#AmWriting

Here’s this week’s episode, which we accidentally tucked behind the paywall in the first send. Friday #AmWriting is always free—but if you’re already a paid sub, thanks! And if not… maybe now’s the time?Every draft gets messy. Characters show up too early, reveals happen too late, and suddenly nothing’s where it “should” be. In this episode, Jennie and KJ talk how to tackle the chaos and keep your words flowing.Episode is free for all and romping through podplayers everywhere. Transcript is below—for paid subscribers only (because they cost $$ to make—thanks for helping us keep them coming!)(Hearing impaired? Shoot us a note and we’ll work it out.)Because Free Doesn’t Cover TranscriptsTRANSCRIPTKJ Dell’AntoniaI had written about 13,000 words-ish, and sort of vaguely call it the first five chapters, sort of. I have my loose, rickety Inside-Outline, which gets to the end and becomes almost an only emotion outline, because I’m not entirely sure I know what’s going to happen. I’m not entirely sure how. And, you know, we talked about that, so that’s fine. Like, I’m working—I’m working from that. I’m not working—it’s not like, and next I will write this. It’s more like, here’s the—what—whatever scene I write next, here’s why it has to happen, plot-wise, and here’s why it has to happen, emotion-wise. But it may not be exactly what I outlined. So I’m actually making an outline of what I actually wrote as I write it, which is kind of fun. But then as I’m—so as I’m doing that, and kind of comparing what I think is going to happen to what I’m writing, I realized, after I sent you a big chunk, which we’re partly excited about and partly not—and then it was—it was great—I realized that I needed something. Some things were out of order. Like, I started to write the thing that was the next up in my kind of vague plan, and then I was like, oh, wait. Like, I can’t have—this person can’t be doing this before—or they’re—like, I need—I need—anyway, so I’ve ended up—I went back, but I’m not revising. I’m actually sticking in new things already. So it’s like that 13,000 words is stretching out into, you know, probably 20,000 words as we approach. So I’m still in the world before the big death happens, because there were things... but also, in part, because it was getting too long. Like...Jennie NashYeah. Yeah.KJ Dell’AntoniaSo I needed things—so I needed to move some action. I was like, oh, well, now I’m supposed to have, like, five more things happen before the death. I can’t put another 10,000 words in here. Those things have to go back up. They have to start happening within what I’ve already done. So some of it was that as well.Jennie NashWell, it was super fun to read your pages, because I can just feel the wheels turning, I guess, or the engine of the whole thing. And there were parts of it that felt super assured and like, oh, this is going to be good. And you really know this character now, which is what you’ve been circling around—like, really, who is this and really what’s going on here? And that was so fun to see. It was like, oh, yeah, more of this. This is great. This is—this is going to be good. And then there were other parts, it was like, well, what’s happening here?KJ Dell’AntoniaYeah, well, that was one of the parts that was like this. That was—it was in the wrong place. It was like; I was trying to do too much sort of introductory throat clearing.Jennie NashSo, KJ, I want to stop and ask you a question about something you just said, because you whizzed by it and it’s—it’s like an incredible skill that you have. Where you said something was out of order. It wasn’t that the thing was—what you wrote was not good or not right for the book. It was that you determined it was in the wrong place. And there’s so much that goes into that, like it’s about thought, but it’s also about rhythm and pacing and feel. And I just feel like that’s something a lot of people don’t know how to do. Like, can you talk about that for a hot second?KJ Dell’AntoniaI can try. Some of this I learned from Sarina [Sarina Bowen], and from reading her thriller draft while she was still working on it, and talking about the process of paying attention to what the reader learns when—both from a thriller... this works—it’s not just from a thriller perspective, it’s also—I think we all have this urge to sort of, like, introduce—like you—when you read Save the Cat and you read all this, there’s—there’s an introductory period where you have to establish that you know your protagonist, everything is going wrong in their home life, their work life, and their emotional life. And the reason for that is—the you know—their emotional flaw. I’m probably mashing together a lot of different systems here. So you learn that, and then, you know, you want to write, like, 30,000 words of what’s wrong with your character and what’s going on—it’s all backstory. And then, you know, maybe you do that, and you realize there’s not enough action in it, and there’s not—you know, you do want the reader to know those things, but they need to know it more gradually. And then you start paying attention in the books that you’re reading to how little you maybe know before things happen, and how much fun it is to figure things out. Even silly things like, oh, you know, why—why are they not going back to their apartment all day? And it turns out to be because their ex was clearing their stuff out of there that day or something like that. But they don’t say that, because that’s not how they think about it. They just think, all right, can’t go back to the apartment, damn it, you know? And I just spilled coffee all over myself. Where am I going to take a shower? Better call this friend. And so your brain is like, wait, why can’t you go back? And so creating—building that—is really hard. And I think paying close attention as you read, and learning to pay attention even as you read for fun to what’s making it fun is kind of what has helped me build that. And again, then watching Sarina build her endings and be like, oh, I gave this up too soon—which is a different process. So I was more—I’m more in the “I took too long to tell you this,” or “I took too long to let this happen.” I worried too much about telling you everything before I let it happen. I’m at that stage—like at the beginning of the book. Things need to happen while you’re telling the reader things.Jennie NashWell, this is so good because what you’re really saying is that you’re not just writing your story—you’re thinking about the reader’s experience of being in your story. I mean, that’s the pro move, right? Is...KJ Dell’AntoniaI hope so.Jennie NashDoing both things at the same time—like, what—what is the reader going to know? What are they going to feel? What are they going to think? What’s—what’s your question—what’s going to be fun for them?KJ Dell’AntoniaYeah.Jennie NashSuch a good question.KJ Dell’AntoniaYeah. And this is a multi-protagonist book—or not multi—it’s not—it’s a multi-POV book with one protagonist. So that balance is also really interesting. And I’ve tried to pay attention to how other people do that. But that was part of it—was realizing that’s what that was. The mistake that I was making was—I had—there’s going to be five points of view, but, as I said, one protagonist. And so I had given you two of the other points of view, and one of them—um, Summer—was—was embroiled in the action. Like, I feel like that one in turn—but the other one was too introductory. It was too much this—and so I moved that to after Nate breaks his leg. That’s when we really meet her for the first time. And it’s just very—and it—so it makes things happen faster.Jennie NashThat’s so good. That’s so good.KJ Dell’AntoniaYeah, we don’t need—we don’t need an introduction to her, and we’re not really getting an introduction to any of these other characters other than through the protagonist. You just suddenly get their point of view. And that’s—I don’t know that. It feels modern, it feels fast. We’ll see...Jennie NashWell, and it’s—the other point of view, are there not to tell their own story...KJ Dell’AntoniaRight.Jennie NashBut that’s a structure, but that’s not your structure. They’re there to help—to tell the protagonist’s story.KJ Dell’AntoniaYeah, and to help—yeah, they have their own stories, but exactly—exactly. They’re there to tell—I mean, they’re there to help tell the protagonist’s story. But really, they’re also there... they’re there because they need to be there to tell the larger story.Jennie NashRight. Right.KJ Dell’AntoniaSo they’re there for the plot story, but the plot story all is also very intertwined with the protagonist’s story. So—but—but—yeah, so every time—but every time I go to them, it needs to be, why are we here? Like we can’t—I can’t ever just go to that other—that other point of view so we learn what’s going on with that point of view. That’s not why they’re there.Jennie NashRight.KJ Dell’AntoniaThey’re only there if it’s something about the mystery or something about the protagonist.Jennie NashThat’s good. That’s a good stress test.KJ Dell’AntoniaIt is, and—and it’s been—I mean, I’m glad I sort of sorted that out so quickly. I feel like in my initial draft of The Chicken Sisters, even though it didn’t have other points of view, it had some extraneous subplots that were just there for the subplot.Jennie NashYeah. Yeah. Well, you’re on your way. And some of the writing was—was like I said—I used the word assured. It was—I particularly love your writing about—I mean, this book has a lot of—the setting is important. There’s a natural spaces setting that we’re in a lot, and the way you write about that is really good and really puts us there. And it’s clear that you—that you’ve spent a lot of time in that space. You know, like literally walking through snow. That is not a thing I’ve spent a lot—a lot of time doing, and your writing about it really put me there, which was cool.KJ Dell’AntoniaAnd that is an in

Hey ho, welcome to the Publishing Nerd Corner, where we dive into the more technical aspects of authorship.Jess here. I love it when Sarina schools me on all things publishing nerdery, so we decided to make it official and create a whole new series. I have a long list of things I want her to explain for us, so stay tuned for more. In the meantime, our first Nerd Corner chat is a timely episode about the Anthropic case specifically and registering your copyright specifically. We’re going to discuss: * The benefits of registering your copyright with the United States Copyright Office. * The possibility of a settlement in the Anthropic lawsuit, and what that could mean for authors.* Why copyright registration will be part of any potential settlement.* How to register your copyright.* Did your publisher fulfill its obligation to register your copyright?For more information about the benefits of copyright registration, see the Copyright Alliance To register your copyright yourself, you’ll need Copyright.gov. You will also want to read the Authors Guild post about, “What Authors Need to Know About the Anthropic Settlement”Hit that “play” button and nerd out with us for fifteen minutes! Transcript below!EPISODE 466 - TRANSCRIPTJess LaheyHey, it's Jess Lahey. If you've been listening to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast for any length of time, you know that, yes, I am a writer, but my true love, my deepest love, is combining writing with speaking. I get to go into schools, into community organizations, into nonprofits, into businesses, and do everything from lunch-and-learns, to community reads, to just teaching about the topics that I'm an expert in. From the topics in The Gift of Failure, engagement, learning, learning in the brain, cognitive development, getting kids motivated, and yes, the topic of over parenting and what that does to kids learning, to topics around The Addiction Inoculation, substance use prevention in kids, and what I've been doing lately that's the most fun for me, frankly, is combining the two topics. It makes the topic of substance use prevention more approachable, less scary when we're talking about it in the context of learning and motivation and self-efficacy and competence and, yes, cognitive development. So if you have any interest in bringing me into your school, to your nonprofit, to your business, I would love to come. You can go to Jessicalahey.com. Look under the menu option “Speaking” and go down to “Speaking Inquiry.” There's also a lot of information on my website about what I do. There's videos there about how I do it. Please feel free to get in touch. And I hope I get to come to your community. If you put in the speaking inquiry that you are a Hashtag AmWriting listener, we can talk about a discount. So that can be one of the bonuses for being a loyal and long-term listener to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. Hope to hear from you.