Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday Nov 01, 2017
Wednesday Nov 01, 2017
Wednesday Nov 01, 2017
Newbury- and National Book Award-Winning Vermont author of Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson, whose new novel is My Brigadista Year (Candlewick).
This week's Write the Book Prompt is to consider an historical event that might have reverberations in our own time, and write about 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 Oct 18, 2017
Wednesday Oct 18, 2017
Wednesday Oct 18, 2017
Award-Winning Swiss Author Peter Stamm, whose new novel is To the Back of Beyond (Other Press).
This week we have two Write the Book Prompts, both generously suggested by my guest, Peter Stamm, who has used them in classes he’s taught. The first is to look at another person’s random receipt and see what it suggests that could become a story or a poem. What was purchased, and where? What was the cost? The date? The cashier’s name? Was it an expensive item? Was it on sale? Let the details collect for you and write. The other prompt is to find inspiration in a graveyard, looking at gravestones. Usually these only suggest a name, the dates of a life, but sometimes also family members, a cause of death, a war, a favorite quotation. See what these suggest to you about this person, and if a character might begin to present him or herself to you as you study the grave.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday Oct 11, 2017
Wednesday Oct 11, 2017
Wednesday Oct 11, 2017
Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Jennifer Egan, whose new novel is Manhattan Beach (Scribner).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Jennifer Egan, who - as you’ve just heard - discovers her story as she writes it, knowing only the time and place when she begins. This prompt is very much in keeping with that approach. She suggests, “Write without knowing what you are writing. Cover the screen of your laptop and write continuously for 15 minutes. Print and read. Viola!”
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday Oct 04, 2017
Wednesday Oct 04, 2017
Wednesday Oct 04, 2017
Award-winning author Joan Wickersham, whose memoir The Suicide Index, was a finalist for the National Book Award. We discussed her story collection, The News From Spain (Vintage Contemporaries).
I love the way that Joan Wickersham was able to write seven stories that vary thematically but are all titled The News From Spain. Can you think of another context for this title? That’s this week’s Write the Book Prompt. Consider ‘The News from Spain’ as a concept, and write. If you haven’t read her book, and so don’t know what contexts to eliminate, try that much harder to think of applications that might seem a little wacky or outside the normal frame. Or maybe go read her book!
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 29, 2017
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
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
Monday Sep 11, 2017
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.
Friday Aug 04, 2017
Friday Aug 04, 2017
Friday Aug 04, 2017
Bestselling novelist Dean Koontz, whose new book, The Silent Corner (Bantam) marks the start of his new suspense series, featuring FBI agent gone rogue, Jane Hawk.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is inspired by the conversation you just heard with Dean Koontz. Early in Dean’s new book, the reader encounters this definition of the term Silent Corner: “Those who are truly off the grid and cannot be tracked by any technology, yet are able to move about freely and use the Internet, are said to be in the silent corner.” Think about how much of our activity is tracked; ATM and debit cards, credit cards, GPS technology, security cameras, and smart phones are all eminently capable of tracking our actions and movements.
How do you feel about that? Does it make you feel at risk, or safe? Write a short story, an essay, or a poem using your reaction to this phenomenon as a starting point.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday Jul 26, 2017
Wednesday Jul 26, 2017
Wednesday Jul 26, 2017
Nadine Budbill, daughter and literary executor of the late David Budbill, Vermont poet, playwright and author. We discuss David's life and work, in particular one of his last publications, Broken Wing, a beautiful Vermont allegorical tale about a rusty blackbird with a broken wing. A story of loneliness, survival, tenacity and will, Broken Wing is also about music and race and what it is like to be a minority in a strange place. With a brief conversation as well from Dede Cummings, whose press published the novel. (GWP)
This week's Write the Book Prompt is to read some of David Budbill's work and let it inspire you in your own writing. His work was frequently included on the Minnesota Public Radio show The Writers' Almanac. Those poems can be accessed here.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Sunday Jul 23, 2017
Sunday Jul 23, 2017
Sunday Jul 23, 2017
Interview from the archives with professor of English and former director of the creative writing program at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Eric K. Goodman. We discussed his then-new novel Twelfth and Race (Bison Books).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write a poem, a scene, or a story in which race plays some role. Write without thinking or planning. When you finish a draft, set it aside and think a little bit about what you’ve decided you’re trying to say or portray before you revise. When you finish, will you show it to anyone else?
