Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Stephen Kurkjian - Archive Interview (10/17/22)

An interview from the archives with veteran Boston Globe Reporter Stephen Kurkjian, author of Master Thieves, the story of the the largest art theft in history, published by PublicAffairs.

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write 300 words about a theft that goes wrong in some way. The stolen items could involve art, jewels, people, pets, or even just penny candy. Who steals what and why? What goes wrong? Does this create a problem for the thief, or for the victim of the theft? Where does this take place? Who might have seen something? Did they tell anyone, or keep quiet? What happens to the stolen items, and how does the ordeal affect each of the involved characters?

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Dawna Pederzani (12/14/20)

Local author, artist and pet lover Dawna Pederzani, whose new book is The Bread Fairy (AuthorHouse).

During our interview, Dawna mentioned that the first writing she recalls taking on was the sermon for her grandfather’s funeral. She was twelve. This intrigued me. Writing offers the opportunity to really spell out how we feel about a person and to get the words just right. Dawna finds that her sentiments generally spill onto the page exactly how she intends right from the first draft, which is unusual, I think. For me, the ideas are the first to spill. A kernel of something right may build and take on life and energy as I continue, and then as I revise. A funeral sermon might be an opportunity to delve into emotion and offer tribute in a way that few other writing projects could. So this week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write a funeral sermon. Interpret that as you like. You could eulogize someone you lost years ago but have not yet fully said goodbye to. You could write your own funeral sermon, or one for a fictional character you’re trying to get a better feel for: a protagonist, perhaps (or maybe a villain...) Though as Dawna points out, few people are fully heroes. We all have shades of gray in the good and the bad that we show our community, especially during times of duress. 

Good luck with your writing in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Dana Walrath (10/5/20)

Vermont writer, artist and anthropologist, Dana Walrath, who has contributed to the graphic medicine book, Menopause: A Comic Treatment (PSU Press). You can check out the book trailer here. 

Dana Walrath generously offered us a Write the Book Prompt for today’s show, which is related to the advice she offered for writers. Precede your writing session by spending some time drawing, even simply drawing the evocative and inspiring spiral, which is a great way to tap into your subconscious but also establishes a ritual that announces to your creative self that it is time to write. 

I have to say, I got all excited as I wrote this prompt out and put down the word inspiring right before the word spiral. But then I looked them up and there is no etymological link; the association must be coincidental. However!!! …  that doesn’t mean we can’t link the words for ourselves as we work. 

Good luck with your work in the coming week and please tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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Christine Coulson - Interview #588 (10/28/19)

Author Christine Coulson, whose new novel, Metropolitan Stories (Other Press), was inspired by her time working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

We have three Write the Book Prompts this week, all sparked by my conversation with Christine Coulson:

• First, challenge yourself to write from the perspective of an inanimate object. Animate it. Think about how it might feel, if it could express thoughts about its current situation.
• Next, rather than exchanging work on the page, try sharing your writing with a friend who acts as an editor for you, by reading aloud from your work and letting that person offer suggestions, after hearing it. This is how Christine Coulson and her editor at the Other Press, Judy Gurewich, worked on Metropolitan Stories.
• Finally, imagine yourself in a famous museum or other historical building after hours. What would you do, and how would you feel?

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

 

Moira Crone - Archive Interview #579 (8/26/19)

 

Archive Interview with Moira Crone. We discussed her 2012 novel, The Not Yet (Univ of New Orleans Press).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to begin with one of the following phrases, and write from where it leaves off:

• After he dove into the water…
• Through the haze and beyond the line of tractors, he saw…
• When she found the watch in her sister’s top dresser drawer…

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

Heidi Diehl - Interview #568 (6/17/19)

Author Heidi Diehl, whose debut is Lifelines (HMH). 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Heidi Diehl. Think about an event or a time that has been important in your character’s life but does not appear in the pages of your story. Write two versions of what happened. One should be 3-5 sentences, and one should be a full-fledged scene, spanning a couple of pages. If the outcome sparks something that feels important to include, than you should of course use it. But, as Heidi reminds us, even if you don’t use that particular scene in your story or novel, it can be useful as an exercise. Exploring our characters’ histories can give us a sense of who they are and help us bring them more vividly to the page.  

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

Catherine Cusset - Interview #561 (5/13/19)

 

Catherine Cusset, author of Life of David Hockney (Other Press). 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Catherine Cusset. When we remember something that we've shared with another person - a story or incident - very often, two very different stories might emerge from the two perspectives. Memory is not reliable, and so different people will remember events differently. With this in mind, write the same event or story from the perspectives of two people who experience it. These can be two lovers, two siblings, a parent and child, two friends; whatever you choose. Consider how each experiences a moment in time - and the sensory details each notices (what they see, hear, smell, etc) - then write two versions of the same story.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.

 

Gin Ferrara - Interview #539 (12/10/18)

Vermont author and fellow WBTV-LP host Gin Ferrara. We discussed her children's book I'm Not Afraid of Snakes: a not-too-scary story (published by Gin in 2009).

This week's Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Gin Ferrara. Her book, I'm Not Afraid of Snakes, deals with Florida, the place of her childhood. Gin points out that we all have magical memories about the place that we come from, be it about a corner store, someone's back yard, the sound of the birds at night, or something else. Write about the magical, powerful, unique piece of your childhood place. 

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion. 

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

John Huddleston - Archive Interview #468 (8/14/17)

Middlebury College Art Professor and Photographer John Huddleston, author of Killing Ground: Photographs of the Civil War and the Changing American Landscape (2003, Johns Hopkins University Press) and Healing Ground: Walking the Farms of Vermont (2012, Center for American Places).

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to find out what used to be in a place that you frequent. Who lived in your house when it was first built? Do you know anything about that person or couple or family? Did another business used to exist in your favorite restaurant or coffee shop? Did an important event happen on land that you’re familiar with? Think about the history of place, and let that history inspire you as you write.

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Amy Huntington - Interview #467 (8/7/17 B)

Vermont Author and Illustrator Amy Huntington, whose latest book is Fresh-Picked Poetry: A Day at the Farmer's Market (Charlesbridge).

The retreat Amy mentioned in our conversation is AIR Serenbe in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia. And more information about the Children's Literacy Foundation (CLiF) can be found here.

This week, thanks to Amy Huntington, who recommended it, we have an Illustrator Prompt. She writes: “My inspiration for a lot of my recent work comes from nature, and spending time outside observing and learning about the natural world around me. I do this near my home and when I’m traveling. I find that sitting quietly in one place, sketching for a half an hour, allows me to see more and remember more. I also use details from this work to lend authenticity and depth to my illustration work. PROMPT: Take a sketchbook and your favorite medium, (mine is a fountain pen), and spend a half an hour outside drawing. ) You don’t have to find the perfect subject. It can be a tree or a leaf or a knot of twisty roots. I have a barn swallow nest outside my kitchen window that I have been itching to draw. You’ll find that after a bit of quiet sitting – even if it’s by a patch of weeds on the edge of a parking lot - you’ll start to hear and see critters around you interacting with their environment. This is all fuel for stories!”

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

Jericho Parms - Interview #440 (2/20/17)

Vermont author Jericho Parms, whose essay collection, Lost Wax, was published last fall by University of Georgia Press. 

This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Jericho Parms. This prompt speaks to the process she sometimes used while writing the essays in Lost Wax. She calls it FINDING PROSE (OR POETRY) IN PAINTING:

• Look at a painting (or sculpture, or image) and free write, in list or sentence form, everything you see. Be as specific and detailed as you can. No observation is too acute or obtuse. Think about color, texture, composition, form. Use your senses. Seek words to match the tone, the textures, the style.
• Continuing your meditation, allow your thoughts and imagination to roam freely and beyond the canvas. Note any external images or memories that come to mind as you observe the artwork. Seek associations. What are you reminded of? When have you felt this before? What or who (when or where) do you find yourself thinking of/grappling with/curious about?

So that’s Jericho’s prompt for you this week. I’d add one other idea, which is to try your hand at a contour drawing of the painting you study, in much the same way that Jericho drew some of the works that inspired her in writing Lost Wax. The exercise would be to draw some representation of the piece in a single go, without ever raising your pencil. On the cover of Jericho's book, you can see the kind of outcome that such an exercise might inspire.

 

Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.

Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro

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).

Christine Hadsel - Interview #383 (1/18/16)

Christine Hadsel, Director of Curtains Without Borders, a project that preserves painted historic scenery in Northern New England. Her new book is Suspended Worlds: Historic Theater Scenery in Northern New England.

This week's Write the Book Prompt is a visual exercise. Take a look at these photographs from the Curtains Without Borders Project, and let them inspire you to write.

Waterbury Center, VT

  

Vergennes, VT

 

North Hyde Park, VT

 

Townshend, VT

Good luck with your writing this week, and tune in next Monday for another prompt! 

Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

Marika McCoola and Marie Lu - Show #382 (1/11/16)

YA graphic novelist Marika McCoola, whose book Baba Yaga's Assistant (Candlewick) won a New England Book Award last year, and Marie Lu, best-selling author of the Legend Trilogy and the Young Elites Series, including her latest, The Rose Society (Putnam Books for Young Readers). My interview with Marika McCoola took place in front of an audience at the Chronicle Book Fair in Glens Falls, NY. 

This week’s Write The Book Prompt is a character development exercise suggested by Marie Lu. List a character’s greatest strengths as well as what that person most values. Then write about one single behavior or action that this character would never ever undertake. Finally, list that character’s greatest weaknesses. After you have your lists, write a scenario where the character must do that one thing he or she would never ever do. What circumstance would force this character to cross that line and how does he or she respond to the circumstance, in a larger way?

Good luck with this exercise 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).

