#AmWriting

We love being edited. We love editors. But truth: sometimes being edited is hard. Sometimes you need to interpret things differently, ask questions or push back. In this episode, we talk about how to do that, what makes a good editor and how to find one, how to be edited in your freelance work and—my favorite—why you can’t say your editor is wrong. #AmReading Jess: Turning Pointe: How a New Generation of Dancers Is Saving Ballet from Itself by Chloe Angyal Punch Me Up to the Gods by Brian Broome Sarina: Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert KJ: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins ReidIf you reply to this email I’ll tell you what book Jess didn’t like :). Thinking about hiring an editor—aka a book coach? I’ve worked with two from Author Accelerator now (and I PAID THEM, it’s not a perk of being sponsored :)) and they were wonderful. As we say in the episode, the best editors represent your readers, and they know what those readers are here for and how you can give it to them. Author Accelerator book coaches are those editors. Find them here—or, if you know you’ve got exactly that editor within you, head here to find out more about becoming a book coach yourself.

Emma Gannon is a best-selling author, a podcaster, a journalist, writer of fiction and non-fiction and just general woman-about-town, as known for her writing about the new world of work as she soon will be for her fiction. Her debut novel, Olive, centers on a journalist who loves her career and the many other things that fill her world, friends, fun, family—and is in the process of owning her sense that children won’t be one of those things. Emma, like her protagonist, is happily without spawn—and that’s what we’re talking about on the pod. No, not deciding whether to have kids, you know us better than that—but turning your personal life into fiction—advantages, disadvantages, and what comes next. #AmReading Emma: Animal by Lisa Taddeo The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self by Martha Beck Jess: High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley KJ: Would I lie to you by Judi KettelerFind our guest, Emma Gannon, on Twitter at @emmagannon, her website www.emmagannon.co.uk, and check out her podcast—Ctrl Alt Dlt. Hello, your dream job is calling! Click here to revel in some success stories from Author Accelerator’s book coach certification program and imagine where you could be next year—if you sign up now.

Our guest today is a wildly successful food writer who’s fresh off an appearance on Fresh Air—and who never “should” have written a cookbook at all. (Read on for a recipe.) Here’s her bio, in her own words: I grew up a Palestinian in Israel. I went to an American missionary school and by the grace of whatever gods were looking down on me and sheer grit, I came to UPenn for undergrad, where I struggled initially, but kept going until I graduated in the top of my class and went on straight to do my MBA at Wharton. From there, McKinsey, The London School of Economics, The World Economic Forum and, by any measure, a fast track, prestigious career. But I felt disillusioned when I realized I was following the herd and living someone else’s version of success, not mine. So I turned my back on the whole thing and decided to write a cookbook.But she did (The Palestinian Table) and now she’s written another (The Arabesque Table). We talk about the nitty gritty of cookbook publishing along with the things she didn’t know (and how that helped), why you should just ask and how to convince yourself—and others—that you know what you need to know to make this happen. #AmReading Reem: Beyond the North Wind: Russia in Recipes and Lore by Darra Goldstein The Mountains Sing by Mai Phan Que Nguyen Your Turn: How to Be an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims KJ: My Kitchen Year : 136 Recipes That Saved My Life: a Cookbook by Ruth Reichl Cook’s Illustrated Chinese Recipes Sarina: Food52 Genius Recipes: 100 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook by Kristen MigloreFind Reem on Instagram: Reem.kassisRECIPE!Quick and Easy Bseeseh (Nut and Date Snacks)Makes 25-30 balls Ingredients1 cup (51/4 oz/150 g) unhulled sesame seeds14 oz (400 g) date paste (see Note)2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (choose one whose flavor you like)1/4 cup (1 oz / 30 g) pistachios (or any other nut you like), coarsely ground1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon Method1. Line a large plate with parchment or wax (greaseproof) paper and set aside.2. In a large frying pan, dry-roast the sesame seeds over medium heat, stirring constantly, until aromatic and toasted, 7–10 minutes. You’ll know they are toasted when you start to hear some seeds popping and smell the nutty aroma of sesame and notice the color darken slightly. Remove from the heat, transfer to a plate, and set aside to cool completely. 3. In a large bowl, combine the date paste, olive oil, pistachios, cinnamon, and cooled sesame seeds. Mix with your hands until thoroughly combined. Wearing disposable food gloves is the easiest way to do this. 4. Take about 1 tablespoon of the mixture and roll between your palms to form a ball, then place on the lined plate. Repeat to make 25–30 balls. 5. Store the balls in an airtight container, with layers of parchment beneath and between. Although they will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for a couple of weeks, I recommend storing them in the fridge. They taste just as delicious when firmer and cooler. Note from Reem: Date paste can be found in any Middle Eastern grocery shop. You could also buy very soft Medjool dates and work them into a paste with your hands. If you do, I recommend wearing gloves and using some oil, otherwise it can get quite sticky. To get 14 ounces (400 g) of date paste you will need roughly 25 large Medjool dates. Addendum from KJ: There are lots of recipes for date paste online, and most seem to involve soaking the dates first overnight then popping them in a food processor or blender. I’m guessing that’s probably because your dates are unlikely to be “very soft.”And—hello, your dream job is calling! Click here to revel in some success stories from Author Accelerator’s book coach certification program and imagine where you could be next year—if you sign up now.

Plotting and pantsing, loving your genre, voice, self-doubt… what didn’t we talk about with Mhairi McFarlane? And she has such a lovely Scottish accent to do it in, too. We know you’ll love this episode. #AmReading Mhairi: The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary (aka El Piso Para Dos in KJ’s Spanish version) Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls Sarina: The Price You Pay for College by Ron Lieber (from episode Turning Data into #Narrative) Re-reading Rock Chick by Kristen Ashley KJ: Life’s Too Short by Abby JimenezFollow Mhairi on Twitter: @mhairimcfIn this episode we talked a lot about finding ideas, chasing them around and pinning them down. Jennie Nash from our sponsor, Author Accelerator, has a list of the idea process, in this case for non-fiction books: I had an idea, which came to me in the form of six words in a very specific order… and which stuck in my mind long enough to ping against a memory… which caused me to think about the connection between those two things (this new thought, this old memory)… which prompted me to land on the idea of a process… which suggests some sort of order or structure or shape… which led me to believe I had something to say… which prompted me to put a title on a blank page and start writing this blog post… which I already have a strong feeling is going to become a book. In fiction, it goes somewhat differently—at least, I can’t see where “process” fits in—but the two things pinging against one another in your brain rings true for me for sure. Sign up for their free email Writing Challenge to help you plan what your book will be about, how to structure it, where it starts and ends, and who your target readers are and what they are looking for—and you’ll also be on the list to get emails from Jennie that somehow always manage to be just what I need when they arrive. Have you checked out the Writing Class Radio podcast? Writing Class Radio is a podcast of a writing class. If you love stories and get inspired by hearing other people tell their stories and want to learn a little bit about how to write your own stories, then this podcast is for you. Check it out here or search for it in your pod-player.

Working on an essay collection? Dreaming of becoming a literary agent? We were all over the map with Kristin Van Ogtrop, agent at InkWell Management, author of the essay collection Did I Say That Out Loud: Midlife Indignities and How to Survive Them and former editor of Real Simple Magazine (which KJ mistakenly attributed to Conde Nast but is really part of the Time Inc. empire). Midlifers, essayists, job-hoppers—this is for you! Mentioned on the pod The Empty Glass by J.I. BakerNalini Singh, #AmWriting episode The Power of Writing as Play The Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante #AmReading Kristin: American Baby: A Mother, a Child, and the Shadow History of Adoption by Gabrielle Glaser Jess: Bombshells by Sarina Bowen The Happy Ever After Playlist and Life’s Too Short by Abby Jimenez KJ: Brood by Jackie PolzinFind Kristin on Instagram and Twitter as @kvanogtrop or at her website www.kristinvanogtrop.comYour dream job is calling—can you hear it? Check out these success stories from Author Accelerator’s book coach certification program and start imagining what your life could look like this time next year. And have you checked out the Writing Class Radio podcast? Writing Class Radio is a podcast of a writing class. If you love stories and get inspired by hearing other people tell their stories and want to learn a little bit about how to write your own stories, then this podcast is for you. Check it out here or search for it in your pod-player.

We love answering your questions! If we missed yours, head over to the Facebook group or reply to this episode and we’ll try to get there next time. Links from the pod: early episodes on How to Get an Agent, Planning your work, Keeping Organized, and Getting Unstuck Semikolon sticky notes EvernoteBest online writing classes: Rachael Herron, Better Faster Academy, Grub Street, New School, Writers Digest University, Gotham Writers, Writers Studio, UPOD Academy, Sue Shapiro #AmReadingJess: Last Call by Elon GreenKJ: Super Host by Kate RussoAnd—love us, love our sponsors! If you’ve been dreaming of a book coaching career, you know you want the guidance of Jennie Nash and the crew at AuthorAccelerator. You’ll find everything you need at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

Writing is hard. In this episode, we talk imposter syndrome, editing, the right headspace for reading your own stuff, why you might need a “nice” agent, reading your work aloud to friends, recording audiobooks in the closet, being years late on a deadline, sending your editor proof of life and the deep inner conviction that people only buy your book because they feel sorry for you. #ohyeah. #AmReading Jess: Win by Harlan Coben Jenny: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian Note: Bookriot Podcast KJ: The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry Jenny’s Bookshop: The Nowhere Bookshop, San Antonio, TX The Fantastic Strangelings Book Club books: Professional Troublemaker by Luvvie Ajayi Jones Swallowed Man by Edward Carey Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas The Did Bad Things by Lauren A. Forry Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby Find Jenny at The Bloggess! And have you checked out the Writing Class Radio podcast? Writing Class Radio is a podcast of a writing class. If you love stories and get inspired by hearing other people tell their stories and want to learn a little bit about how to write your own stories, then this podcast is for you. Check it out here or search for it in your pod-player. Need a new gig in the writing world? Have you considered becoming a book coach, but never known how to get started or been able to envision what that might look like for YOU? Author Accelerator can help. Sign up at bookcoaches.com to get a free mini course on what book coaching is, who makes a good book coach, and how you can make money helping writers soar.

