use of the whole of their lives: honor your dead, your wounded and your lost, and acknowledge your crimes and your shames-what you did and did not do in this world. Richards suggests making a list: who are your dead, your wounded and your lost (literal and metaphorical), and what are the crimes and shames of what you did and did not do. He says those lists become good places from which to start writing. Good luck with this prompt and please listen next week for another. Excerpt of Mother of Sorrows read with permission from Vintage, a division of Random House.