Daniel Lusk - Interview #374 (11/16/15)

Interview with Daniel Lusk, whose new collection is The Vermeer Suite (Wind Ridge Books of Vermont). The interview was recorded in front of an audience at the South Burlington Community Library in South Burlington, Vermont. Listeners who want to look at the paintings along with the broadcast can look here: 

A Maid Asleep ("Wednesday's Child")       The Astronomer ("The Astronomer")

Woman Reading a Letter at the Open 

Window ("Yellow")                                 The Little Street ("Memoir")

The Milkmaid ("Holland")                Girl With the Red Hat ("White Fire")

Girl With a Pearl Earring ("Girl")

This week's Write the Book Prompt is to use one of these paintings as inspiration in your own work. Study one of these paintings, then write a poem, a story, a scene. 

Good luck with this exercise 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).

Christine Sneed - Interview #357 (7/20/15)

Award-winning author Christine Sneed, whose novel Paris, He Said, came out this spring from Bloomsbury USA.

Christine Sneed generously offered two Write the Book Prompts when I spoke to her. Gary Miller read one of them on the show last week. You can find it here. The second is a dialogue-writing exercise that Christine uses to encourage her undergrads to write with restraint. Write a short scene that happens almost entirely in dialogue.  Keep it to 2 or 3 characters.  In the scene, one of the characters should reveal a secret or some fact that worries or upsets the other person(s) in the scene.  Don’t overdo the reaction. Think about gestures the characters might also make or the physical/sensory details that would enable your readers to see the scene even more vividly.

Good luck with this exercise 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).

Ernest Hebert - Interview #346 (5/4/15)

Award-winning New Hampshire writer and Dartmouth professor Ernest Hebert, on the writing life and completing his series, The Darby Chronicles, published by UPNE.

This week’s  Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Ernest Hebert. He tells his students to take a page and draw a line down the middle. On one side, write one thing that you like about yourself (loyal to friends). On the right side, write something you don’t like about yourself (petty streak). Keep going. Fill the page. You don’t have to show anyone else. Just keep it for yourself. According to Ernie, in that language you will find all the characters you will ever need for a career in writing.

Good luck with this exercise, and 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. 

Martha Oliver-Smith - Interview #340 (3/23/15)

Vermont author Martha Oliver-Smith, whose memoir about her grandmother, Martha's Mandala, came out in November 2014 from Spuyten Duyvil.

This week’s  Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Martha Oliver-Smith, whose grandmother made many lists. Make a list – a practical one, such as a grocery list or a to-do list, or an unusual far-flung list, such as what you would like to do in your next life, or things you learned about some abstract concept (love or fear) - or someone. In Patty Oliver-Smith’s case, it was her grandmother and the many things she learned from her - in no particular order.

Things My Grandmother Gave To Me and Taught Me:

She read to me and taught me how to read.

That one should always try to be kind.

She taught me how to darn socks, a skill I have never needed, thank god, but I am glad to recognize what a darning egg is.

That one should always be respectful and gentle with animals because they know and feel things that we cannot.

To watch out for fairies sleeping under the flowers in the garden.

There are numinous places everywhere. 

She sang to me, songs and lullabies that I sang to my own children.

How to play solitaire, and I am addicted to it--as she was.

That the concerns and work of men carried more weight in the world than those of women. Though she never said this to me, it came from one of the voices in her mind, and I learned it; now I continue to un-learn it. 

She taught me how to make a good vinaigrette dressing, even though she hated to cook and only made salads and dried-up hamburgers or baked eggs on the cook's days off.

She tried to teach me to paint with watercolors, but I had no patience or talent for it.

She listened.

She taught me to study and listen to people. 

That people are both funny and sad--sometimes at the same time.

That organized religion is not all it pretends to be, and faith and belief are two different things.

She explained what a paradox is and showed me how to live it, in it, with it.

She never told me I couldn't do something because I was a girl.

She gave me her gold bracelet with the name "martha" sculpted into it. I wear it for both of us when I have to present myself to the world as a serious grown-up.

She gave me her mandala.

The list itself can become a poem as you revise its linear form for line breaks, patterns, images, sounds etc. If you are working in prose, one or every item on the list can escape from the linear column with individual items to become a meditation expanded and elaborated with images, stories or scenes. The list can become a lyric or braided essay, depending on how far and deep you want to take the memory, imagination and language. The list will add up, whether short or long to something important that’s on your mind or in your heart. i.e. Why do you want/need those things on the grocery list or in your next life? What necessity, what memories of moments or scenes led to those items on the list?

Good luck with this exercise, and 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. 

Stephen Kurkjian - Interview #338 (3/11/15)

Veteran Boston Globe Reporter Stephen Kurkjian, author of Master Thieves, the story of the the largest art theft in history, published by PublicAffairs.

This week's Write the Book Prompt is to bring suspense to your (creative) nonfiction by writing certain pivotal moments in scene, rather than summarizing the historical facts. If you are able, include dialogue, eye contact, movement and sensory detail. This was an aspect of Master Thieves that I found engaging: that Stephen Kurkjian was able to inform readers about the events of the Gardner heist by bringing us into the moments that counted.

Good luck with this exercise, and 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.