Do you find race a hard subject to tackle? Why or why not?
Good luck with this prompt and tune in next week for another.
Thursday Jul 13, 2017
Thursday Jul 13, 2017
Thursday Jul 13, 2017
Novelist Tiffany McDaniel, whose debut is The Summer That Melted Everything (St. Martins Press).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt has to do with the play of expectation that was central to Tiffany McDaniel’s debut novel, The Summer That Melted Everything. Her characters are not always who we expect them to be. The young man who calls himself the devil commits acts of kindness. The older man whose name implies goodness and piety is not who everyone always thought him to be. In your own world, consider a recent misunderstanding - perhaps you underestimated or misread someone, or someone underestimated or misread you - and write about that experience.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Thursday Jul 06, 2017
Thursday Jul 06, 2017
Thursday Jul 06, 2017
Acclaimed nonfiction writer Jean Zimmerman, whose novel, The Orphanmaster, was published in 2012 by Viking.
Today's Write The Book Prompt is to write about an interaction between two people who do not share a common language.
Good luck with this prompt and tune in next week for another...
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several South Burlington High School students)
Thursday Jun 15, 2017
Thursday Jun 15, 2017
Thursday Jun 15, 2017
Paula Martinac, author most recently of The Ada Decades (Bywater Books).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by our guest, Paula Martinac. Observation + imagination = fiction. Paula’s novel The Ada Decades got its creative start when, on a walk in her neighborhood, she observed an elderly woman scurrying nervously into her bungalow. Raymond Carver said he got the idea for a story when he was on an airplane and watched the passenger next to him pocketing his wedding ring just as they were landing. Think about the action of a stranger that caught your attention; you observed it, but didn’t understand what it meant and will never know for sure. Let your imagination roam and “explain” the incident in a fictional narrative.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Thursday Jun 08, 2017
Thursday Jun 08, 2017
Thursday Jun 08, 2017
Vermont Author Bill Schubart, whose new novel is Lila & Theron (Charles Michael Publishing).
This week's Write the Book Prompt is to consider the following lines from Bill Schubart's essay "On Exigency," and to write from that point of inspiration:
“There is an intrinsic self-reliance in those who see life’s exigencies as challenges to be overcome. Development in the person who feels victimized and overlooked by life becomes stunted since he is always looking outside himself for someone or something to blame.”
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Saturday Jun 03, 2017
Saturday Jun 03, 2017
Saturday Jun 03, 2017
Graphic Novelist Brian David Johnson, author of MWD: Hell Is Coming Home (Candlewick).
Brian David Johnson suggested a great Write the Book Prompt from his work in business journalism. Go to a Walmart or a hardware store, pick up any obscure part or item, look at where it is from, and then research that town; try to come up with a story that has to do with that place.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Thursday Jun 01, 2017
Thursday Jun 01, 2017
Thursday Jun 01, 2017
Critically acclaimed Glaswegian crime writer Denise Mina, whose latest novel is The Long Drop (Little Brown).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Denise Mina. She says, if you don’t know what to write, start with the most explosive thing you can think of, and then follow all the shards.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Tuesday May 23, 2017
Tuesday May 23, 2017
Tuesday May 23, 2017
Vermont Author M.T. Anderson, whose debut graphic novel was released in March: Yvain - The Knight of the Lion (Candlewick Press).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to re-imagine a legend, be it Arthurian, Shakespearean, Tolkien or J.K. Rowlian. Read part or all of a famous legend and write a poem, a scene, or a story inspired by your experience of what you’ve read. You don’t have to stick to the story, or even reflect it subtly. Just let it inspire you. See where it might lead to read an old tale. Here are links to a handful of possibilities to help you get started:
A Vermont Legend about Ethan Allen
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday May 10, 2017
Wednesday May 10, 2017
Wednesday May 10, 2017
Vermont Author Stephen P. Kiernan, whose new novel is The Baker's Secret (William Morrow).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by our guest, Stephen P. Kiernan. The book he’s now writing involves the difficult task of describing art. Stephen recommends reading W.H. Auden’s "Musee des Beaux Arts," one of the best examples he can recommend of writing inspired by a painting. In this case, the painting is “The Fall of Icarus,” by Pieter Brueghel. Here's a link to the poem and the painting. Have a look, then find a work of art that’s unfamiliar to you, and write about it. Stephen says, having now done both for different projects, he finds writing about music easier than writing about art, because like narrative, music occurs through time. Both have movement, crescendo, culmination, completion… A painting is a moment apprehended that does not have narrative.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Thursday May 04, 2017
Thursday May 04, 2017
Thursday May 04, 2017
Thirteen-year-old novelist Emily Rose Ross, the youngest author I've ever interviewed (and the youngest author ever to be signed by her publisher). Her debut novel is Blue's Prophecy (Title Town).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by our guest, Emily Rose Ross. When Emily and Diane were half way through the editing process, they decided it would be a good idea to lay out the story of Blue’s Prophecy in such a way that the book’s motive and their goals were always visible to them. They went to Home Depot and bought a huge strip of landscaping paper. They hung it on the wall in such a way that, standing on chairs, they could write down information about individual chapters, about characters, about maps and other details. The paper kept them organized and helped them find the story arc. Emily says it helped them a lot. Her suggestion is that listeners who write do a similar thing with paper, or a whiteboard, possibly a bulletin board. I’ve also heard of writers who like to use sticky notes on a wall. All of which offers a unique new way to see your work and possibly help you plan next steps, solve problems, and stay organized.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro
Wednesday Apr 05, 2017
Wednesday Apr 05, 2017
Wednesday Apr 05, 2017
Award-winning author Joseph Kertes, whose new novel is The Afterlife of Stars (Little Brown).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by our guest, Joseph Kertes, who has used it in his classes. He was once asked by a ten-year-old in his daughter’s class - where he led the after-school writing club - “How do you know if you’re a comic writer or a tragic writer?” He answered, "Well, I guess if you start writing and it’s funny, you’re a comic writer." Then he brought them this prompt, which resulted in both very sad and very funny writing outcomes.
My best friend in elementary school was born without a head. At recess, she ran like the wind.
So that’s our prompt for this week. Write in response to that sentence, and see if what you come up with is comic or tragic.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Tuesday Mar 28, 2017
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
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
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Interview from the archives with Andrew Goldstein, author of The Bookie's Son, published by 617 Books.
Andrew Goldstein's book was inspired by events in his own life. This week's Write the Book Prompt is to notice how you react in situations with family, friends, co-workers. Where you might normally become upset or frustrated in a certain situation, try instead to focus on how you might reinterpret the moment for a poem or a scene in a book of prose. How would you convey your own emotions, but also, how would you get across the experience of being with these people? Could you write it so that someone who's never been around your cousin Adelaide might understand JUST how manipulative she is? Or how kind? Or how deeply in denial? Pay attention to yourself in the moment, and try instead to focus on how you might reinterpret that interaction for the page. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Monday Jan 16, 2017
Interview from the archives with the novelist Carol Anshaw. We discussed her book, Carry The One, published in 2012 by Simon and Schuster.
This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write about an accident. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Sunday Jan 01, 2017
Sunday Jan 01, 2017
Sunday Jan 01, 2017
Author Maggie Kast, whose 2015 novel, A Free Unsullied Land (Fomite Press), recently won a Wordwrite Book Award.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is generously suggested by Maggie Kast, who uses it when she teaches workshops on "Writing Your Family Story." Identify an object that was important in your family (either your family of origin, or the family you’ve since come to be a part of), and then contemplate that object, draw it if you want to, identify sensory details connected with it (looks, smells, feels, tastes, makes sounds?) and then put that object into a scene--into a place--if you want, draw that place. And then ask yourself what happened in that place that made the object so important. Did it involve something contentious, nostalgic. Was there a fearful memory, or did the object get broken, perhaps? Write as you remember.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
N.B. Maggie wrote to offer the precise William Gass quote she tried to recall when we spoke. Here's her follow-up: ... a quote from William Gass' wonderful book, On Being Blue. Subtitled "a philosophical inquiry," it deals mostly with writing about sex. The passage I was attempting to quote is: "I should like to suggest that at least on the face of it a stroke by stroke story of a copulation is exactly as absurd as a chew by chew account of the consumption of a chicken's wing." It's on page 20 of the edition brought out by New York Review of Books in 2014, with introduction by Michael Gorra. Original publication was 1976, and that's when I first encountered it. - MK
Thursday Dec 22, 2016
Thursday Dec 22, 2016
Thursday Dec 22, 2016
Vermont Author Castle Freeman, Jr., whose novel The Devil in the Valley comes out this week as a paperback (Overlook Duckworth).
