You CAN handle the truth (in your memoir)
Readers seek out memoirs because they want true stories. But the truth, according to Judith Barrington in her book Writing the Memoir, is more than using Google to fact...
Words We Write
by Kim & Renee
Finding Your Memoir’s Form
Chronological, essays, skipping through time, interspersed non-fiction — there are so many forms that memoir can take. Judith Barrington covers several in her book, Writing the Memoir, and in...
Making Your Memoir Matter
Baring one's soul in a memoir is hard work. Convincing others to care is one thing, but to engage in your life story? That's a whole other beast. In...
Truth VS Narrative in Memoir
We’re starting a NEW BOOK - Judith Barrington’s Writing the Memoir. And what better place to start than by discussing what a memoir is, what memoir isn’t, and just...
Bye Bye Birdy
How do you tackle one of the most famous writing craft books, you take it “Bird by Bird.” That’s what we’ve done with Anne Lamott’s book over the past...
Why Do You Write?
Well, why do you? The answer for most authors is to get published. But is that the only reason, or even the best reason? As we near the...
What To Do When You Have Writer’s Block
Anne Lamott (in her Bird by Bird book) says the dreaded writer’s block isn’t about being blocked, it’s about being empty. In today’s podcast we discuss Lamott’s approach to...
Making a Scene
If stories are made up of scenes, what are scenes made up of? According to Jack Bickham in his...
The Cart Goes After the Horse – Getting Cause and Effect Right in your Story
This episode is all about cause and effect, what it is, why it is critical in fiction despite being...
Starting Your Book Off Right
In this podcast we give our first impressions of our new book, Jack Bickham's Scene and Structure, and, being the...
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...
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:...
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...
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 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...
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...
Writing with Gusto
Ray Bradbury shares his secrets for how he wrote so many unforgettable short stories in the first two chapters...
Goodbye Gardner, Hello Bradbury
Thinking of reading The Art of Fiction, "Young Writer?" Listen to this podcast first. Despite dying in a motorcycle...
Come for the Plot. Stay for the Stripper
Wow! We've gotten to the final chapter of John Gardner's book, The Art of Fiction and it's all about...
Techniques
Gardner promises to show us the proper way for the young writer to achieve artistic mastery. Doesn’t that sound...
Common Errors
Enough with the theoretical, in this episode we get some practical advice out of Gardner's book, The Art of...
Metafiction, Deconstruction, and Jazzing Around
After last episode’s mother of all chapters, we get a reprieve – a much shorter and lighthearted chapter...
Musing: Memoir’s Secret Ingredient
We’ve gotten to the part of Judith Barrington’s Writing the Memoir where she covers the actual writing of in a memoir, the words on the page. In addition...