Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
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
Friday Sep 29, 2017
Friday Sep 29, 2017
Vermont Author Nancy Hayes Kilgore, whose new novel is Wild Mountain (Green Writers Press).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest Nancy Hayes Kilgore, who is a pastoral counselor and has been a parish pastor as well. She suggests considering, “What was your first spiritual experience? Where were you? What could you see and feel? What were your senses telling you at that time? What spiritual awakening might have come out of the moment?” Consider these questions, and use them as inspiration as you begin to write.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Friday Sep 22, 2017
Friday Sep 22, 2017
A series of excerpts of past Write the Book Interviews with guests who have had some association with the Vermont Book Award, which will again be presented this Saturday, 9/23/17, at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Missing from these excerpts are two related authors: Thomas Christopher Greene, president of VCFA, which founded the award, and Tanya Lee Stone, one of this year's judges. I simply didn't have time to excerpt all of the interviews I wanted to! But listen to their full interviews by clicking the links on their names.
Good luck with your work in the coming week!
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Thursday Sep 21, 2017
Thursday Sep 21, 2017
Bestselling Author Ann Hood, whose new memoir is Morningstar: Growing Up with Books (W. W. Norton & Company).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Ann Hood. It is based on an exercise with which she has had good luck, from the craft book, What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. The exercise is called write a story using a small unit of time. And that’s just what you do. Write a story and ensure that it takes place within the time it takes to bake a cake, or walk to school, or drive to the airport. Contain the story within a specific period of time in order to challenge yourself to fully craft a narrative arc without using years in your characters’ lives to develop that arc: a beginning, a middle, an end. An opportunity for your character to experience some change.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Monday Sep 11, 2017
Monday Sep 11, 2017
Interview from the archives with then-president of the League of Vermont Writers, Deb Fennell.
It is now officially football season. The Bills have a win, the Patriots, a loss. But it’s early days. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a football game that begins in a friendly way and turns nasty. It can be about a Thanksgiving touch football game, or a group of old friends coming together to watch the Superbowl. It can be about high school parents, professional players, the fans, or the guy selling beer and hot dogs. Be sure to describe the weather, the smells and sounds and colors.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Monday Sep 04, 2017
Monday Sep 04, 2017
Interview from the archives with Vermont Writer and Writing Coach,
Tamar Cole (tamarcole21@gmail.com).
This week's Write The Book Prompt is inspired by a prompt that Tamar Cole has used in her writing workshops. She offers a word and then has participants write six lines about that word, or influenced by that word. So let's do that. In honor of Labor Day, the word for this week's prompt is enterprise. Think about the word enterprise, and write six lines. Or more!
Good luck with this prompt and tune in next week for another.
Monday Sep 04, 2017
Monday Sep 04, 2017
Interview from the archives with Local Writer and Tai Chi Teacher
Bob Boyd, author of Snake Style Tai Chi Chuan:
The Hidden System of the Yang Family.
This week's Write The Book Prompt is to consider the movement of an animal and use that in a comparative piece about human nature.