Who wouldn’t want to write better and faster? I can’t even imagine. Our guest this week is Becca Syme, creator of the Better Faster Academy, author of Dear Writer You Need to Quit as well as other books in the Quit series and the author of the MatchBaker series of cozy mysteries (with such glorious titles as “Vangie Vale and the Murdered Macaron”). Her superpower is helping writers find what they do best—their strengths—and do more of that instead of worrying about trying to “fix” the things we aren’t naturally good at. Links from the pod The Clifton Strengths Test The Ted Lasso blog post Better Faster Academy The Quitcast on YouTube #AmReading Becca:Mandy M. Roth Yasmine Galenorn Rajani LaRocca DEVS (TV show) Sarina: Unguarded by Jay Hogan (part of Sarina’s World of True North) KJ: The Shit No One Tells You About Writing (podcast)Have y’all heard about the Writing Class Radio podcast? Writing Class Radio is a podcast of a writing class. If you love stories and get inspired by hearing other people tell their stories and want to learn a little bit about how to write your own stories, then this podcast is for you. Check it out here or search for it in your pod-player.KJ here, popping in to tell y’all about what happened for me with Author Accelerator two weeks ago. I needed a fresh “cold read” of a book that everyone close to me has now read about twelve times, so Author Accelerator set me up with a brand new coach. For $2k (yes, you have to pay for expertise) she read my 320 page manuscript in a weekend and answered all my questions (I had some very specific things I needed help with). I’m wrapping up a revision for my new editor now and I couldn’t be happier. I love that they could do that for me—and I still love the thought that maybe I could become that coach for someone else. If that turns you on, too, head to bookcoaches.com to learn more—or if you’re looking for editorial eyes, check in at authoraccelerator.com. (And reply to this email if you’d like to know more about my coach, who was great!)

It’s part one of… who knows? As we answer questions from our email and our Facebook group (if you’re not part of that, jump in HERE). We answered questions about working with experts, talking about WIPS (nonfiction and fiction, both), sucking up to influencers, being told your platform sucks, Goodreads etiquette and the always popular can you make a living writing (yes, but not quickly or easily). If your questions is still unanswered, no worries—we’ve got more in the queue for upcoming episodes. And feel free to ask us anything, via Facebook, by replying to this if you’ve received it as an email or by emailing TKPOD EMAIL LINK. #AmReading Jess: Yellow Bird by Sierra Crane Murdoch KJ: A Cup of Silver Linings by Karen Hawkins Jess here, to rave about all I continue to learn at The Great Courses Plus. I’ve been on a Jamestown kick, a Victoria kick, a great women in writing jag, and even traveled to Ireland recently in a travel video and again through a course on paganism in Europe. Who knows what I will be learning next week. Sometimes I listen to random classes just to see if I like the topic, and if not, who cares! Try another! You can get a month free if you use the link thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting. Go forth and learn something!

Nalini Singh is a romance writer. Or, she was a romance writer until she decided she wanted to write a thriller. Jess and Sarina had so much fun talking about genre hopping and writing the books that speak to you. There’s no requirement that we stay in our lanes, Nalini reminded us. We also took some time to lament our dearly missed in-person writers conferences and Nalini gushed about the joy of afternoon teas with her superfans. Sarina often points to Nalani’s email newsletter as one of the best she’s read, so we are linking to it here and you should absolutely sign up. She offers bonus content and glances behind the scenes of her life as a writer in New Zealand.Finally, Nalini reminds of the power of play in writing. She wrote her thrillers as exercises in play, something with no deadlines attached, and offers this sage advice: “Don’t be afraid to write the book that wants to be different from all the rest.”With that, go forth and play with your words, but go visit Nalini Singh’s website first. #AmReading Nalani: The entire J.D. Robb backlist Sarina: Darkroom by Kate Willoughby (part of Sarina’s World of True North) Jess: Simon v. The Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky AlbertalliKJ here, popping in to tell y’all about what happened for me with Author Accelerator this week. I needed a fresh “cold read” of a book that everyone close to me has now read about twelve times, so Author Accelerator set me up with a brand new coach. For $2k (yes, you have to pay for expertise) she read my 320 page manuscript in a weekend and answered all my questions (I had some very specific things I needed help with). I’m wrapping up a revision for my new editor now and I couldn’t be happier. I love that they could do that for me—and I still love the thought that maybe I could become that coach for someone else. If that turns you on, too, head to bookcoaches.com to learn more—or if you’re looking for editorial eyes, check in at authoraccelerator.com.Jess here, to rave about all I continue to learn at The Great Courses Plus. I’ve been on a Jamestown kick, a Victoria kick, a great women in writing jag, and even traveled to Ireland recently in a travel video and again through a course on paganism in Europe. Who knows what I will be learning next week. Sometimes I listen to random classes just to see if I like the topic, and if not, who cares! Try another! You can get a month free if you use the link thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting. Go forth and learn something!

Jess’s new book, The Addiction Inoculation, launches April 6th, and we talk about all the things she’s done to set herself up for feeling like she’s done everything in her power to make this launch a good one. We discuss the differences between launching fiction and non-fiction, first book vs. second book, non-covid v. covid, when to hire a publicist, turning a book into a speaking career and (as always) more. #AmReading Sarina: Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade Jess: 1619 by James Horn (watching: Jamestown on Amazon Prime) KJ: You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey by Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar Spring is coming (slowly here in New England) and we’re excited about the whole idea of change and new beginnings and birds and grass and—stuff like that. What does that have to do with #AmWriting? Maybe it’s time for a new beginning for you as a book coach? Just imagine enrolling in the classes, meeting a cohort, learning all the ways coaches are editorial and emotional support for writers and then starting to line up your first clients. Students working with Author Accelerator say they begin to book authors before they’re even done with the course, and often end up being booked months in advance. Sound like fun? AGREED. Go to bookcoaches.com to learn more. And at the beginning of the episode, we listened to Jess talk about all the things she loves about The Great Courses – and we think you’ll like it too! Whether you want to learn ASL, deep dive into Russian literature, or study more about the history of getting to where we, as humans, are today; The Great Courses has a topic for you. You can find out more by visiting https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting.

Today's guest, Olga Mecking, is a freelance journalist who’s enjoyed exactly the version of success many freelancers dream about. She went from publishing her own work on her blog to pitching outside publications, gradually reaching bigger and bigger audiences until her article The Case for Doing Nothing in the New York Times became a breakout success and led to a book contract for her new book Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing. I know you’ll enjoy this interview—we go deep into building a freelance career and the nuts and bolts of making that happen. We’re shaking things up a little this week, and I interviewed Olga solo, which made a nice break for me from the novel revisions I’m working on, or at least staring at, this week. One thing Olga and I talk about is what it was like to go from writing articles to writing an entire book—and part of the answer was, painful! But it’s still the dream for many writers. If you’ve got a book in you and you’re struggling to bring it out, you should absolutely check in with our sponsor, Author Accelerator, where they can match you up with a book coach who suits your work no matter where you are in the process. And if it’s the book coaching part of that that intrigues you, Author Accelerator also trains its book coaches in everything that goes into working with writers and running a book coaching business. You can find out more about that at bookcoaches.com/amwriting. Links from the Podcast Olga’s freelance portfolio Olga’s original piece in Woolly Magazine is no longer available online. Susan Maccarelli’s Beyond Your Blog podcast is also no longer available. Olga’s original article in the NYT: The Case for Doing Nothing Olga’s piece in Well Family: In the Country of Motherhood, Finding My Own Path Some great advice from Olga on freelancing at Forbes.com. Olga’s grandfather’s memoir of surviving the Holocaust, translated by Olga. #AmReading Olga: The Confession by Jessie Burton Oxford Key Mysteries by Lynn Morrison KJ: The Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey Follow Olga on Facebook, by joining her Facebook Group The Nikseneers or at her website: www.olgamecking.com And—love us, love our sponsors! If you’ve been dreaming of a book coaching career, you know you want the guidance of Jennie Nash and the crew at AuthorAccelerator. You’ll find everything you need at bookcoaches.com/amwriting. We hope you’ve heard Jess waxing rhapsodic about learning all the things over at The Great Courses Plus. Goodness knows what she’s learning about today….small business accounting? The Pacific Theater in WWII? Anything’s possible, because…Jess. If you’d like to learn something new today, you can get a free month of The Great Courses Plus at thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting.

