Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Toby Ball - Archive Interview (3/7/22)

An archive interview (from my Radiator broadcast days!) from the archives with New Hampshire author Toby Ball, author of three crime novels published by Overlook Press: The Vaults, about which we spoke in 2010,  Scorch City, which he wrote in 2011, and Invisible Streets the third in the series and the subject of this conversation.

This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider the following list of sentences and phrases, pick two, and put them in a story, scene, poem, or simple paragraph. Here they are:

* If she was going to argue all night…

* Keeping in mind the Pomeranian on the kitchen floor…

* Why not (a) Manhattan? 

* His itching feet called to be released.

* Staring at the melting ice statue, he spoke very slowly. 

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

Music Credit: John Fink

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Jennifer Egan - Interview #477 (10/9/17)

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

Megan Abbott - Archive Interview #343 (4/13/15)

Award-winning Crime and Mystery Author Megan Abbott; we discussed her novel The End of Everything.

This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write a poem or a scene in which someone is vacuuming.

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. 

Toby Ball - Interview #310 (9/1/14)

NH novelist Toby Ball, whose third novel is Invisible Streets, published by Overlook Press. 

This week I'm offering two Write the Book Prompts on the website. The first is to write about a move. (The Radiator moved last week - did you know?) 

The second is to write a poem or story using ten words that I've pulled at random from the pages of Toby Ball's Invisible Streets. They are: neighborhood, knock, tourist, gaze, exhausted, slump, artificial, masterstroke, grip,crack. 

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, now alums).