This week's Write the Book Prompt is to experiment with rhythm and repetition in your own work.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Sunday Nov 27, 2016
Sunday Nov 27, 2016
Sunday Nov 27, 2016
Vermont Author Mary Dingee Fillmore, whose new novel is An Address in Amsterdam (She Writes Press).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by Mary Dingee Fillmore, who says that when she is stuck in her writing, she likes to describe the environment: the weather, the shadows in the snow or grass... This nearly always works to get her work going again.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) "Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) "Filter" - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Monday Nov 21, 2016
Monday Nov 21, 2016
Monday Nov 21, 2016
Interview from the archives with Vermont author Megan Mayhew Bergman. We discussed Birds of a Lesser Paradise, published by Simon and Schuster. Since this interview, Megan has published another story collection: Almost Famous Women.
Today's Write The Book Prompt is to write about the way light is coming through a nearby window.
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).
Tuesday Nov 01, 2016
Tuesday Nov 01, 2016
Tuesday Nov 01, 2016
C.D. Bell, author of Weregirl, the first Choose Your Own Adventure (Chooseco) project with a single, dedicated ending!
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).
Friday Oct 28, 2016
Friday Oct 28, 2016
Friday Oct 28, 2016
Former Deputy Associate Director at the White House Office of Management and Budget Meg Little Reilly, author of We Are Unprepared (MIRA Books).
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).
Monday Oct 03, 2016
Monday Oct 03, 2016
Monday Oct 03, 2016
A new interview with Pulitzer-nominated author Eowyn Ivey, whose latest novel is To the Bright Edge of the World (Little Brown).
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).
Friday Sep 16, 2016
Friday Sep 16, 2016
Friday Sep 16, 2016
A new interview with Christine Sneed, whose new story collection is The Virginity of Famous Men (Bloomsbury USA), just out this week.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt comes from our generous guest, Christine Sneed. Choose one of the following characters and write ten interview questions for him/her:
Someone who works on the housekeeping staff in a Las Vegas hotel.
Someone who owns 30 pairs of blue jeans.
Someone who runs a tow truck.
Someone who wants a famous face.
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).
Thursday Sep 08, 2016
Thursday Sep 08, 2016
Thursday Sep 08, 2016
Marc Estrin and Donna Bister, founders of Vermont's Fomite Press, "a literary press whose authors and artists explore the human condition -- political, cultural, personal and historical -- in poetry and prose."
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).
Tuesday Aug 30, 2016
Tuesday Aug 30, 2016
Tuesday Aug 30, 2016
Interview from the archives with Children's Writer Laurie Calkhoven, author of Michael at the Invasion of France, 1943, and other books. Since our interview, Laurie has published new books, including The Traveler's Tricks (a Caroline Mystery from American Girl Publishing).
Laurie Calkhoven remembers her first trip to a library left her "amazed and awed." Today's Write The Book Prompt is to write about a library experience. Do you remember your first visit to the library? I don't. But I do recall the feeling I got each time I walked inside our local public library - a tingling anticipation of discovery. Write about a sensory connection or a specific memory. Write a poem, an essay, a story or a scene. And then maybe go to the library, just to relive the exhilaration!
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).
Saturday Aug 13, 2016
Saturday Aug 13, 2016
Saturday Aug 13, 2016
Katharine Britton, whose first two novels, Her Sister's Shadow and Little Island were published by Berkley Books. We discuss her latest novel, Vanishing Time, which Katharine brought out this year.
