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
Thursday Jul 28, 2022
Thursday Jul 28, 2022
Vermont poet Laura Budofsky Wisniewski, the author of Sanctuary, Vermont (Orison).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Laura Budofsky Wisniewski. Set a timer and start writing. Do not stop. Even if you have to occasionally write the same word over and over until the next word comes, keep it up. When the timer goes off at whatever point you designated - two minutes, five minutes, twenty - stop writing. If what you were creating was poetry, use the next little while to make line breaks in the piece. Then delete everything that’s not interesting and see what you have come up with.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
741
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
Thursday Jul 21, 2022
Vermont photographer and writer across genres Shanta Lee Gander, whose debut poetry collection, Ghettoclaustrophobia: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues (Diode Editions), won the Vermont Book Award for Poetry in 2021.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Shanta Lee Gander, who mentioned her own version of this during our conversation.
What are your impossible things that are all true?
The Shenanigans List
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.' I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!”
Are there funny things that people in your life have shared or things that they say? For Shanta, the shenanigans list includes real vignettes and quotes of the ridiculous, the absurd and the most surreal things that usually has one thinking, "This is so good, I can't make this up."
For this prompt, and perhaps as an ongoing practice, think about quotes, funny things and quirky things and start your own list of the impossible, the bizarre and surreal. Start a shenanigans list; you'll be surprised at the material it may provide in the future for other writing!
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
740
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
An interview from the archives with novelist and story writer J. Robert Lennon. We discussed his story collection, See You in Paradise, published by Graywolf Press. Last year he published two more books with Graywolf, a novel called Subdivision and a story collection, Let Me Think.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write a paragraph about a moment that takes place in a park. Maybe a dog breaks free of her leash and runs away from her owner. Write about whatever moment you choose to present. Then write the paragraph again from two different perspectives. Perhaps that of the dog, or another dog, a person who feeds birds from a bench, a person who sleeps on that bench at night, a policeman, a young child in a stroller, that child’s grandfather, who is taking her for a walk. See what happens to the moment you’re creating when you let it be seen through these varied perspectives.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
739
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
Tuesday Jul 12, 2022
An interview from the archives with award winning writer, educator and translator Wendy Call.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to choose one of the following sentences, and translate it into a language of your own design.
- Tomorrow morning, as the sun shines up and over the eastern wall of your house, you will awaken to a gift of joy.
- He ran through the woods and hopped the stones in a bright, cold stream, shouting that he had won.
- Alone, without purpose or thought, she brings a hand to her face and feels the cool touch of her own comfort.
Pick one of these sentences, or really any sentence you come up with, and translate it into a language of your own invention. Make up sounds that feel like these sounds, shape them into words, see what other sentences come out of your unusual translation. Try to create a sense of the sentence that another reader might come close to understanding, if not intellectually. Sure, it might be nonsense, but it might feel just right, too.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
738