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
Tuesday Mar 28, 2017
Tuesday Mar 28, 2017
Award-Winning French Novelist Camille Laurens, author of who you think i am (Other Press).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt comes from Camille Laurens' book, who you think i am. At one point, the character Camille, who is a writing workshop leader, suggests an exercise called “Changing the Premise.” Here is how it’s described in the narrative:
Camille suggested we work on the theme "Changing the Premise.” The idea was to take our own experience as a starting point, a disappointing, unhappy or tragic experience … to imagine a different version, a new development, a possible ending, to invent a narrative that would reorient the actual course of our lives.
This week, our prompt is to do this exercise. Rewrite a moment in your life that was disappointing in some way. Revise it, and see where it goes.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Friday Mar 24, 2017
Friday Mar 24, 2017
British author Jane Corry, on her debut thriller, My Husband's Wife (Pamela Dorman Books).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Jane Corry. In fact, it was something she mentioned during the interview. Characters go through change in the progression of a narrative. To help you relate to the many ways in which a life can change, make a list of the larger events that have changed your life. Perhaps you’ll include births, deaths, and other lifecycle events. Did you ever experience an accident? A fire? An inheritance? Think about these larger events. Then make a list of the somewhat smaller things that have happened in the last month or even the last week. For example, if you missed a train, what did that change about your day? Did it impact some larger truth for you? What was the result? How might some similar events, small or large, change the lives of your characters?
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Thursday Mar 16, 2017
Thursday Mar 16, 2017
Award-winning Poet and Essayist Jim McGarrah, whose new poetry collection is The Truth About Mangoes (Lamar University Press).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Jim McGarrah. Having taught writing for many years, Jim has used this prompt in his classes and says it’s a useful exercise for beginning or seasoned writers. If you get stuck, take a sheet of paper and fold it longwise. On one side, write good. On the other, write bad. On the good side, brainstorm a list of traits that you’ve inherited, which you feel glad or grateful about. On the other side, the opposite—write about the traits that you feel are negative. Make the list as long as you want, but be sure you have 4-5 points on each side. Use the list to write a poem. Address a member of your family. You can begin with the words, “I blame you for… but I’m glad for…” This gives you a way to begin writing from the list. Look at Carolyn Forché’s poem “The Morning Baking." The poem, which is written in couplets, has to do with the poet and her grandma. Jim says this poem shows the conflict she feels about the traits she’s inherited. His students have had good luck working with this exercise.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday Mar 08, 2017
Wednesday Mar 08, 2017
Interview from the archives with Madeleine M. Kunin, Vermont's first woman governor, about her book The New Feminist Agenda: Defining the Next Revolution for Women, Work, and Family (Chelsea Green).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a prejudice you know yourself to have. Because, if we're honest, we probably all have them. I'll start. I avoid cars with a certain regional license plate, because I'm of the opinion that those drivers can not be trusted on the road. (No, I won't name the region.) Do you have a prejudice? How do you feel about it? Are you ashamed of it, proud of it? Do you work to get past it?
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday Mar 01, 2017
Wednesday Mar 01, 2017
Interview from the archives with Paul Kindstedt, UVM Professor and Vermont Author of Cheese and Culture, A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization (Chelsea Green).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to find an interesting lens through which to tell a story. Today on the show, we’ve heard about the history of the world as seen through the development of cheese in various cultures. In mid-January, before joining WBTV, Write the Book featured an interview with Gregor Hens, whose new book Nicotine tells the story of his life seen through the lens of an addiction to cigarettes. What lens can you offer to tell a story in a particularly unique and engaging way?
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro