Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Keith Lee Morris - Interview #393 (3/28/16)

Author Keith Lee Morris, whose new novel is Travelers Rest (Little Brown).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was inspired by the work of my guest Keith Lee Morris. During our interview, he mentioned that he has, for years, been writing stories based on dreams. “I take a piece of an actual dream, spin it out in the direction of a narrative, and see where it goes,” he said during our conversation. He went on to explain that dream logic doesn’t operate on any principal that we would think of as being real, and yet while we’re in the dream, we still believe it. Keeping this idea in mind, and trying to work within the parameters of what he calls dream logic, try to write a story or a scene or a poem this week, taking an actual dream as your starting point.

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 former South Burlington High School students).

Courtney Reckord, Creativity Coach - Interview #392 (3/22/16)

Vermont Creativity Coach, Artist and Teacher Courtney Reckord. 

This week we have two Write the Book Prompts, suggested by my guest, Courtney Reckord. The first is a question that Courtney might ask one of her coaching clients to consider: What is one thing you’d like to accomplish by this time next year? Next is a writing prompt. Write about the most important place in your town. Is it a town building? It is a place that sells or serves food? Is it a meeting place? Describe its significance.

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 former South Burlington High School students).

Ron Krupp - Archive Interview #391 (3/14/16)

Two years after this interview from the archives, Vermont author and gardener Ron Krupp published a new book: The Woodchuck Returns to Gardening (Whetstone Books, 2014).

The Woodchuck Returns to Gardening is again rooted in organic gardening methods.... a jester called the "Chuckster" follows Ron around making fun of his gardening adventures and asking questions that allow for the inclusion of helpful insights. This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write a scene or a poem in which a character acts as a joker or heckler in some way, but manages to bring a larger truth to the page.

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 former South Burlington High School students).

Laura Williams McCaffrey - Interview #390 (3/7/16)

Vermont author Laura Williams McCaffrey, whose latest novel is Marked, published by Clarion.

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to expand the vocabulary of the world about which you are writing. Laura Williams McCaffrey said in our interview that the fantastical vocabulary of the dystopian world of her novel Marked tends to be functional vocabulary. “Squatties” squat -- that’s what they do, she tells us. In considering the world you are perhaps creating in a piece of fiction, or poetry, or essay, even if you’re not working on a dystopian piece, think about the functional vocabulary of that place, time, or community. Are you writing about a faraway place? Might there be a vocabulary you could research and expand on, or a vocabulary that you should invent? Is there a workplace in your piece that might have specialized functional vocabulary? Perhaps an ad agency that has a code word to refer to an important client waiting in the lobby? Or maybe in your narrator’s family, are there words or expressions specific to their experience that you could add to amplify your reader’s understanding of their life together? Maybe the mother always shouts a certain phrase when she wants  the kids to turn out their lights and go to sleep. Maybe she shouts, “BEDTIME!!” at the top of her lungs. Or does she come to the door and barely whisper it, her tone full of consequences. 

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 former South Burlington High School students).

Eowyn Ivey - Archive Interview #389 (2/29/16)

An interview from 2012 with author Eowyn Ivey, whose novel The Snow Child (Reagan Arthur Books) was a 2013 Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Fiction. 

Eowyn Ivey set her novel, The Snow Child, in her home state of Alaska which, in 1920, was "a brutal place to homestead." The desolate solitude and Alaskan wildness of this setting are vital to the story that Ivey goes on to tell. This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write about a brutal place. 

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 former South Burlington High School students).

Sydney Lea - Interview #388 (2/22/16)

A new interview with Sydney Lea, who has just finished his term as Vermont's Poet Laureate. His new books are No Doubt the Nameless (Four Way Books) and What's the Story? Reflections on a Life Grown Long (Green Writers Press).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is inspired by my new interview with Sydney Lea. Write about a dream, or the memory of a dream, or the almost memory of a dream.

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 former South Burlington High School students).