Alisha Rai writes fun, joyful contemporary romances about smart, mature people who still struggle to find love. And by mature, we don’t mean old—I mean, these characters make good choices and try to understand themselves and other people, but it’s still not easy. We talk about those character choices, but before we dig in, we discuss Alisha’s decision to set her current book, First Comes Like, in a post-Covid world with special attention to what it’s going to be like as we emerge from a period of loneliness and loss—and still write a funny, entertaining, diverting romance. #AmReading KJ: First Comes Like by Alisha Rai Sarina: Sweetheart by Sarah Mayberry Alisha: Big Bad Wolf by Suleikha Snyder Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne Love at First by Kate Clayborn Find Alisha: On Twitter: @AlishaRai On Instagram: @AlishaRaiWrites On TikTok: @TheRealAlishaRai Wish you had someone to discuss settings and characters and possible post-Covid worlds with as you work on your current project? Or do you wish you could be that sounding board for other writers? Our sponsor, Author Accelerator, can help you find a book coach or become one. Find out more at authoraccelerator.com and bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

It’s a freewheeling conversation about writing fiction that tells a great story—and makes you think about the world beyond the story, with January Reese’s Book Club pick Anna North. Links from the pod: Anna’s essay on the writing of Outlawed #AmReading Anna: In the Distance by Hernan Diaz How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang Jess: First Comes Like by Alisha Rai http://www.alisharai.com/ KJ: Stay With Me by Ayobami AdebayoAnd—if you’re in the midst of a project and you with you had someone to help you balance story and that not-too-pokey-stick point, our sponsor, Author Accelerator, can help find the right coach for you—or help you become that coach for someone else. Find out more at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

Does this ever get easier? That’s the question we’re often asked by newer writers in the process of putting themselves out there and worried about how their work will be received. We were unanimous—yes, it does, and you don’t have to spend five years reading every single comment on your writing (and parenting, and intelligence, and everything else) from New York Times readers to get to the point where you can manage even the reviews you most dread without letting them keep you up at night.We talk types of bad reviews, strategies for coping with them and how to arm yourself for everything your pub date can bring. #AmReading KJ: Cobble Hill by Cecily Von Ziegesar Eliza Starts a Rumor by Jane L. Rosen Sarina: Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer Jess: Studly Period by Sarina Bowen (on audio) Victoria: The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire by Julia BairdIn this episode, we talk about how Jennie Nash from Author Accelerator makes you write both your most dreaded review—and your best one—and how knowing what you fear before your book is even written can help you handle whatever comes. If you’d like to work with a book coach like Jennie, head to AuthorAccelerator.com—and if you think your talents lie in helping other authors prevent the worst reviews they fear, you should consider becoming a book coach. You can learn more about that at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

In this episode, we go seriously pro, talking to Ron Lieber, the Your Money columnist for the New York Times and the author of The Price You Pay for College and The Opposite of Spoiled. Ron shares his system for writing information and data-packed chapters—or columns—while making them relatable and digestible. Pro tip: it starts with “strip-mining” the brains of the top five experts you can find—and, as Ron says, being in the business of asking uncomfortable questions. Other great moments—waterproof shower crayons and how to highlight a tweet without interrupting the reading of your audio-book. Find all things Ron here. #AmReading Ron: Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal by Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz Who Gets in and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions by Jeffrey Selingo The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness by Morgan Housel Jess: Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap Between Us and Them by Joshua Greene KJ: The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel by Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers So, did you know Jennie Nash grossed over $400K as a book coach in 2020? If that makes your ears perk up—and I bet it did—and you’re intrigued by the idea of working with writers, helping people realize their dreams and making money doing it, head to bookcoaches.com/amwriting to learn more. Jess is at it again, learning all the things. This week, the former Latin teacher revisited the story of Julia, the daughter of Caesar Augustus and the Celtic warrior queen, Boudicca in the course, “Warriors, Queens, and Intellectuals: 36 Great Women before 1400,” taught by Joyce E. Salisbury, Ph.D. She’s learning things and taking names. If you are interested in giving The Great Courses Plus a try, you can get a month free at thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting! Go forth, dear #AmWriters, and learn something new!

Our guest today, Ethan Kross, is one of the world’s leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. His new book, Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters and How to Harness it, sits at that enviable intersection between academic and commercial nonfiction, and in a way that seems to be exactly where Ethan himself—who teaches in both the business school and the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan—sits, right there in the place where all kinds of things intersect, doing research into the ways our mysterious selves affect the ways we behave on the inside and on the outside. We talked to Ethan about what we call “writer chatter”—those voices in our head that tell us we’re not good enough, smart enough, anything enough to write the things we want to write, and then we branched off into his experience transitioning from academic writing to writing for a wider audience and what his inner voices had to say about that. In the end, Ethan reminded us that we don’t want to live without our inner voices—we need them in many ways—but we do want to shift those voices to our most positive “station.” His tips for doing that—using treasured objects and lucky charms, reminders of the ways we’ve been down this road before and encouraging the power of our own optimism—are going to help us get our inner chatterboxes on the right track. #AmReading Ethan: A Promised Land by Barack Obama Eat a Peach by David Chang Sarina: A Rogue of One’s Own by Evie Dunmore KJ: Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu We hope you’ve heard Jess waxing rhapsodic about learning all the things over at The Great Courses Plus. Goodness knows what she’s learning about today….small business accounting? The Pacific Theater in WWII? Anything’s possible, because…Jess. If you’d like to learn something new today, you can get a free month of The Great Courses Plus at thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting. And I—KJ—spent an hour on Zoom this week with a pack of excited alums from Author Accelerator’s book coaching course, and it was so much fun to hear a little about their plans and talk about the ways being coached has helped me—immeasurably—with my fiction. If becoming a book coach has been niggling around the corners of your brain, poking you and demanding that you give it some thought, head to bookcoaches.com/amwriting to learn more.

This week Jess talks to Jacob Sager Weinstein, a writer who has done just about everything. He started out with highbrow aspirations, as he learned his craft from none other than Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates, and has worked as a journalist, screenwriter, comedy writer as well as a fiction and nonfiction author. In his travels from Princeton to HBO to the sewers of London (really!) Jacob has learned the art of the pivot as well as the secret to finding joy in just about every kind of writing project. His newest book is How to Remember Everything: Tips & Tricks to Becoming a Memory Master and Jess, the worst number rememberer on the planet, can attest that the memory tricks on pages 64-67 are brilliant and work beautifully. Links from the pod Jacob’s webpage The Hyacinth Series How to Remember Everything #AmReading Jess: The Mission: How a Disciple of Carl Sagan, an Ex-Motocross Race, a Texas Tea Party Congressman, the Worlds Worst Typewriter Saleswoman, California Mountain People, and an Anonymous NASA Functionary Went to War with Mars, Survived an Insurgency at Saturn, Traded Blows with Washington, and Stole a Ride on an Alabama Moon Rocket to Send a Space Robot to Jupiter in Search of the Second Garden of Eden at the Bottom of an Alien Ocean Inside of an Ice World Called Europa by David W. Brown Jacob: All the Beverly Cleary. And by all of it, he means all of it. And—love us, love our sponsors! If you’ve been dreaming of a book coaching career, you know you want the guidance of Jennie Nash and the crew at AuthorAccelerator. You’ll find everything you need at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.We hope you’ve heard Jess waxing rhapsodic about learning all the things over at The Great Courses Plus. Goodness knows what she’s learning about today….small business accounting? The Pacific Theater in WWII? Anything’s possible, because…Jess. If you’d like to learn something new today, you can get a free month of The Great Courses Plus at thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting.

Beverly Jenkins is best-selling, award-winning, and still having fun with all she does—in other words, all the things we writers aspire to when we sit down at the desk. But when she first got started, she “didn’t have a clue”—and that might have freed her to do exactly what she wanted to do. We talk keeping history accurate but still making it entertaining, the joy of placing characters in a particular moment in time, bookshelf placement (“African American Literature”? “Men’s Health”?) and the pleasures of changing up your process for every new book. Am Reading Beverly: Shadows in Death by J.D. Robb Battle Ground by Jim Butcher Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse The Blood Heir by Ilona Andrews “If I could only have one author for the whole rest of my life it would be Ilona Andrews.” Sarina: My Last Duchess by Eloisa James Dark Witch by Nora Roberts KJ: Wandering in Strange Lands by Morgan Jerkins Wild Rain by Beverly JenkinsBeverly thought KJ definitely needed to watch the Love Between the Cover documentary KJ’s Brain Fart: While J.D. Robb is and always will be the great Nora Roberts, I have been enjoying the Writers, Ink podcast with J. Thorn and J.D. Barker lately. Barker writes thrillers, most recently with James Patterson.Our guest today LOVES TWITTER. Find her there in “Romancelandia” at authorMsBevAnd she hangs out on no less than three Facebook pages!But somehow she’s still getting her work done. #jealous.Hey readers! We can’t stop talking about our new sponsor The Great Courses. While Jess has been a fan for literally years, the rest of the #AmWriting crew are working to get caught up on all the great goodness they have to offer. You can find out more about them at https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting.And - as we move into 2021 working towards achieving new goals: if you find yourself asking ‘Is this the year I launch my own book coaching business?’, you know we cannot recommend Author Accelerator enough! Their book coaching course is everything you need to get started. Find out more at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

Hey kids, we’re getting back to basics this week with a down-n-dirty episode on pitching, focused on opinion pages everywhere. We’re talking to Lisa Levenstein, an academic, historian and feminist (and the Director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina Greensboro) with two books under her belt: A Movement Without Marches: African American Women and the Politics of Poverty in Postwar Philadelphia and They Didn’t See Us Coming: The Hidden History of Feminism in the Nineties. Lisa took that expertise and those books and turned them into a growing career writing passionate freelance pieces of a kind that really appeal to editors—blending current issues with her special historic perspective on women’s issues.We talked about everything from subject lines to finding your topic to using one piece as a steppingstone to break into another market, and it was fabulous. Enjoy! Links from the pod Lisa’s piece on child care in WashPo. Lisa herself #AmReading Lisa: Big Friendship How We Keep Each Other Close by Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman Sarina: What Happens In Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand KJ: The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur JaswalHave you checked out our new sponsor? Thanks to The Great Courses for coming on board. Jess has been a fan for literally years, while Sarina and KJ are planning to catch up. Find out more at https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting.And—is this the year you launch your own book coaching business? You know how much we love Author Accelerator, and their book coaching course is everything you need to get started. Find out more at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