This week we have three Write the Book Prompts, all generously suggested by my guest, Katharine Britton, who is a writing teacher as well as an author.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Monday Aug 01, 2016
Monday Aug 01, 2016
Monday Aug 01, 2016
Bestselling author and screenwriter Delia Ephron, whose most recent novel is Siracusa. Her other novels include The Lion Is In and Hanging Up. She has written humor books for all ages, including How to Eat Like a Child and Do I Have to Say Hello?; and nonfiction, most recently Sister Mother Husband Dog (etc.). Her films include You’ve Got Mail, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Her hit play Love, Loss, and What I Wore (co-written with Nora Ephron) ran for more than two years off-Broadway and has been performed all over the world. She lives in New York City.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Sunday Jul 17, 2016
Sunday Jul 17, 2016
Sunday Jul 17, 2016
A new interview with Abby Frucht, co-author with Vermont writer Laurie Alberts of A Well Made Bed (Red Hen Press).
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Tuesday Jul 12, 2016
Tuesday Jul 12, 2016
Tuesday Jul 12, 2016
Vermont author Richard Hawley, whose new novel is The Three Lives of Jonathan Force (Fomite).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Richard Hawley. He recommends that writers learn a bit about Jungian archetypes if they aren’t already familiar—those universal, mythic characters that exist within each of us—which Jung said are not just stories or structures, but are alive. They work on you, Jung would say. So read about archetypes, such as the star-crossed lovers, the hero’s journey, the hero’s miraculous birth... Find one that appeals and sketch or write a naturalistic in-this-world narrative in which that archetype is expressed. Use the architecture of the archetype to write a naturalistic narrative.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Saturday Jul 02, 2016
Saturday Jul 02, 2016
Saturday Jul 02, 2016
Novelist L.S. Hilton, whose new thriller is Maestra (Zaffre). And a new book chat with Claire Benedict about summer reads, 2016.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was inspired by Gary Lee Miller’s conversation with L.S. Hilton. Her book, Maestra, is, as the author puts it, brand heavy. She mentions that her character, Judith, finds herself in the world of new money, which doesn’t think about art in terms of aesthetics but only in terms of financial gain. Art and pictures, she says, are reduced to commodities. They of no more interest or worth to many of the characters in the book than a Chanel jacket or a pair of sunglasses. Hilton says, “It was about making a connection between the commodification of the self -- something that has happened to Judith as a result of social media.” This week as a prompt, consider how you, or one of your own characters, responds to brands and to the commodities of our society. Write a scene or poem about this, either in your own voice, or in that of one of your characters.
Good luck with your work in the coming week, and please listen next week for another prompt or suggestion.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Wednesday Jun 22, 2016
Wednesday Jun 22, 2016
Wednesday Jun 22, 2016
Thomas Christopher Greene with his new novel, If I Forget You (Thomas Dunne Books).
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Thursday Jun 16, 2016
Thursday Jun 16, 2016
Thursday Jun 16, 2016
Anjali Mitter Duva, author of the novel faint promise of rain (She Writes Press).
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Wednesday Jun 08, 2016
Wednesday Jun 08, 2016
Wednesday Jun 08, 2016
Gary Lee Miller interviews author Steven Axelrod about his newest Henry Kinnis mystery, Nantucket Grand (Poisoned Pen Press).
Music credits: "I Could Write a Book," by Possum.
Monday Jun 06, 2016
Monday Jun 06, 2016
Monday Jun 06, 2016
Bestselling and award-winning novelist Jane Hamilton, whose new book is The Excellent Lombards (Grand Central).
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider the advice of Willa Cather, whom Jane quoted during our interview. Here is the full text of the quote, which she was kind enough to share with me. It comes from Willa Cather’s On the Art of Fiction:
"Art, it seems to me, should simplify. That, indeed, is very nearly the whole of the higher artistic process; finding what conventions of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the spirit of the whole, so that all that one has suppressed and cut away is there to the reader’s consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page."
Sunday May 22, 2016
Sunday May 22, 2016
Sunday May 22, 2016
Anna Quindlen, American author, journalist, and opinion columnist whose New York Times column, Public and Private, won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. Her new novel is Miller's Valley (Random House).
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).
Monday May 16, 2016
Monday May 16, 2016
Monday May 16, 2016
In the second of two interviews on May 9th, John Preston, author of The Dig (Other Press, May 2016).
