Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Meg Little Reilly - Interview #423 (10/24/16)

Former Deputy Associate Director at the White House Office of Management and Budget Meg Little Reilly, author of We Are Unprepared (MIRA Books). 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt concerns the word storm, which has many uses, perhaps because of the impact that storms have always had on the populations that experience them. Here are a few brief definitions and synonyms: a violent disturbance of the atmosphere with strong winds and usually rain, thunder, lightning, or snow. Windstorm, tempest, whirlwind, gale, squall. A tumultuous reaction; an uproar or controversy. As a verb, it can mean to move angrily or forcefully in a specified direction. To storm off, stomp, march, stalk, flounce, stamp. It can be a sudden attack and capture by means of force. “Someone stormed the capital yesterday.”

Write a story, poem, essay or scene in which any form of the word “storm” or one of its synonyms has significance. If you have a friend who spells her name G-A-L-E, then you can go ahead and write about her.

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).

Susan Cain - Archive Interview #422 (10/17/16)

From 2012, an interview from the archives with Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.

Today's Write The Book Prompt is to navigate to this link on Susan Cain's website and read a guest post by another former Write the Book author, Arnold Kozak (in which he quotes yet another former Write the Book guest, Timothy Wilson!) Read the post, and follow Arnie's suggested exercises. Focus on your breathing. When you are ready to return to your writing, consider the Pascal quote he includes in the post: "All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." Reading this made me feel grateful to be a writer, grateful to know how to sit alone in a quiet room. Maybe you'll feel grateful, too. I hope so. And I hope this inspires in you a desire to write. 

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).

Charlie Nardozzi - Archive Interview #421 (10/10/16)

An interview from 2012 with Writer and Gardening Expert Charlie Nardozzi, author of Northeast Fruit and Vegetable Gardening, published by Cool Springs Press. This interview was held in front of a live audience at the South Burlington Community Library.

Today's Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my conversation with Charlie Nardozzi. Write a poem, a story, or an essay about a flower or a fruit, a tree or a plant. Perhaps a new fruit, or one that has a color that has never before been known to exist. Perhaps a flower with a powerful smell. Or maybe you just write something about your garden, as we (finally) move toward fall.

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 - Interview #420 (10/3/16)

 

A new interview with Pulitzer-nominated author Eowyn Ivey, whose latest novel is To the Bright Edge of the World (Little Brown). 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by our guest, Eowyn Ivey, who finds old photographs interesting and inspiring as she writes her novels. She says looking into the eyes and faces of people from the past offers new perspective and motivation in her work. One resource is Alaska's Digital Archive. Eowyn forwarded a couple of examples of the types of pictures one could find there:

 

http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cdmg21/id/1904/rec/5

 

http://vilda.alaska.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/cdmg21/id/740/rec/28

Many photos can also be resourced in the U.S. National Archives.

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).