Last year’s words: Abundance. Practice. Magic. This year? Generous, Organize, Flow. It’s only now, writing these shownotes, that I see a pretty pattern… which is more that one of us chooses words she wants to embody, one chooses words she wants to shape her actions and the other seems to be counting on the muse in what may be a dubious way. Who’s who? It might surprise you. Welcome to our 2020 year in review/2021 goals episode. We’d love to hear your plans for the year—and how last year went. Come visit us on Facebook and share! #AmReading / #AmListening Jess: Come Out Come Out podcast Scent of the Missing: Love and Partnership with a Search-And-Rescue Dog by Susannah Charleson KJ: Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin Deep Work by Cal Newport Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing by Olga Mecking Frontier Follies by Ree Drummond Sarina: The Search by Nora RobertsThe Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry (Out of Print) Blindsided by Victoria Denault from Sarina’s new imprint Heart Eyes PressWe’ve got a new sponsor! Thanks to The Great Courses for coming on board. Jess has been a fan for literally years, while Sarina and KJ are planning to catch up. Find out more at https://www.thegreatcoursesplus.com/amwriting.And—is this the year you launch your own book coaching business? You know how much we love Author Accelerator, and their book coaching course is everything you need to get started. Find out more at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

A little #AmWriting behind the scenes: as we headed into this recording, Jess texted KJ: Here’s the lowdown on Mark: I have been a fan of Mark Olshaker’s writing since I first encountered it in 1995. He may be best known for his work with former FBI Special Agent John Douglas, his writing partner since 1995, who pioneered the behavioral crimes unit at the FBI and inspired the Jack Crawford character in Silence of the Lambs. Together they have written many books including Mindhunter, about the role of behavioral profiling in catching violent criminals. His work with Douglas has landed him on the bestseller lists, but he has also written five novels and his nonfiction and documentary work covers subjects as wide-ranging emerging infectious disease, forensic emergency medicine, bioterror, the Lindburgh baby, and victims’ rights. He is also an Emmy-award winning filmmaker, as if that’s not enough AND, in a topic near and dear to my heart, he wrote, produced, and directed the film Discovering Hamlet, about one of my favorite productions of Hamlet directed by Dereck Jacobi and starring Kenneth Branagh. He follows Branagh and Jacobi from first read-throughs to opening night in 1988 and it’s now my life goal to see this film. Mark began his career as a journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Wall Street Journal, NYT, WaPo, and USA Today and I am SO very excited to talk with him today! The result was every bit as fun as you’d imagine. We talked about finding the real story behind Silence of the Lambs, the “other kinds of detectives”—epidemiologists—and drawing a story based on taking a fact and running with it. Mark quotes Tom Clancy: “The difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to make sense.” Plus, our guest eviscerates Henry James. Links from the pod: Mind of a Killer PBS episode. The Killer’s Shadow and The Killer Across the Table MindhuntersInc.com #AmReading Mark’s favorite crime fiction: George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, Ian McEwan Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren KJ: Plain Bad Heroines Emily M. Danforth Jess: Writings on an Ethical Life by Peter Singer The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow Great Books by David Denby As we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop. And if listening to all of our conversations about book coaching has made you think, hey—that’s the career for me—then you’ll want to head to Author Accelerator’s BookCoaches.com to see how you can make that happen.

Writing nonfiction outside the memoir space usually means finding sources and stories that are not your own. Narrative, self-help, history, economics, social sciences, nature—no matter what your topic, this form of writing requires reporting, just as many freelance assignments do. So where do you go when you’re looking for sources? Often, your own backyard—and for lots of us, that can mean we inadvertently only talk to people who share our perspective, and sometimes our privilege. Nobody knows that better than Julie Lythcott-Haims. For all her books, and most particularly for her latest, Julie has made it a point to draw from sources that reflect the diversity of our larger national experience. We talked about finding those sources, owning the need to seek out specific points of view and how you know when you’ve got it right. Links from the PodEd Yong’s article in the Atlantic about what he’s learned as he’s worked to diversify his sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/i-spent-two-years-trying-to-fix-the-gender-imbalance-in-my-stories/552404/Adrienne LaFrance on gender bias in her own reporting: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/gender-diversity-journalism/463023/ Our Minisode on diversity in sources for non-fiction work, from light-hearted articles on favorite baby food flavors to seriously researched pieces for high-profile outlets. BIPOC, non-binary and women are outweighed by white men when it comes to who gets quoted in the news, whether the voice is adding an expert perspective or just a little local color. In it, we suggest the following: SheSource Informed Voices NPR’s Source of the Week and how to use it.Columbia University’s list of female, non-binary and BIPOC experts on the media HARO #AmReading Julie: The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs Jess: Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition by Patricia Churchland KJ: Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. DanforthSarina and KJ have news!The Chicken Sisters is out tomorrow, 12/1. Today’s the last day to pre-order! Signed copies here, Bookshop.org here, Amazon here—and if you order from your local indie and fill out this form, I’ll mail you a signed bookplate.Sarina's novel Bittersweet, the first in her USA Today bestselling series, is currently free at all vendors. Farmers make the Earth move. Amazon: https://geni.us/FreeBittersweetApple: http://geni.us/BsIbooksB&N: http://geni.us/bsbreachKobo: http://geni.us/bskreachGoogle: http://geni.us/bsgreachBook-gift shopping? Grab KJ’s 12 Days of Books to Give (and Get) list here for everything you need for your Austen-loving brother, your thriller-hound mom and the friend who craves a cozy escape.

Whew! This week, Sarina and KJ (that’s me writing as it usually is) both launched books—Sarina came out with Loverboy, second in KJ’d favorite Sarina series, The Company, while KJ FINALLY and after many many months got to see The Chicken Sisters come out into the world. Notice the different verbs there? That’s because our launches come from very different places, and we talk about that—as well as, of course, ALL the Reese Witherspoon Book Club backstory. You can grab a copy of Loverboy in all kinds of ways: 🗝️ Audio https://geni.us/Audio-LB 🗝️ Amazon https://geni.us/Amazon-LB 🗝️ Apple https://geni.us/Apple-LB 🗝️ Kobo https://geni.us/Kobo-Lb 🗝️ Nook https://geni.us/Nook-LB 🗝️ Google https://geni.us/Google-LB And there are a bunch of ways to buy The Chicken Sisters. There’s YOUR Indie bookstore--and if you buy it there and fill out this linked Google doc, I'll mail you a signed bookplate for it. There's The Norwich Bookstore, which has signed actual copies. There's MY Indie: Still North Books. There's Bookshop.org. There's Amazon. There's Barnes and Noble. Links to the memoirs KJ mentioned: White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood and the Mess in Between, Judy Batalion Year of No Clutter: A Memoir, Eve Schaub Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World, Brooke McAlary Chasing Slow: Courage to Journey off the Beaten Path, Erin Loechner #AmReading Jess: Distress Signals by Catherine Ryan Howard The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard Sarina: Winter Street, Winter Stroll, Winter Storms, Winter Solstice by Elin Hildebrand KJ: Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth Thanks for listening! As a heads up if you’re book-gift shopping make sure you grab KJ’s 12 Days of Books to Give (and Get) list here for everything you need for your Austen-loving brother, your thriller-hound mom and the friend who craves a cozy escape. And did you know supporters of the #AmWriting podcast get a little something extra weekly? Whether it’s a Writer Top Five like Emails to Send During Your Book Launch, a #Minisode like Novel in #Process Part 1: Finding an Idea, or one of our new product reviews and other things we’re inspired to share, bonus stuff is ALWAYS dropping into their inboxes and pod-players. To get more #AmWriting for just a few bucks a month, click the button. Upgrade to Supporter And we love our sponsors! Check out Dabble Writing Software if you haven’t already, and visit BookCoaches.com/amwriting to learn more about Author Accelerator’s amazing book coach training (hello, holiday gift that keeps on giving) or for their free book coach matching service.