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, welcome to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. I'm Jess Lahey, your host, along with another host today—this is going to be super fun. We are the podcast about writing: short things, long things, poetry, prose, book proposals, querying agents—we're basically the podcast about getting the work done. I am Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my journalism at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic.Sarina BowenAnd I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of many contemporary novels, and also a council member on The Authors Guild. And it is in that spirit that we are bringing you a special episode today, which we're calling part of our Publishing Nerd Corner segment.Jess LaheyOur favorite stuff.Sarina BowenYeah, so publishing nerd stuff. Here we go, and the topic is pretty timely.Jess LaheyAnd juicy.Sarina BowenAnd juicy. We're talking about why authors copyright their work, what it means, and how it ties into everything going on with the Anthropic lawsuit and potential settlement.Jess LaheySo, backing up, could you tell us a little bit about the Anthropic lawsuit, and sort of what it was about, and why everybody's talking about it right now?Sarina BowenOf course. So, Anthropic is an AI LLM, Large Language Model Company, just like OpenAI is the same as ChatGPT. Anthropic are the people who make Claude, but all the AI big companies are being sued right now, including Meta, including Microsoft, or...Jess LaheyGoogle. Google.Sarina BowenYeah, sorry.Jess LaheyNot Microsoft.Sarina BowenAnd also the new one is there's a new lawsuit against Apple. So, basically, everybody who went out and made a big LLM model using stolen, pirated books and articles downloaded from the Internet is being sued variously by different organizations, and it looks like the Anthropic lawsuit might be resolved first.Jess LaheyOkay, so what are they being sued for?Sarina BowenThey're being sued for a couple of things. First is the wholesale piracy of lots of books downloaded off the internet, and second, for feeding all of those books into their models to teach them how to speak and compose.Jess LaheyA while ago, weren't some—I think some—internal memos around the whole Meta thing where, essentially, they acknowledged how much it would cost to purchase legally all of the things they needed to model, do their large LLMs, and they decided, “Wow, that would be a lot of money.”Sarina BowenRight.Jess Lahey“We'll just steal them.”Sarina BowenWe don't want to deal with copyright. Well, specifically, the most interesting internal memos that we've seen have been involved in the Meta case, which we're not really talking about tonight, but yeah, there are some big smoking guns out there. But I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about the practical nature of copyrighting your work, because there's a potential settlement on the table that's taking shape in terms of how authors will be paid some portion of a $1.5 billion settlement from this Anthropic suit, potentially, and whether or not you have a registered copyright on your book is going to matter. So, first of all, in this case, the judge did rule—well, we wanted him to rule—that using these books to train the model was not a fair use situation.Jess LaheyRight. They were trying to say, “No, no, this is just fair use.”Sarina BowenRight.Jess Lahey“We shouldn't have to pay anybody.”Sarina BowenAnd unfortunately, we don't have a ruling in favor of this concept yet, and The Authors Guild cares very much that it's not fair use and will continue to fight for that. But we instead were ruled in this case something that is actually quite powerful and important to the whole conversation, which is that the judge said that Anthropic downloading all of these titles—these millions of stolen books—from a piracy site was, in fact, illegal and that they are going to have to pay. So the ruling was against them. So now this is a class-action suit, and in a class-action suit, all of the parties in the class—you can opt out if you want to, like if you're an author who would rather sue them individually, you can still do that. But it looks like in defining the class of who is eligible to receive a payout; you're going to have to have a registered copyright. Your copyright will have had to have been registered within five years of publication, and also before they downloaded it.Jess LaheySo, to clarify, some of the questions I've seen floating around on the interwebs are about, “Oh, but there was that big list that was published by The Atlantic.” You could go to The Atlantic and just see, and “oh my gosh, I had six titles that were on that list. Does that mean that I'm going to get money for all of those titles?”Sarina BowenOkay, well, that is a great question. And actually, I need to stipulate real quick that I am not a lawyer.Jess LaheyRight.Sarina BowenYou're a lawyer, and almost certainly I'm going to make an error when I'm speaking on this tonight. I have spent a lot of time listening in meetings about these things, so I feel comfortable enough to discuss it with you tonight. But, um, but I'm going to make a mistake. So you need to check everything...Jess LaheyRight.Sarina Bowen…when you make your own legal decisions. So wait, what was the question?Jess LaheySo the question was about that big list at The Atlantic.Sarina BowenOh yeah!Jess LaheyThat was like, what, 5 million titles or so?Sarina BowenWell, that list was taken from a specific piracy site.Jess LaheyRight.Sarina BowenBut it doesn't know which titles the company actually downloaded, so only the company has that list. So, first of all, that database is sort of handy and interesting, but it