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).
Monday May 16, 2016
Monday May 16, 2016
Monday May 16, 2016
In the first of two interviews on May 9th, Dinitia Smith, author of The Honeymoon (Other Press, May 2016).
Good luck with it, 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).
Tuesday Apr 19, 2016
Tuesday Apr 19, 2016
Tuesday Apr 19, 2016
NY Times Bestselling author of historical fiction for young adults, Ruta Sepetys, whose new novel is Salt to the Sea, published by Philomel.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Ruta Sepetys. Think back to yourself as a child and a time you were in the backseat of your parents' or grandparents' car. Take fifteen minutes to write about it.
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).Friday Apr 15, 2016
Friday Apr 15, 2016
Friday Apr 15, 2016
Stewart O'Nan has a new one coming out later this month: City of Secrets: A Novel. In this interview from 2012, I spoke with him about his book The Odds: A Love Story.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to make a list of ten signs of spring in your area, and then use that list as a starting point for your writing.
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).
Wednesday Mar 30, 2016
Wednesday Mar 30, 2016
Wednesday Mar 30, 2016
Author Keith Lee Morris, whose new novel is Travelers Rest (Little Brown).
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).
Tuesday Mar 08, 2016
Tuesday Mar 08, 2016
Tuesday Mar 08, 2016
Vermont author Laura Williams McCaffrey, whose latest novel is Marked, published by Clarion.
This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to expand the vocabulary of the world about which you are writing. Laura Williams McCaffrey said in our interview that the fantastical vocabulary of the dystopian world of her novel Marked tends to be functional vocabulary. “Squatties” squat -- that’s what they do, she tells us. In considering the world you are perhaps creating in a piece of fiction, or poetry, or essay, even if you’re not working on a dystopian piece, think about the functional vocabulary of that place, time, or community. Are you writing about a faraway place? Might there be a vocabulary you could research and expand on, or a vocabulary that you should invent? Is there a workplace in your piece that might have specialized functional vocabulary? Perhaps an ad agency that has a code word to refer to an important client waiting in the lobby? Or maybe in your narrator’s family, are there words or expressions specific to their experience that you could add to amplify your reader’s understanding of their life together? Maybe the mother always shouts a certain phrase when she wants the kids to turn out their lights and go to sleep. Maybe she shouts, “BEDTIME!!” at the top of her lungs. Or does she come to the door and barely whisper it, her tone full of consequences.
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).
Monday Feb 22, 2016
Monday Feb 22, 2016
Monday Feb 22, 2016
Interview from 2012 with Margot Livesey, whose novel The Flight of Gemma Hardy had just come out from Harper. It went on to win the New England Independent Booksellers Association 2012 book award in Fiction.
The Flight of Gemma Hardy was Margot Livesey's homage to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. This week's Write the Book Prompt is to consider a favorite book - either a classic, or simply a book that you personally love - and play around with how you might go about paying homage if you were to write a new work. What themes would you maintain and how would you change the book? Would you set it in another time, another place? Would you create a main character who shares the circumstances of the original protagonist? Or would you create a portrayal that only you could recognize as related in any way to the original work? What draws you to this work in the first place? What characteristics do you so admire that it came to mind? Are those qualities that you already try to include in your writing? How might you consciously work toward that?
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).
Wednesday Feb 03, 2016
Wednesday Feb 03, 2016
Wednesday Feb 03, 2016
Novelist Sharon Guskin, whose debut novel, The Forgetting Time (Flatiron Books), has been named book of the week by People Magazine, and listed by the BBC as one of ten books to read this month.
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).
Wednesday Jan 13, 2016
Wednesday Jan 13, 2016
Wednesday Jan 13, 2016
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.
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).
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
2011 interview with Joan Leegant, author of the story collection, An Hour in Paradise and the novel that we discuss in the interview, Wherever You Go, both published by W.W. Norton & Co.
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).
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
Monday Jan 11, 2016
2011 Interview with Steve Almond. We discussed his then-new book, God Bless America. He subsequently published the popular and controversial book Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto.
This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write about someone having to give up something they love.
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).