Who wouldn’t want a step-by-step process for revision? In her book Intuitive Editing, this week’s guest, developmental editor Tiffany Yates Martin, lays out an approach that will help keep you organized, although sadly there is no magic wand involved. We talked to her about the big picture questions she asks before diving into someone else’s work: Is the main story question clear?Do the characters drive the story?Do we/the characters end up somewhere different than where we began?Where does the momentum flag (because it will, somewhere) and why?Then we deep dive into questions of finding objectivity in your own work, micro-suspense, suspense vs. tension, writing manuals and—most important of all—how important it is to know that all first drafts are terrible and revision is part of the work. A few links from the pod If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland How to Grow a Novel by Sol Stein Stein on Writing by Sol Stein *FREE* Editorial Summit - December 6th #AmReading Tiffany: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett KJ: Ties that Tether by Jane Igharo Sarina: Fangirl by Rainbow RowellSarina and KJ have news!The Chicken Sisters is out! Signed copies here, Bookshop.org here, Amazon here—and if you order from your local indie and fill out this form, I’ll mail you a signed bookplate.Sarina's novel Bittersweet, the first in her USA Today bestselling series, is currently free at all vendors. Farmers make the Earth move. Amazon: https://geni.us/FreeBittersweetApple: http://geni.us/BsIbooksB&N: http://geni.us/bsbreachKobo: http://geni.us/bskreachGoogle: http://geni.us/bsgreachBook-gift shopping? Grab KJ’s 12 Days of Books to Give (and Get) list here for everything you need for your Austen-loving brother, your thriller-hound mom and the friend who craves a cozy escape.Did you know supporters of the #AmWriting podcast get a little something extra weekly? Whether it’s a Writer Top Five (like TK LINK), a #Minisode (like TK LINK) or one of our new product reviews and other things we’re inspired to share, bonus stuff is ALWAYS dropping into their inboxes and pod-players. To get more #AmWriting for just a few bucks a month, click the button. Support #AmWritingAnd have you checked out our sponsors? If listening to Tiffany makes you think, that is my total dream job, you need to head to bookcoaches.com/amwriting to learn more about the side gig that could supply much-needed consistency to your writing income or become your full-time passion.And have you tried Dabble writing software yet? If you’ve been thinking about testing out a tool to go beyond the ordinary word processor and make your work easier, this is the one we recommend. We invited Dabble to sponsor the podcast because, in short, it’s awesome. It’s easy to use, it works offline and on, it’s always synced up and always available on all the platforms and it makes finding your way around in your manuscript easy and even fun—and it’s designed to minimize distractions and keep you going. Find out more, and do a free trial, at dabblewriter.com.

It’s the gifts episode! Here are the links you’re looking for: KJ: Redbubble ❄️ Stamp blocks ❄️ Stamp blanks and stencils ❄️ Frixion Pens ❄️ Leuchterm planner Jess: Planner cover ❄️ Jess’s favorite sticky tabs ❄️ Sarina: Hedgehog Pencil Holder ❄️ Post-its that fit over planner months ❄️ Corkicle (it doesn’t come with the sticker, sorry… but actually I (KJ) have extras and if you asked me I could probably mail you one if I don’t get too many asks! Just reply to this email and I will see it.) #AmReading Jess: Scarcity: The New Science of Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir KJ: The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow Sarina: The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes by Xio Axelrod Zowie! Thanks for listening. If you want to check out our last gift episodes (and guides), click the years: 2019 2018 2017. If you’ve got other ideas we should know about, share them in the #AmWriting Facebook group. And if you’d like to subscribe to the shownotes email or support the podcast, click the button. Subscribe now To give a subscription as a gift, click THIS button! Give a gift subscription

Every writer craves that high concept idea that leads to the breakout book, or in this case breakout series. For Lyssa Kay Adams, it came from that joke women often make about wishing their male partners read romance—and a moment in 2016 when she “just wanted to live in a world full of men who get it.” She created The Bromance Book Club, about a group of men who read romance to understand their relationships and their partners. That became her first novel, quickly followed by Undercover Bromance and Crazy Stupid Bromance, and we three have read and loved them all. We talk indie v. trad, breaking out, building a series, writing diverse worlds and more. Links from the Pod Jason Rogers’ Men’s Health article Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid Kobo Libra Overdrive #AmReading Lyssa: Just a Heartbeat Away by Cara Bastone Snapped by Alexa Martin Sarina: Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas Jess: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder Crazy Stupid Bromance KJ: Ties That Tether by Jane Igharo All Stirred Up by Brianne MooreSpeaking of romance, we love you, our listeners. Our sponsorships pay for the production and hosting of the podcast, but you support the time and work we put into being there for you every week, both by following us, reviewing the pod and keeping in touch, and with your financial contributions. #AmWriting supporters get a weekly bonus in the form of a minisode, a Writer Top Five or a little backstage burst of whatever the three of us are talking about that week (like Sarina’s new product review plans. Want in on that? Click here. Upgrade to SupporterAnd we love our sponsors! Check out Dabble Writing Software if you haven’t already, and visit BookCoaches.com/amwriting to learn more about Author Accelerator’s amazing book coach training (hello, holiday gift that keeps on giving) or for their free book coach matching service.

It’s a new #AmWriting episode! There’s a style of creative nonfiction in which a gifted writer tells someone else’s story. The story of a house being built, or a life in the wilderness—or, in the case of Lauren Sandler, the story of a young single mother in search of housing during her first year of motherhood. Lauren’s subject—a smart, driven young woman caught up in the system because of her own history, and desperate for not just housing but an education, a career, and love and a life of her choosing—was unlikely to ever find a way to tell her own story without Lauren’s help. “She chose me as much as I chose her,” says Lauren. We talk to Lauren about how that relationship was formed and how, although the act of observing something changes it, Lauren tried to let Camilla’s story unfold as though she weren’t there, even while her own daughter was demanding to know why they didn’t just let Camilla sleep on the couch. If you’re interested in long-form journalism, or just in the process of embedding yourself into someone else’s life, you’ll love this episode. Links from the Pod: Lauren’s latest book This Is All I Got: A New Mother's Search for Home Find Lauren on her website: www.laurenosandler.com #AmReading Lauren: The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante KJ: The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins Jess: Goodnight Beautiful by Aimee Molloy Thanks for letting us into your inbox. If you’ve got questions, comments, episode ideas, head to the #AmWriting Facebook group or email us at [email protected]. Want more #AmWriting? Support the podcast with just a click of the button below for less than $2 an episode, and get weekly Writer Top Fives like Top 5 Mindfulness Tricks For Better Writing Sessions or Minisodes like How an Editor Considers an Essay. Support #AmWriting Have you checked out Author Accelerator’s Book Coach training at bookcoaches.com/amwriting? Seriously, if every time you hear us talk about book coaching, you think to yourself—hey, I could do that!—you should. They have great programs for fiction, non-fiction and making your side-gig full time—and they offer tuition help for BIPOC coaches as well—more info on that at bookcoaches.com/equity. And if you haven’t tried Dabble yet, YOU MUST. Just go play with the storyline building tools. Trust us.

We don’t have a lot of repeat guests, but Seth Godin can come on the podcast any time he wants. Seth is a fountain of wisdom about writing, pitching, selling, and building your audience, and his new book, The Practice: Shipping Creative Work, is a great addition to his (substantial) body of work. Seth Godin is not only the master of the short pithy book of helpful advice, he’s the master of dishing out that advice straight from his brain to yours, as well. He does not have to stop and re-frame. He does not meander about his point. Not one bit. He’s a fountain of quick sentences that wallop you upside the head with their truth and clarity and demand to be written down. Here are just a few from this interview, which you won’t want to miss: “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions" “There is never enough reassurance from outsiders” “Don’t let your audience expect another greatest hits album every time” “Be the boss of the process” “Creativity is an act of leadership” Jess, Sarina and Seth talked about getting the work out there to your readers. That’s it. Shipping the work. Sure, we also talked about how it gets done because we always do (and Seth reveals Isaac Asimov’s advice for getting 400 books written) but in the end, the work has to end up with your readers. We did not talk books this week because we were on a tight schedule and Seth had so much wisdom to share, we skipped it. However, Seth recommended the documentary Double Take about the sculptor Elizabeth King, who is quoted in The Practice: “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.” Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here and don’t forget our sponsors and partners, Author Accelerator’s Book Coach training at bookcoaches.com/amwriting and DabbleWritingSoftware. They’re hand-picked because we LIKE them. So check them out. Finally—KJ here—Obviously, with The Chicken Sisters coming out in December, book marketing has been on my mind. One thing I learned in the last go-round when How to Be a Happier Parent came out is that it’s a bad idea to do it alone. There’s no way I could have done the whole launch by myself and you know, still had all my faculties intact. One piece of help I got was taking a course called How to Launch a Bestseller from Tim Grahl, a book marketing phenom who’s had dozens of clients on the bestseller list. He pushes my buttons a little—because no matter what anyone says, you CANNOT make a bestseller yourself and to believe you can is to set yourself up for failure—but his advice is solid. Another piece of help I got was from Sue Campbell, a book launch coach who helped me execute some of the monster-sized launch plan I put together based on Tim’s course. We had fun together and did some really fun things, like a quiz (find your parenting mantra). Sue was actually personally trained by Tim and now she’s launching a really cool thing. It’s a monthly membership that will give authors the resources they need to build an audience and the opportunity to pick Sue’s brain on a weekly basis. Basically, Sue’s the perfect person to help you set and reach your goals for your author career. Membership in the club includes: Direct access to Sue Campbell, Book Launch Certified Coach and her team at Pages & Platforms team at a fraction of the cost to hire them privately. Mindset coaching to help you break through your marketing block and find your “clean selling” approach. Help with goal setting and attainment. Specialized coaching and workshops to get the knowledge and skills you need to market well and avoid wasting time and money. 24/7 access to a community of fellow authors. Access to special expert guests from time to time, including Tim Grahl. Another big benefit: this club is a flexible way to get marketing help when you need it. There’s no long-term commitment. And she’s offering a free-month trial right now. There are live calls every Friday at 1 p.m. Pacific time/4 p.m. Eastern. I know for myself, having a community of like-minded people helps me make huge progress. (Heck, that’s what the #amwriting podcast and Facebook group is all about!) I highly recommend you give Sue’s Your Next 9000 Copies club a try. I’ll be there too. And this is, as you’ve probably guessed, an affiliate link for the #AmWritingPodcast, so use it and you support us too. But I wouldn’t recommend Sue if I didn’t believe in her.