is not definitive in terms of this list.Jess LaheySo do not count on looking at that list and saying, “Oh, I have six titles there, maybe I'll get a payout for all six titles.”Sarina BowenRight. So, um, but let's—we really need to talk about copyright registration because there's so much misinformation floating around out there. So it's true that if you sit down right now and write something, you already own the copyright for it. So that's powerful—sort of—right? Um, but the point of registering your copyright—and these benefits are right on the Copyright Alliance website. So we're going to link to the copyright website—but, um, one of the primary reasons why people register is because registration is a necessary prerequisite for bringing, for U.S. copyright owners, to bring a copyright infringement suit in federal court. And of course, this is a federal court action, but also because statutory damages and attorneys’ fees can only be sued for if you have a registered copyright. If you just own your copyright without registering it, you can sue for damages. The damages in t

Jess here. My guest this week is Jeff Selingo, an author and speaker I’ve admired for a long time. His work on college, college admissions and the transition to work and life in emerging adulthood are essential reads for anyone looking to understand what want and need in higher education and life. His books, There is Life After College, Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions and his forthcoming book, Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You are all essential reads for teens and emerging adults as well as parents of teens and emerging adults. I adore all three, but I wanted to talk with Jeff about a few aspects of his writing: how he created a speaking career, finds his topics, and how on earth he gets people to talk about topics that tend to be shrouded in secrecy behind very high walls (such as college admissions). Check out Jeff’s newsletter, Next, and Podcast, Future UKJ here, as you probably know, to tell you that if you're not listening to the Writing the Book episodes Jenny Nash and I have been doing, you should be. Jenny's working on her latest nonfiction, and I'm working on my next novel, and we're both trying to do something bigger and better than anything we've done before.We sit down weekly and dish about everything—from Jenny's proposal and the process of getting an agent to my extremely circular method of creating a story. We are brutally honest and open—even beyond what we are here. Truly, we probably say way too much. And for that reason, Writing the Book is subscriber-only.So I'm here saying: subscribe. That's a whole 'nother episode a week, and always a juicy one—plus all the other good subscriber stuff: the First Pages: BookLab, Jess’s From Author to Authority series, and whatever else we come up with. (It varies enough that it's hard to list it all.) Plus, of course, access whenever we run The Blueprint—which, I don’t know, might be soon.That's all I’ve got. So head to amwritingpodcast.com, get yourself signed up, and come listen to Writing the Book. Then talk to us. Tell us—tell us about your book writing and what's going on. We really want to hear from y’all.Thanks a lot. And Subscribe!Transcript below!EPISODE 465 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaHowdy, listeners—KJ here, as you probably know—to tell you that if you're not listening to the Writing the Book episodes Jennie Nash and I have been doing, you should be. Jennie is working on her latest nonfiction, and I'm working on my next novel, and we're both trying to do something bigger and better than anything we've done before. We sit down weekly and dish about everything from Jennie's proposal and the process of getting an agent to my extremely circular method of creating a story. We are brutally honest and open—even beyond what we are here. Truly, we probably say way too much, and for that reason, Writing the Books is subscriber-only. So I'm here saying: subscribe. That's a whole other episode a week, and always a juicy one—plus there's all the other good subscriber stuff: the First Page Booklab, Jess' From Author to Authority series, and whatever else we come up with, which kind of varies enough that it's hard to list out. Plus, of course, access to whenever we run the Blueprint, which—I don't know—it’s going to be soon. That’s all I got. So head to AmWritingpodcast.com, get yourself signed up and come listen to Writing the Book, and then talk to us. Tell us—tell us about your book writing and what’s going on. We really want to—we want to hear from y’all. Thanks a lot, and please subscribe.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, it's Jess Lahey, and welcome to the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is a podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, poetry, proposals, queries, nonfiction, fiction—all the stuff. In the end, this is the podcast about getting the work done. And in the beginning of this podcast, our goal was to flatten the learning curve for other writers. So I am super excited about who I have today. Oh—quick intro. I'm Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation, and you can find my work at The New York Times, The Atlantic and The Washington Post, as you can find the work of my guest there too. So my guest today is someone that I have looked up to for a long time, and someone I use as sort of a—to bounce things off of and to think about how I do my work and how to do my work better. Jeff Selingo, thank you so much for coming to on the show. Jeff is the author of a couple of books that I'm a huge—In fact, I can look over at my bookshelf right now and see all of his books on getting into college, why college is not the end point. He has a new book coming out that we’re going to be talking about—really; it’s coming out real as soon as this podcast comes out. And I’m just—I’m a huge fan, Jeff. Thank you so, so much for coming on the pod.Jeff SelingoJust the same here—and I'm a huge fan of this podcast as well. It’s on my regular rotation, so...Jess LaheyOh yay.Jeff SelingoI am thrilled, as always, to be here.Jess LaheyIt's—it’s changed over the years, and now that we