Monday Dec 21, 2015
Monday Dec 21, 2015
Monday Dec 21, 2015
Vermont author Brett Ann Stanciu, author of Hidden View (Green Writers Press).
Saturday Dec 19, 2015
Saturday Dec 19, 2015
Saturday Dec 19, 2015
Gary Lee Miller interviews Ellen Hopkins, author most recently of Traffick (Margaret K. McElderry Books).
Music credits: "I Could Write a Book," by the Boston-based band, Possum.
Tuesday Dec 01, 2015
Tuesday Dec 01, 2015
Tuesday Dec 01, 2015
Award-winning children's author Kate Messner. Since our interview, she has published many new books, including a few in her new Ranger In Time series (Scholastic), about a time-traveling golden retriever.
Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.
Friday Nov 27, 2015
Friday Nov 27, 2015
Friday Nov 27, 2015
Two interviews this week. First, Lorin Stein, Editor of The Paris Review. Their new collection is called The Unprofessionals: New American Writing from The Paris Review, published by Penguin. My second interview is with Vanessa Blakeslee, author of the novel, Juventud, published by Curbside Splendor.
Wednesday Oct 28, 2015
Wednesday Oct 28, 2015
Wednesday Oct 28, 2015
Vermont author Coleen Kearon, whose debut novel is Feminist on Fire (Fomite Press).
Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.
Thursday Oct 08, 2015
Thursday Oct 08, 2015
Thursday Oct 08, 2015
Vermont author Stephen P. Kiernan whose new novel is The Hummingbird, published by William Morrow.
So let’s say we wanted to put some pressure on that paragraph, above. What if we were to rewrite it, putting some pressure on the language, making it leaner, and getting that last word, “widow,” onto the previous line? I’m going to have a go.
There! I took it from 13 lines to 10, and did remove that widow, which was, ironically, the word “widow.” Now you try it with your own prose.
Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.
Sunday Oct 04, 2015
Sunday Oct 04, 2015
Sunday Oct 04, 2015
Interview from the archives with New York Times Bestselling Author Mary McGarry Morris. We discussed her 2011 novel, Light from a Distant Star.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).
Thursday Sep 24, 2015
Thursday Sep 24, 2015
Thursday Sep 24, 2015
Critically acclaimed and bestselling author Julianna Baggott, whose new novel is Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders (Little Brown).
This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Julianna Baggott, who encourages her students to use “visualization” to move forward in narrative. She suggests that her students close their eyes for each. They can take notes in between each. Here are a few examples she offered, from which you can work. Either now, if you’re all set up to do so, or later, listen to these with your eyes closed, and try to visualize what’s happening, but missing, from each prompt:
Wednesday Sep 09, 2015
Wednesday Sep 09, 2015
Wednesday Sep 09, 2015
Author Susan McCarty, whose collection, Anatomies (Aforementioned Productions), debuted at #6 on the Small Press Distribution fiction bestseller list.
This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Susan McCarty, whose inspiration for the story "Anatomies" came from the autobiography, Berlin Childhood around 1900 by Walter Benjamin. In it, Benjamin maps his life onto the places and spaces of his youth in Berlin. For instance, he writes about the hallway where the family telephone--which he describes as "an outcast," and "my twin brother"--was hung. He writes about the Tiergarten, a park in Berlin where he first experienced romantic love. Susan suggests that, as a prompt this week, you think about your own places and spaces and map some memories onto them, however small or insignificant-seeming the place, space, memory, or emotion. Limit yourself to 600 words for each memory/place. The point here is to make an active setting for your story, and to notice the way in which setting and plot intertwine to make each other. Susan also shared a link to Dorothy Allison’s wonderful essay, “Place,” in which, she talks about how place is not a backdrop for action, but an integral part of it. For further inspiration, Susan recommends checking out the great website Mapping Salt Lake City, curated by the poet and essayist Paisley Rekdal.
Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.
Sunday Sep 06, 2015
Sunday Sep 06, 2015
Sunday Sep 06, 2015
Interview from the archives with Evan Fallenberg, writer, translator and director of fiction for the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. Author of the novels Light Fell and When We Danced on Water.
Tuesday Aug 25, 2015
Tuesday Aug 25, 2015
Tuesday Aug 25, 2015
Author and Goddard College Professor Laurie Foos, whose novel The Blue Girl came out in July from Coffee House Press.
Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.
Music credits: "I Could Write a Book," by the Boston-based band, Possum.
Wednesday Aug 19, 2015
Wednesday Aug 19, 2015
Wednesday Aug 19, 2015
Writer and musician Tommy Wallach, whose debut YA novel, We All Looked Up, came out in March from Simon & Schuster.
Friday Aug 07, 2015
Friday Aug 07, 2015
Friday Aug 07, 2015
Award-winning author Jacob Paul, whose new novel, A Song of Ilan, was published this spring by Jaded Ibis Press.
Patrick Nolan, Vice President, Editor-in-Chief and Associate Publisher of Penguin Books, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary.
This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my first guest, Jacob Paul, who in 2014 collaborated with friends Sarah Martin and Adam Moser to create a project titled Home for an Hour. Moser invited seven couples to each spend an hour by themselves in his apartment in Greensboro, North Carolina. The couples were encouraged to do whatever they wanted, with no one watching. Meanwhile, outside on the snowy lawn, Jacob Paul sat with his laptop, composing a fictional narrative about each of them. In one of his resulting stories, a participant meditates on the meaning of the word common; another story presents an imagined conversation between two people as they sit in the apartment, drinking a box of wine. None of the stories was revised before being collected into the Home for an Hour book. So the prompt for this week, generously offered by Jacob Paul, is to have a friend or friends go do something that you can’t watch and, in real time, while they’re doing it, write a fictional documentary account of what they might be doing.
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).
Tuesday Jul 21, 2015
Tuesday Jul 21, 2015
Tuesday Jul 21, 2015
Award-winning author Christine Sneed, whose novel Paris, He Said, came out this spring from Bloomsbury USA.
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).
Monday Jul 13, 2015
Monday Jul 13, 2015
Monday Jul 13, 2015
Gary Lee Miller interviews Mark Andrew Fersuson about his debut novel, The Lost Boys Symphony, published by Little Brown and Company in March 2015.
Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.
Music credits: "I Could Write a Book," by the Boston-based band, Possum.
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Author, playwright and activist Diane Lefer, whose new book is Confessions of a Carnivore, published by Burlington, VT publisher, Fomite Press. Visit Second Chances LA to read Diane's interviews with torture victims in her local (Los Angeles) community.
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).
Wednesday Jul 01, 2015
Wednesday Jul 01, 2015
Wednesday Jul 01, 2015
Author Elena Delbanco, a co-founder of the Bennington Writing Workshops, whose debut novel, The Silver Swan, came out this spring from The Other Press.
This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Elena Delbanco. Write about a piece of music. This may sound easy, but it is not. Describing sound is difficult in much the same way that describing color or the quality of light can be difficult. Do you use metaphor? Do you rely on adjectives? But don’t rely too heavily, or the prose might be cumbersome for your reader. Try to convey the sound of the music, as well as the impact it has on the listener. Let your first try be clunky; don’t worry about it. Listen as you write. Maybe you’ll write unexpected words, nonsensical words. That’s fine. Go with that. See what happens. And later, revise.
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).
Saturday Jun 13, 2015
Saturday Jun 13, 2015
Saturday Jun 13, 2015
2011 interview from the archives with Seattle-based writer and teacher Priscilla Long. We discussed her wonderful book and writing resource, The Writer's Portable Mentor.
Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students.
Friday Jun 05, 2015
Friday Jun 05, 2015
Friday Jun 05, 2015
Vermont author Tammy Flanders Hetrick, whose new novel, Stella Rose, was published in April from She Writes Press.
This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Tammy Flanders Hetrick. It’s essentially the idea that prompted her to write her novel, Stella Rose. Imagine knowing that you weren’t going to be there. Imagine having three months to prepare. Now write.
Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.
Saturday May 23, 2015
Saturday May 23, 2015
Saturday May 23, 2015
Two interviews this week! The first, with former Williston Observer columnist, French-trained chef and memoirist Kim Dannies, whose new book is Everyday Gourmet. The second, with best-selling author Sue Monk Kidd, whose book, The Invention of Wings, has just come out in paperback from Penguin.
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.