Campers, this week we’re talking about a topic near and dear to all our hearts, but most particularly Sarina, whose productivity levels are epic and who is always looking for something that will help her ramp up. We talk hardware and software that makes the writing process easier, or at least more varied; handwriting-to-text, voice-to-text, AI, editing software, citation software and throw in a few other ideas for good measure. Links to everything we discuss are below. Post-It App: Capture Dragon Naturally Speaking Otter Rev.com Whitelines ProWritingAid Nebo BookEnds Dabble Scrivener #AmReading Jess: The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu and Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts by Joshua Hammer KJ: His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially—we hope you’ve been loving recent treats like the Minisodes from Jess: What Really Sells Books and KJ: Why I Love Plotting Books (and which to grab) and the Top 5 Things to Know About Using a Pseudonym. To join that team, click the button below (we’re kinda having a fall sale!): Upgrade to Supporter But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode Emails Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here and don’t forget our sponsors and partners! If you’re getting into NaNoWriMo this year, head over to the #AmWriting Facebook group to find your fellow-listener-lunatics—and consider trying out Dabble Writing software, which was specifically designed for plotting and writing fiction. Dabble is extending its free trial throughout the months of October and November, so you can try it out without any fear of losing your work, and it’s easy to export everything you’ve done right out at the end if it’s not for you. But we think it will be! Find out more at dabblewriter.com. And if what gets YOU salivating is the prospect of helping writers turn all those rough NaNo drafts into something that’s ready for their next level, , you should check out bookcoaches.com/amwriting, where our sponsor, Author Accelerator, offers the training you need to turn your passion for stories into a full-blown side gig or business. You’ll find all the info, as well as a free video series to help you decide if book coaching is right for you, at bookcoaches.com/amwriting.

Have you ever, while banging out a document of any kind in Word or Pages or whatever, thought to yourself “Dang, this would be so much easier if ______.” Every writer has been there, but only a few rare souls actually go on to “I am going to make something that does that, darn it.” Jacob Wright is that rare soul. Once upon a time, while drafting his own experiments in fiction, he pitched Scrivener on a mobile version, and when they declared themselves content with who and what they were, he set out to build it on his own—a simpler software specifically designed for story. #AmReading Jacob: Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson KJ: The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee Sarina: Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams Y’all, Dabble is free for all of October and November to anyone who wants to hook it up to a NaNoWriMo account and use it to plot and then draft your November 2020 magnum opus. (And there’s always a free 14-day trial, year-round.) And to help you get that plot right, we strongly suggest you check out the free writing challenge at Author Accelerator. When you sign up for the challenge, you will receive seven assignments targeted at defining what your book is about. Throughout the week, you will... Define why you are writing this book Discover the point of your story Develop your book jacket copy Describe your book in one killer sentence Brainstorm and select your book’s working title Start writing your book with our Two-Tier Outline workbook (for fiction) Swear you’ll be way ahead in the NaNoWriMo game. Or if what you hope for is to help other people get their NaNo drafts ready for the big time, check out Author Accelerator’s Book Coaching courses to learn more. Want more #AmWriting? Support the podcast with just a click of the “subscribe” button below for less than $2 an episode, and get weekly Writer Top Fives like Top 5 Mindfulness Tricks For Better Writing Sessions or #Minisodes like How an Editor Considers an Essay. Subscribe now

When I (Jess here) interviewed Lacy Crawford about her new memoir Notes on a Silencing, we discussed the complex and often contradictory goals of publishers’ legal departments and fact checkers at periodicals such as Condé Nast/Vanity Fair, where Lacy’s first serial excerpt was published. An article on nonfiction book fact checking (or the lack thereof) published in Esquire (by Emma Copley Eisenberg) made the rounds online in August, and many readers were surprised to discover that publishers don’t fact check the books they publish. In fact, a standard clause in nonfiction book contracts indemnifies the publisher when it comes to the author’s factual errors. What publishers do, however, is send the manuscript over to their legal departments to ensure they will not be held liable for defamation, an risk most authors mitigate by changing names or identifying details of some people in the book. Lacy explains how the goals of the legal department and the goals of fact checking are often at cross-purposes, and we come up with a few things authors should think about when selecting a excerpts for publications that will rigorously fact check. Find Lacy Crawford: On her website: www.lacycrawford.com On Twitter: @lacy_crawford We had so much to discuss we skipped #AmReading, but Lacy’s first book, Early Decision, was a delight. It’s a satire about the high-stakes, high-stress process of college admission. Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast with $$$ on top of all the love and ears. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to Supporter Because we do things for our supporters! Like weekly Minisodes When There's No Muse, Keep Going and Top Fives like Top 5 Ways to Prep for NaNoWriMo. And we are working on supporter-only discussions that we expect to be killer. So come on in, the water’s fine. Get New Episode Emails Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here and don’t forget our sponsors and partners! Have you checked out Author Accelerator’s Book Coach training at bookcoaches.com/amwriting? Seriously, I am in for this (this is KJ). I’ve discovered I love helping people with their fiction just like I liked editing for the NYT, but I want to know what I’m doing before I start. So look for me at a training session near you, and check it out. They have great programs for fiction, non-fiction and making your side-gig full time—and they offer tuition help for BIPOC coaches as well—more info on that at bookcoaches.com/equity. And if you haven’t tried Dabble yet, YOU MUST. It has replaced Scrivener in our hearts in part because it’s so much easier to use—and in part because we love the way it plots. Free trials for everyone, no need to remember a code, just go here.

A book of essays. A memoir that’s truly a family history and an American history. And—soon—a novel. Morgan Jerkins talks starting a writing career as a millennial, the privileges necessary to survive (financially) in New York City while pursuing a writing career and fighting the urge to let other people decide whether to take your work seriously. We cover so much ground in this interview, from #publishingpaidme to interviewing skills to figuring out how much of your self belongs in your work, that we barely even grazed the surface of how much Morgan’s current book, Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots, taught her—and teaches the reader—about Black American history and how hidden it still remains from most of us of any heritage. If you enjoyed Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration or Caste, you’ll love Wandering—and even if you didn’t, if you’re a fan of memoir, interested in family history and legend or are just a product of the typical white-centric education in American history and wish you knew more about the many other sides of the story, grab it. Find Morgan Jerkins:On her website: www.morgan-jerkins.comand on Twitter: @MorganJerkins #AmReading Morgan: Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel by Bernardine Evaristo Temporary by Hilary Leichter Severance by Ling Ma Pachinko by Min Jin Lee KJ: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi Sarina: Uncanny Valley: A Memoir by Anna Wiener Unspeakable Acts: True Tales of Crime, Murder, Deceit, and Obsession by Sarah WeinmanWe talk a LOT about money in this episode—huge thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. We hope you’re enjoying supporter-only Minisodes like When There's No Muse, Keep Going and Writer Top 5s like Top 5 Tips to Getting a Great Interview. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to SupporterBut that doesn’t have to be you! The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsFind more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here and don’t forget our sponsors and partners!Have you checked out Author Accelerator’s Book Coach training at bookcoaches.com/amwriting? Seriously, if every time you hear us talk about book coaching, you think to yourself—hey, I could do that!—you should. They have great programs for fiction, non-fiction and making your side-gig full time—and they offer tuition help for BIPOC coaches as well—more info on that at bookcoaches.com/equity.And if you haven’t tried Dabble yet, YOU MUST. Just go play with the storyline building tools. Trust us.

It’s an age-old question: how do you build a platform big enough so publishers take notice? This week we interview Dara Kurtz, author of one self-published book and one traditionally published book. She shares her considerable, deliberate efforts to build her online readership for her site, Crazy Perfect Life, and translate fans of her website and Facebook group content into purchasers for her second book, I am My Mother’s Daughter. Buckle up and dust off your spreadsheet skills, because this woman loves data. You can find out more about Dara on her website and on her podcast, Thrive. #AmReading Dara: She’s re-reading her own book, which is helpful for doing media around publication, as well as The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer Jess: This is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home by Lauren Sandler and A Beautiful Work in Progress by Mirna Valerio KJ: The Beauty in Breaking by Michele HarperThanks so much for listening! Just a reminder that our #AmWriting supporters get #BonusEmails every Monday like our Minisode: When There's No Muse, Keep Going which will be going out on Monday, October 5th. It's our thank-you for helping support the podcast you love for only $7 a month. Click the upgrade button to find out more! Upgrade to SupporterAs always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsTo support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

It’s—a podcast episode! With Jennie Nash, so you already know you’re going to love it and I don’t need to say any more. Sarina and I had a great time talking nitty gritty book coaching details with Jennie from a different perspective—what if you want to BE a book coach? But don’t worry if that’s not of interest—this episode will still inspire you to take a professional approach to your work, whatever it is, to think about money and value differently and find some changes that will help you wherever you are and whatever you’re working on. As for book coaching—I (this is KJ) recently volunteered for the Women Fiction Writer’s Association’s fall pitch event, helping writers polish their 50 word pitches before they had a chance to pitch agents—and it was so much more satisfying than I thought it would be, for a lot of reasons. Helping people—yay. SO MUCH EASIER to see things in other people’s work than in your own, also true. And then there was the satisfaction of handing things back to the writers for them to work on. Like handing back a baby with a smelly diaper to its parent. But I also just enjoyed the work a lot more than I thought I would. If you’ve had an experience like that, this is really the episode for you. Jennie talks about how valuable that work is, how we can come to understand it’s worth and feel good about charging for our services, why it’s good for everyone when this is done professionally and what it’s like to be a book coach, to have a book coach and to do that work right. Links from the Pod: Read Books All Day and Get Paid For It by Jennie Nash Bookcoaches.com/amwriting #AmReading: Jennie: The Hate You Give – Angie Thomas KJ: Queeny – Candice Carty-Williams Want more #AmWriting? Support the podcast with just a click of the “subscribe” button below for less than $2 an episode, and get weekly Writer Top Fives like Top 5 Mindfulness Tricks For Better Writing Sessions or Minisodes like How an Editor Considers an Essay. Subscribe now And don’t forget to check out Dabble Writing Software. If you’re following a bunch of twisty turny plot lines with the help of index cards or post it notes, Dabble is for you! Get a free trial at DabbleWriter.com