have four different, you know, co-hosts, there’s sort of different takes on it. We’ve got, like, Sarina—the business side, and Jess—the nonfiction geek side, and KJ—the fiction side, and Jennie—the nuts-and-bolts editor side. So it’s been really fun for us to sort of split off. But what I wanted to talk to you about today are a couple of different things. Your book Who Gets In and Why is—um , on the podcast, we talk about dissecting other people’s work as a way... In fact, I was talking to my daughter about this yesterday. She’s writing a thesis—what she hopes will be one chapter in a book. And I was saying, you know, one of the things you can do is go dissect other books you think are really well constructed—books that are reaching the same, similar audience. And your book, Who Gets In and Why, I think, is essential reading for anyone who's writing interview based, and specifically nonfiction around attempting to get their arms around a process. And a process that—for you—what I’m really interested about in this book is a process that’s usually, you know, guarded and kind of secret. And no one wants to let you in for real on all the moving parts and how the decisions are made, because the college admissions process is—it’s an inexact recipe. It depends on where you are, it depends on the school, but everyone wants the secret. Like, Jeff, just get me the secrets of how to get in. So how do you approach people who are, in a sense, some ways, secret-keepers and guardians of the secret sauce—to mix metaphors? How do you get those people to agree to be a part of a book—not just to be interviewed, but to actually put themselves out there and to put the sausage-making out there in a book, which can be a huge leap of faith for any organization or human being?Jeff SelingoYeah, and I think it's definitely harder now than it was when I did Who Gets In and Why. I think it's harder than when, you know, other people have been inside the process—whether it's, you know, Fast Food Nation, with the, you know, the fast food industry, which is a book that I looked up to when I was writing, Who Gets In and Why. I think it’s—people just don’t trust writers and journalists as much as they used to. So I think that’s—a lot of this is really trust. First of all, you have to approach organizations that trust their own process. When people ask me, “Why these three schools?” You know, I approached 24 schools when I wrote, Who Gets In and Why, and three said yes. Twenty-one said no. And when I describe the people who said yes and why they said yes, they trusted their own process. And they also trusted me. But the first thing they did was trust their own process.. And so when I heard later on from people who had said no to me—and I would, you know, talk to them, you know, off the record about why they said no—there was always something about their process, their admissions process, that they didn’t trust. They were getting a new, like, software system, or they had new employees that they didn’t really quite know, or they were doing things—it’s not that they were doing things wrong, but that, you know, it was at the time when the Supreme Court was making a decision about affirmative action, and they didn’t quite know how that would play, and so they didn’t quite trust it—and then how that, obviously, would be used by me. So the first thing you have to do is think about organizations that really believe in themselves, because they’re going to be the ones that are going to talk about themselves externally. And then you just have to build trust between them and you. And that just takes—unfortunately, it takes time. And as a book author or a reporter, you don’t always have that on your side.Jess LaheySo when—were some of these cold? Like of the 24, were all of these cold? Were some of these colder? Did you have an in with some of these?Jeff SelingoI had an in with most of them, because I had been covering—I mean, that’s the other thing. You know, trust is built over time, and I had been covering higher ed for almost 25 years now. So it was just that they knew me, they knew of me, they knew of my work. I had other people vouch for me. So, you know, I had worked with other people in other admissions offices on other stories, and they knew people in some of these offices, so they would vouch for me. But at the end—so, you know, it ended up being Emory, Davidson and the University of Washington. It was really only Davidson where I knew somebody. Emory and University of Washington—I kind of knew people there that were the initial door opener. But beyond that, it was just spending t

Guests:* Rossana D’Antonio – Author of 26 Seconds: Grief and Blame in the Aftermath of Losing My Brother in a Plane Crash* Marty Ross-Dolen – Author of Always There, Always Gone: A Daughter’s Search for TruthTwo authors, Rossana D’Antonio and Marty Ross-Dolen, each faced the unimaginable loss of loved ones in separate plane crashes decades apart. Their grief led them to write powerful memoirs—Rossana’s 26 Seconds and Marty’s Always There, Always Gone—that explore truth, healing, and the lasting impact of tragedy. In an extraordinary coincidence, both books were released in the same week, a situation that could easily spark feelings of rivalry or jealousy between writers. Instead, their shared experience created a bond as they connected over loss, resilience, and the courage it takes to turn pain into story. This episode dives into that connection, exploring not only grief but also the unexpected solidarity found in telling similar stories side by side.Hey everyone, it's Jenny Nash. This episode happens to feature an Author Accelerator book coach. Author Accelerator is the company I founded more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. If you've been curious about what it takes to become a successful book coach, which is to say, someone who makes money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers, I've just created a bunch of great content to help you learn more. You can access it all by going to bookcoaches.com/waitlist. We'll be enrolling a new cohort of students in our certification program in October, so now's a perfect time to learn more and start making plans for a whole new career.Transcript below!EPISODE 464 - TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHey everyone. It's Jennie Nash. This episode happens to feature an Author Accelerator book coach. Author Accelerator is the company I founded more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. If you've been curious about what it takes to become a successful book coach, which is to say someone who makes money, meaning and joy out of serving writers. I've just created a bunch of great content to help you learn more. You can access it all by going to book bookcoaches.com/waitlist. That's bookcoaches.com/waitlist. We'll be enrolling a new cohort of students in our certification program in October, so now’s a perfect time to learn more and start making plans for a whole new career.