Zen in the Art of Writing

Goodbye Gardner, Hello Bradbury

Thinking of reading The Art of Fiction, "Young Writer?" Listen to this podcast first. Despite dying in a motorcycle crash in 1982, John Gardner achieved immortality (at least in the writing community) with the posthumous publication of the Art of Fiction

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Writing with Gusto

Ray Bradbury shares his secrets for how he wrote so many unforgettable short stories in the first two chapters of his craft book, Zen in the Art of Writing.

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How to Feed and Care for your Muse

Oh Muse, well-spring of creativity, why are you so unreliable? How can we entice you? In this episode, we discuss what the muse is and get some advice on nurturing and strengthening our own from Ray Bradbury’s book Zen in the Art of Writing. We also discuss Bradbury’s journey...

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Writing Marathons and Playing with Memories

According to Bradbury’s retelling, it took him nine days, a library typewriter, and a pocketful of dimes to crank out his first version of Fahrenheit 451. Is such a feat possible in today’s distracting world? We decide to give it a try (or at least one day of a...

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Five People a Writer Needs in their Career

No one succeeds all by themselves, and that includes Ray Bradbury.  In his book Zen in the Art of Writing, he credits several individual who were critical to his literary success.

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So You Want to be a Screenwriter

In todays episode, Bradbury tells us how loathing Ireland pushed him to becoming a playwright/screenwriter,  why these absurdest plays are no good, and the secret to successfully turning his short stories into film. Full disclosure, Renee and Kim pretty much disagree with these two chapters in Zen in the Art...

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Work! Relax! Don’t Think! No problem

In this episode we dive into the final chapter of Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, titled: Zen in the Art of Writing. So what is Zen, anyway? With the help of the internet, we come up with some context. Then it’s on to Bradbury’s three critical...

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Auf Wiedersehen, Bradbury, and on to Scene & Structure

In this episode we bid a fond farewell to Bradbury with one last conversation about his book, Zen in the Art of Writing. We discuss what’s in the book, what it meant for us personally, and how readers can get the most out of this writing craft book. Lastly,...

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