It’s a madcap, free-ranging episode where we go from figuring out how to get your important work done (and quit doom-scrolling through your phone) to embracing that same phone for its best use: nourishing conversations with the people you love and then launch into some fantastic tips for interviewing experts (or podcast guests!) that you won’t want to miss. Links from the pod and the scoop on our guest: Celeste Headlee is an NPR journalist and the author of three books: Do Nothing We Need to Talk Heard Mentality Celeste talks about the danger of working from home with Mary Elizabeth Williams on Salon. You can find her at: CelesteHeadlee.com #AmReading Celeste: Studs Terkel’s Race helped me understand race (as a black jew) like never before KJ: Motherland by Leah Franqui Jess: Magical Thinking, Lust and Wonder, and Toil and Trouble by Augusten Borroughs Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially—we hope you’ve been loving recent treats like the Minisodes from Jess: What Really Sells Books and KJ: Why I Love Plotting Books (and which to grab) and the Top 5 Things to Know About Using a Pseudonym. To join that team, click the button below (we’re kinda having a fall sale!): Upgrade to Supporter But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode Emails Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here and don’t forget our sponsors and partners! Have you checked out Author Accelerator’s Book Coach training at bookcoaches.com/amwriting? Seriously, if every time you hear us talk about book coaching, you think to yourself—hey, I could do that!—you should. They have great programs for fiction, non-fiction and making your side-gig full time—and they offer tuition help for BIPOC coaches as well—more info on that at bookcoaches.com/equity. And if you haven’t tried Dabble yet, YOU MUST. Just go play with the storyline building tools. Trust us. And—have you checked out the Bookable Podcast? Audio explorations of the books you might want to read next, with a host who’s a veteran of a much-loved, much-missed NYC live monthly book event.

Not everybody wants an author hanging around their office all day. Our guest is a best-selling education writer Jeff Selingo, already an expert on college and higher education who took that one step further for his latest: Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions. Jeff managed to embed himself in three admissions offices to write this book, a feat that will boggle the mind of anyone familiar with the industry (and it is an industry, make no mistake). We talk pitching and selling the book, lining up the admissions offices and then dancing the delicate dance of writing honestly about people and places that have opened themselves up to your critical gaze, finding students to become part of your story and balancing the stories you tell—plus all the minutia of getting those stories, from consent forms to pseudonyms to not changing the outcomes by becoming part of the story. #AmReading Jeff: The Dry by Jane Harper Jess: The Woods and Missing You, Harlan Coben H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald KJ: Life Is In the Transitions by Bruce Feiler Find Jeff at: His Website: www.jeffselingo.com On Twitter: www.twitter.com/jselingo On Facebook: www.facebook.com/JeffSelingo Via Instagram: www.instagram.com/jselingo Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to Supporter But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode Emails Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

It’s the topic every author seems to love to hate: self-promotion. Sharing our work on social media, pitching ourselves to podcasts and reaching out to friends and colleagues to ask them to boost us up in various ways can feel hard—but it shouldn’t. It’s part of the deal—and the people around you don’t mind. In fact, they want to know when you have a new book or article out, especially if you’re a regular and generous supporter of the good work the people around you are doing as well. We talk about getting past the emotional hurdle here, and then we talk about the how best to get the job done—best practices for self-promotion and a lovely list of “Glamour Don’ts” for those who are worried about getting it wrong. Links from the Podcast sharelinkgenerator #AmReading Sarina: What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton KJ: A Star is Bored by Byron Lane Jess: The Overstory by Richard Powers Have you checked out Author Accelerator’s Book Coach training at bookcoaches.com/amwriting? Seriously, if every time you hear us talk about book coaching, you think to yourself—hey, I could do that!—you should. They have great programs for fiction, non-fiction and making your side-gig full time—and they offer tuition help for BIPOC coaches as well—more info on that at bookcoaches.com/equity. And if you haven’t tried Dabble yet, YOU MUST. Just go play with the storyline building tools. Trust us. And—have you checked out the Bookable Podcast? Audio explorations of the books you might want to read next, with a host who’s a veteran of a much-loved, much-missed NYC live monthly book event.

Lauren Ho is the author of the debut novel Last Tang Standing, which is getting HUGE buzz. It’s been called Bridget Jones meets Crazy Rich Asians, and it does deliver on that promise. Lauren is our very first guest to join us from Singapore, and it’s very late at night there but she managed to hold her own. We talk lawyers-turned-writers, selling a book from outside the US and UK, Goodreads reviews and the challenges and advantages of writing characters (not necessarily POV characters, but still voices that have a place in your story) from perspectives that aren’t your own. #AmReading Lauren: Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan A Good Family by A.H. Kim The White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha KJ: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld Jess: Becoming Duchess Goldblatt (Anonymous) Boyfriend Material by Alexis HallFind Lauren at:Her Website: www.hellolaurenho.comOn Twitter: www.twitter.com/hellolaurenhoOn Facebook: www.facebook.com/hellolaurenhoVia Instagram: www.instagram.com/hellolaurenho Behind-the-scenes and only in the email this week: KJ was a guest on the wonderful How Do You Write podcast with Rachael Herron, and truly had a blast and loved every minute of it and thinks you should listen to all the episodes (she does!).Jess shared this video of pandas being pandas and caused Sarina and KJ to loose many minutes of work.Lacy Crawford, whose book Notes on a Silencing has come up many times on the pod, got an apology from St. Paul’s, the private high school which covered up her rape and protected her rapists. We appreciate you! We’re glad you get the shownotes every week, and if you’re also one of our gorgeous and wonderful supporters, you can expect a #Minisode on why KJ loves books about plotting fiction, which ones she adores and how she’s using them to drop into your podplayer Monday—and we’ve uploaded and categorized all of our previous Top 5s and Minisodes on our website, which means that if you want to explore advice on agents, or nonfiction, or marketing and promotion, you’ll find what you’re looking for right HERE. And if you’d like to support the show, and get access to everything from our recent Top 5s (like business upgrades, tax tips and ways to hold yourself accountable to our Minisodes, like KJ on how an editor considers an essay, Sarina’s letter to her younger self and Jess on what really sells books, then click the button below to chip in! We’ve got a bit of a deal on this fall—a full year of support for just $56. That’s just a tiny bit over $1 an episode! Aren’t we worth it? Get 20% off for 1 year here

Our guest this week is children’s fiction and YA author Julie Berry, and here’s why: she gave a talk at a conference about visualizing and imagery that Sarina has “been thinking about for 7 years.” That should tell you how much gold there is in this episode—all kinds of useful stuff about how we use images and senses to spark our own creativity and build a connection with our readers in every genre. We think you’ll love it. #AmReading Julie: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare Beauty by Robin McKinley The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinleyThe Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope The Secret Life of Trees by Robin Blackwell Black and British by David Olusoga Staying Power by Peter Fryer Sarina: Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn KJ: Tiny Imperfections by Alli Frank & Asha YoumansFind Julie at: Her Website: www.julieberrybooks.comOn Twitter: www.twitter.com/julieberrybooksOn Facebook: www.facebook.com/julieberrybookspageVia Instagram: www.instagram.com/julieberrybooksThanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to SupporterBut it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsFind more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

We’ve got a great interview for you today with a freelance journalist who does a different kind of work than any of us ever have—out in the field reporting on his favorite subject: reality adventure TV on trips rife with travel and danger and expense reports. I think you’ll love it. We talk about finding your topic and making that topic, well, topical by looking for what’s happening within the world you’re covering that reflects what’s happening outside of it. We also discuss MFAs (he’s a fan), email (not so much) and how to keep from “opening your email and letting somebody else dictate what you do with your time.” Links from the Podcast fresh.ink Longform on Twitter #AmReading Andy: Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff The Secret History by Donna Tartt Jess: The Summer of ‘69 by Elin Hilderbrand The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson KJ: The Guest List Lucy Foley#TBR: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart TaylorFind out more about our guest: AndyDehnart.comReality BlurredAndy’s newsletterFind Andy on TwitterSee Andy’s book recs on BookshopAnd if you love the podcast, have you considered kicking in some cash? Our sponsors cover our production costs, but our time is basically sponsored by you, our loyal listeners. If we’ve added a little value to your day or week or year, please consider supporting us. How? Click the button. Support #AmWritingAs we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop.And if listening to all of our conversations about book coaching has made you think, hey—that’s the career for me—then you’ll want to head to Author Accelerator’s BookCoaches.com to see how you can make that happen. Or if listening to the promo this week made you wonder about book coach Kemlo Aki, find more about her here.