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three.Jennie NashHey everyone. I'm Jennie Nash, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, the place where we talk about writing all the things, short things, long things, fiction, nonfiction, pitches and proposals. Today I'm here to talk with two writers who I brought together because of a very interesting coincidence; each of these writers recently published a memoir about a plane crash. They each lost somebody that they love in a plane crash, and they wrote a story about their search for understanding and their search for healing and what it all means to their lives. These two books are really different stories, which I think is so interesting and says so much about the creative process. And what's remarkable is that these two books were published just one week apart, and these two writers became aware of each other's books and became friends. I happened to have a connection to each of these writers. At several points throughout her writing process, I coached Rossana D’Antonio including the very first time she came into a classroom to write about this story. Her book is called 26 Seconds: Grief and Blame in the Aftermath of Losing My Brother in a Plane Crash. Marty Ross-Dolen is the other author. Her book is called Always There, Always Gone: A Daughter's Search for Truth. Marty is a writer who came into my Author Accelerator book coach certification program to study how to become a book coach, and that's when I became aware of her and her story. In this conversation, Marty and Rossana come together with me to talk about grief, writing, jealousy and so many of the things that make memoir such a difficult and challenging genre to write and also such a satisfying one. I can't wait for you to listen. So let's get started. Welcome Rossana and Marty. I'm so excited to have you both here today to talk about this incredible topic. And before we get going, we are talking just days after there was a terrible plane crash in India in which a lot of people died and one man walked away, and there's a plane crash at the center of both of your books. And I just wanted to start by asking, how do you feel when this happens as it happens so many times, you know, are you okay as we sit here today? Or does this weigh on you? What is it? What is it like to sit here today? So maybe we'll start Rossana with you.Rossana D’AntonioOkay, well, thanks, Jennie, for inviting me on your podcast. It's really exciting to be here and to share, you know, this podcast with Marty. And, yeah, I mean, I, I agree with you. It's really, I mean, I think our memoirs—it's just so timely that they're out during this time because it's, you know, it's not just Air India. We've had several incidents within the last several years, actually, that have brought to light the strain in the aviation industry. It's been, it's been really interesting because, as it seems like there's not a day that goes by that there isn't something in the news with regards to plane crashes or plane incidents, near misses, whatever it may be. But as we experience each incident, and it becomes breaking news, and you know, we're witnessing it on live TV, it is, it is hard not to relive the experience. And I'm—I'll speak for myself—it is hard for me not to relive the experience. And in the book, I kind of talk about it because I say that it's kind of like we belong to this group that we never asked to be part of and this group is made of families of the victims of plane crashes. And, you know, the very first images that you see are of the grieving families and the pain and the grief that is stamped on their faces, the shock of it all. Plane crashes are so dramatic and so violent that it's hard not to get caught up in the whole story, and it's hard not to think of the families and want to comfort them, knowing that their hell is just starting, and all the things that they're going to have to go through, you know, with regards to the aftermath, the investigation, recovering their loved ones and their loved ones' belongings. So it is hard, but I try to, I try to focus on hoping that their recovery or their healing—the sooner they face the disaster, the tragedy—their healing can actually start.Jennie NashIt's got to be so hard. We'll, we'll return to all of these topics again. But Marty, you’re... what are your thoughts?Marty Ross-DolenI echo what Rossana says about how—first, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here with you. I echo, and I love being here with Rossana, and I echo what she says as well. When I see some sort of headline or announcement that an airplane accident has taken place, my heart sinks. My stomach sinks. I know that I'm going to be in it for a couple of days, if not longer, and nowadays, with social media and the immediacy of information—and for the first time, with this devastating Air India crash, and part of it is because there was a survivor—we have information that we've never had before about the experience of it, and somehow, what came across my news feed on social media as well were videos of the inside of the cabin just before the crash. I don't even know how these were available. I don't even know if they're real because of AI—it's... but then I see that because I can't not see it, and I'm stuck with that in my brain until it goes into that little pocket that contains all those things that we see over our lifetimes