Write every day. Don’t read fiction while you’re writing fiction. My way or the highway. In a burst of frustration, we’re reminding ourselves—and you—that there’s no one way to get this job done, and if your way is counter to what some of the greats might tell you (we’re looking at you, Stephen King, even though we love you), that doesn’t mean it won’t work.A few links from the episode:Minisode: #AmQuerying: How to write a fiction query letter that makes an agent ask for moreBecca Syme: https://betterfasteracademy.com/beccasyme/ Rachel Hawkins/Erin Sterling @LadyHawkinsMe, Writing Books: MAN, I hope this is not stupid!! Me, READING books/watching TV/consuming basically any media: THIS IS SO STUPID I LOVE IT SO MUCH ONLY HAVE ROOM IN MY HEART FOR THE STUPIDEST OF THINGS, THANK YOOOUUU!!!!!July 17th 202023 Retweets355 Likes #AmReadingSarina: Notes of Silencing by Lacy Crawford Jess: Unacceptable by Melissa Korn & Jennifer Levitz Unspeakable Acts by Sarah Weinman KJ: Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner The Vanishing Half by Brit BennettOur amazing sponsors: Dabble Writing Software, which I can’t wait to use to line up all my scenes and plot points AS SOON AS I START FIGURING OUT WHAT THEY ARE and which you should absolutely try.And Author Accelerator. Jennie Nash is doing a Facebook Live coaching of a memoir outline on August 14, 2020—that’s next week. I can’t wait, I love watching her do these. Sign up here, or just go learn more!

Hey campers—I hate reading you all a canned intro to our authors every time, so I’m winging it with our guest, Sonali Dev. I’m a fan of hers, so I feel like I know all the things. She’s the author of four straight-up romances, but her last-book-but one is the start of a series written in homage to Jane Austen, as is her latest, both set among the members of a politically ambitious Indian family in California. Why Jane Austen? Because, as Sonali says, “those were the first books I read about women wanting things and getting them. Instead of ending up crazy or dead.” We talk the pros and cons of writing from such revered material, whether readers are “looking for Lydia,” the need to make your heroine “likeable” (pro tip: the female Darcy is hard sledding) and supplying recipes for hungry readers. Links from the pod: Sonali Dev on IG Newsletter with a recipe booklet, recommendations, and a really bad joke. #AmReading Sonali: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall The Kingmaker by Kennedy Ryan KJ: The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory Perfect Happiness by Kristyn Kusek Lewis Sarina: Pale Rider by Laura Spinney The Great Influenza by John M. Barry Thanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to Supporter But it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode Emails Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

This week, Jess got a message from some family members who’d read the draft of her forthcoming book, The Addiction Innoculation. They had … thoughts. Those thoughts turned out to be nothing drastic—but the emotional roller coaster Jess rode while waiting to hear more was a doozy, and got us all thinking about how much of ourselves is exposed when we write non-fiction with a memoir element, how real memoirists do it, and how often readers—especially those closest to you—read our fiction looking for hidden truths. It’s a fun conversation that also covers pool floats, parents, dream offices we probably wouldn’t use and more. Links from the Podcast Yard Pods Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley Mrs. Everything by Jen Weiner KJ and Sarina’s Pool Floats #AmReading KJ: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown Jess: Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford Sarina: Don’t You Forget About Me by Mhairi McFarlaneThanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to SupporterBut it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsFind more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

Kari Lizer is best known for her work in television, as writer and co-executive producer of Will & Grace and the creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine. When her essays about parenting took the shape of a book, she found that her real life provided more than enough material for a comedic memoir. Aren’t You Forgetting Someone? has it all - chickens, Kate Middleton’s bangs, psychics, and the promise of happy endings. #AmReading Jess: Beach Read by Emily Henry Sarina: The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa Kari: Olive, Again by Elizabeth StroutSubscription links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #MinisodeMonday that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, July 20th: How an Editor Considers an Essay. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #BonusContent with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month. Upgrade to SupporterAs always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsTo support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting for details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)

We have trouble believing you haven’t already heard of our guest this week, Susan Wiggs, but just in case—she’s the author of many many novels, a multiple #1 New York Times bestseller and an overall amazing storyteller. Her current novel, The Lost and Found Bookshop, is on sale now and her most recent bestseller, The Oysterville Sewing Circle, is just out in paperback.We talk crafting a story, starting from the emotional journey versus the physical plot, building a character, choosing a setting and our collective addiction to writing books, and Susan reveals that she does indeed read fiction while she’s writing fiction—and it’s a good thing, too, because her reading list is long indeed. Links from the Pod Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman This American Life, Promised Land (the “I Wish” song episode) #AmReading (all Susan, and you’ll see why) Aging in Place by Aaron D Murphy Being Mortal by Atul Gawande On Ocean Boulevard by Mary Alice Monroe House Lessons by Erica Bauermeister Untamed by Glennon Doyle The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins ReidThanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to SupporterBut it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsFind more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

This episode springs from a question asked in the #AmWriting Facebook group (if you’re not in it, you should be): Sarina has talked about her decision to be independently published, but we’ve never heard from Jess and KJ about why they go the traditional route.We discuss the three things you should think about when making the Indie/Traditional call, why you need to think hard about airport bookstores and finding the print ratio—and the good and bad reasons for making this choice. #AmReading Sarina: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall KJ: The Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron Jess: The Mountains Wild by Sarah Stewart Taylor(listen to the #AmWriting episode with Sarah here)As we say every week—we’re so proud to be sponsored by Author Accelerator and Dabble. If you’re wondering—why Dabble and not Scrivener? For us, it’s that plotting tool and the intuitive way it works, but others have weighed in—check that out here with a little Dabble v. Scrivener scoop.And if listening to all of our conversations about book coaching has made you think, hey—that’s the career for me—then you’ll want to head to Author Accelerator’s BookCoaches.com to see how you can make that happen. Here’s what we don’t always say: Man we love recording the podcast. But every hour spent on it is an hour not writing! Our production costs are now covered by our lovely (and carefully chosen) sponsors, but our time in pulling it all together is supported by you, our listeners. We’d love it if you joined that team (if you’re not already on it!) Supporters get weekly #WriterTopFives like The Top Five (Free) Ways to Get Your Shiny New Book Cover in Front of People’s Eyeballs or #Minisodes like Don't Make the Same Mistakes Twice—and thanks to the magic of substack, those minisodes drop right into your pod-player once you’re set up. Want in? Support #AmWriting

You listen to podcasts. You love podcasts. (Perhaps we’re assuming here, but after all, we ARE a podcast.) And you’re a writer, with books or articles or ideas or other projects you want to get out into the world. Which just might mean you’ve imagined yourself as a guest on a podcast, sharing your work. (It’s the writer version of the sportscaster doing an imaginary play-by-play while a kid shoots hoops—we imagine ourselves being interviewed by our favorite podcasters.)This week’s guest, Lauren Passell, can help with that. She loves podcasts (she even created a weekly email that’s essentially a love letter to the big, the small, the great and the weird in the podcast world: Podcast, the Newsletter). And she loves writers. And she loves connecting writers with podcasts, so much so that she’s turned it into her business: TINK Media, a PR company specializing in podcasts. We talk about creating a podcast-worthy story, finding the right podcasts to pitch, perfecting those pitches and making your voice a part of the podcast world. It’s an amazing and useful episode. I think you’re gonna love it. Links from the podSubscribe to Podcast the Newsletter and take the quiz ListenNotes.comPlayer.fm Pocketcast Stitcher [Castro] Friday Black, a short story collection by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah The United States of Anxiety: I Did Not Watch the Video #AmReading/#AmListening Jess: LongformCBC Podcasts: Finding Cleo, Someone Knows Something KJ: How Do You Write with Rachael Herron Lauren: Threshholds, produced by LitHub Articles of Interest, from 99% InvisibleThanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to SupporterBut it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsFind more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

This week we talk to Maria Konnikova about her new book, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win.After a series of devastating health and financial setbacks, Konnikova, a former New Yorker staffer whose other books include Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock and The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It…Every Timeset out to understand how luck, skill and human behavior contribute to the trajectory of our lives. Though she’d never played a hand of poker in her life, she convinced Poker Hall of Fame inductee Erik Seidel to become her coach. Konnikova quit her job at the New Yorker and set aside a year to learn poker as a way to master her luck and her life.One career in professional poker and more than $300,000 later, Konnikova found at least some of the answers she sought. Links from the Podcast:Long Form Storytelling, The Grift PodcastSlate daily podcast, The Gist #AmReading Maria: Weird by Olga Khazan KJ: The Authenticity Project by Claire Pooley Jess: Sunny Days by David KampThanks to everyone who supports the podcast financially. To join that team, click the button below: Upgrade to SupporterBut it’s all good. The pod is free as it always has and always will be. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it every time there’s a new episode. Get New Episode EmailsFind more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.

This week, the How to Launch a Book series continues with everyone’s favorite: book launching on social media. Twitter. Instagram. Canva. PicMonkey. Crello. Pinterest. Linked In. Head blowing up yet? We talk about planning your launch social media, how to use social media and image-creating apps to share and promote and why you shouldn’t feel one bit like you’re talking about your book too much when you’re launching it into the world. We also fall apart a bit, here and there, because these are falling apart times, and we feel it. #AmReading KJ: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Jess: The Secret History by Donna Tartt How to Be an AntiRacist by Ibram X Kendi Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides Sarina: Pale Rider Laura Spinney Don’t forget to check in with our sponsor, Author Accelerator. They’ve got a special book coaching class happening in June on coaching historical fiction, which I would love to be a fly on the wall for—as well as introductory and master classes on book coaching, and, as always, the ability to match you with just the right book coach to help you move your work forward. As for us—we send out a MiniSode or a Writer Top Five every Monday to our supporters. Your support pays for the production and transcription of the podcast, and is the reason why, this week, you don’t also hear my conversation with the child who walked in while we’re recording. Also why there’s music and a fun opening. Because we hired a professional, because it’s good to do these things right. So thanks for chipping in—and if you’d like to join us, click the button. Upgrade to Supporter