that we try never to think about again. So it's hard, it's really hard, and it's really hard to get on an airplane. But that's true for everyone. That's true for everyone, but because, as Rossana describes, we're members of this group, this club that we didn't sign on for, it's probably extra hard.Jennie NashYeah, I want to come back to that "get on an airplane" thing, but just so our listeners can know about the stories that I'm referring to here, we know that you both wrote books, and they're both memoirs, and they're very, very different experiences for the reader—vibes, purposes, feelings, all of those things—and yet they share this plane crash at the center. So I wanted to ask if you would each just give a summary of what your book is about—the title, what it's about—so our readers can know, our listeners can know, what we're talking about. Your readers, our listeners. Rossana, we're kind of in a pattern here, so why don't you go first?Rossana D’AntonioSure. Thanks, Jennie. So my story, my book, is 26 Seconds: Grief and Blame in the Aftermath of Losing My Brother in a Plane Crash. And it's the story of—well, the title says it all, right? So on May 30, 2008, TACA Flight 390 departed from El Salvador International Airport en route to Miami, Florida, with an interim stop in Honduras at one of the most notoriously dangerous airports in the world, Toncontín International Airport. The area was buffeted by Tropical Storm Alma at the time. So there was a lot of wind, a lot of rain, a lot of fog, and when TACA Flight 390 attempted to land on the airport's very short runway, it overshot the runway, crashed into an embankment, and killed five people—three in the plane, including my brother, the pilot, and two in a car that were crushed when the plane landed on them. The book is my search for the truth as to what truly happened on that day. I suspected my brother would be made a scapegoat. Seventy percent of airplane accidents are b

This week’s episode explores how to tap into your unique creative genius and align it with your values to become the writer you were meant to be. Jennie Nash and Dr. Diana Hill, a clinical psychologist, dive into the Wise Effort Method. Hear about Diana's journey of overcoming her book writing challenges and how Jennie guided her through unleashing her writing genius. They also discuss how to clear mental blocks, focus creative energy, and integrate daily rituals to enhance your writing process — and your life.In This Episode, We Explore:* How to identify and overcome your mental stories and obstacles in writing* Strategies to open up creatively and align your work with your values* Practical ways to harness and focus your unique genius energy* The importance of ritual and community in the writing processBooks MentionedWise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters MostIn the Absence of the Ordinary – by Francis WellerThinking of starting a book?Join the September 16th virtual writing workshop with Jennie and Diana: https://drdianahill.com/wise-effort-book-idea-lab This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Jess here! A while back, Sarina and KJ talked about how much they enjoyed Tess Gerritsen’s novel, The Spy Coast, and Sarina reassured KJ she’d enjoy book two of the series even more. I had never read a Tess Gerritsen novel, and while I’d heard her name before and vaguely understood she wrote thrillers, I was starting from square one when I downloaded the audio version of The Spy Coast. Now, I’m not an international spy thriller kind of gal. In the abstract, I understand the allure of books like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Six Days of the Condor. Spies! Intrigue! International [almost exclusively men] of mystery! But they have never really floated my proverbial boat. That said, I loved Tess Gerritsen’s spies and the world they inhabit. There’s a sense of place - nay, a downright LOVE of place - and a retiring, rural New England domesticity that spoke to this retiring, rural New England reader. Book two, The Summer Guests, is even more rooted in Maine, on its history and the social dynamics of its natives and its summer people. Once I tore through those first two books, I went back to Gerritsen’s first book, The Surgeon, one of Time Magazine’s top 100 thriller/mystery books of all time and the first in the Rizzoli & Isles series, consequently made into a long-running television series. Gerritsen has a fascinating career trajectory, lots to talk about regarding pantsing and plotting, where the ideas come from, and lots of other geeky details about the writing life. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Find Tess at Tessgerritsen.com, or on Bluesky, @TessGerritsen Transcript below!EPISODE 462 - TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHey everyone, it's Jennie Nash, founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, the company I started more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. In October, we'll be enrolling a new cohort of certification students who will be going through programs in either fiction, nonfiction, or memoir, and learning the editorial, emotional, and entrepreneurial skills that you need to be a successful book coach. If you've been curious about book coaching and thinking that it might be something you want to do for your next career move, I'd love to teach you more about it, you can go to bookcoaches.com/waitlist to check out the free training I have—that's bookcoaches.com/waitlist. The training is all about how to make money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers. Fall is always a great time to start something new. So if you're feeling called to do this, go check out our training and see if this might be right for you. We'd love to have you join us.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now—one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, this is Jess Lahey, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. This is the podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, poetry, prose, narrative nonfiction, fiction, creative nonfiction, queries, proposals. This is the podcast about writing all the things. More than anything else, this is the podcast about the writing life and about getting the work done. I am Jess Lahey. I'm the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my journalism at The Atlantic and The Washington Post, and my bi-weekly (formerly bi-weekly) column at The New York Times, The Parent-Teacher Conference, ran for about three years I am joined today by Sarina Bowen, who has written 50-odd books. She has written lots and lots of romance, and her most recent addition to the world of publishing has been her thrillers, Dying to Meet You and The Five Year Lie. And she has a book coming out this fall called Thrown for a Loop. The reason I am recording this intro on my own—which, as you may know if you've been listening, is highly unusual for us—is because I know myself. And I know when I'm really excited to talk to someone on the podcast; I'm going to flub the intro. I'm going to forget something. I'm going to forget to introduce them altogether. So today, I'm doing that first, so I don't mess it up. A while ago on the podcast, you may have heard Sarina and KJ read some books by an author named Tess Gerritsen. I had heard of Tess Gerritsen, but I had never read any of her books. I just hadn't yet. I haven't read Nora Roberts yet. I haven't read—there are lots of authors I haven't read yet. And sometimes you don't even know where to start. So when Sarina and KJ recommended Tess Gerritsen's new series set in Maine—the first one being The Spy Coast and the second one being The Summer Guests—I figured I had a good place to start. And you know, as a New Englander, I love a good book about New England, and that was the start of my interest in Tess Gerritsen's work. I have gone back to the beginning and started with her book The Surgeon, which was her first book in the series that became the Rizzoli and Isles Series, as well as a television show. Tess Gerritsen has a—she's written through 33 books at this point. And as I now know, she has also directed a documentary called Magnificent Beast about pigs, which I listened to this morning while I was vacuuming the house. I loved it. She also—she has a lot to say about genre, about publishing, about second careers, about a writing place, and about process. So let's just jump right into it. I am so excited to introduce to you today, Tess Gerritsen. So from the perspective of what our listeners love—this podcast, the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast —is super geek. People who love the nuts and bolts and the dorky details of the writing life. Sarina has a past life in finance, and so she tends to be, like, our “no, but let's talk about the numbers” kind of person. I'm just the research super dork, which is why I spent my morning watching your documentary about pigs.Tess GerritsenOh my god! (Laughing)Jess LaheyMagnificent Beast. I—I've joked in the past that if I could, I would probably just research things in—in, you know, maybe there'll be a book out there, maybe there won't, but I would research things and—and just learn as much as I could. And so I loved—loved—your Magnificent Beast documentary. I thought it was fantastic. But one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you, just from the very beginning, is that we feel like you do some pretty incredible world-building and relationship-building with your places and your characters. And so I just—I would love to start there, mainly with the idea of starting with the real nuts and bolts stuff, which is, like, what does an average writing day look like for you? And how do you, sort of—how do you set that up? What does it look like, if you have an average writing day? Maybe you don't.Tess GerritsenWell, it's hard to describe an average writing day, because every day is—there are days when you sit at your desk and you just, you know, pull your hair. And there are days when you get distracted by the news. And there are many days when I just do not want to write. But when I'm writing, the good days are when my characters are alive and talking to me. And it's—it's—you talked about world-building and character-building. That is really key to me. What are they saying to me? Can I hear their voices? And it sounds a little—a little crazy, because I am hearing voices. But it's those voices that really make characters come alive.Jess LaheyI—You have said in other interviews that you are very much—sorry to those of you who hate the terms—that you are very much a pantser. And you are sitting on this interview with a consummate plotter. Sarina is our consummate plotter. So could you talk a little bit about how those character—how those voices—influence, you know, the pantsing of the—of the book, and—and how that works for you?Tess GerritsenWell, I mean, it is weird that I am a pantser. And it's funny—I think that people who are plotters tend to be people who are in finance or in law, because they're used to having their ducks lined up, you know. They—they want everything set up ahead of time, and it makes them feel comfortable. And I think a large part of becoming a pantser is learning to be comfortable with unpredictability. Learning to just let things happen, and know you're going to take wrong turns, know you're going to end up in blind alleys—and yet just keep on forging ahead and change direction. So I suppose that what helps me become a pantser, as I said, is hearing a character's voice. If, for instance, when I wrote The Spy Coast, the first thing I heard about that book was Maggie Bird's voice. And she just said, “I'm not the woman I used to be.” And that's an opening there, right? Because you want to find out, Maggie, who did you used to be? And why do you sound so sad? So a lot of it was just—just getting into her head and letting her talk about what a day-to-day life is, which is, you know, raising chickens and collecting eggs and becoming—and being—a farmer. And then she does something surprising in that very first chapter. There's a fox that's killing her chickens, so she grabs her rifle and kills it with one shot. And that opens up another thing, like—how are you, a 62-year-old woman, able to take out a rifle and kill a fox with one shot? So it's—it's those things. It's those revelations of character. When they come out and they tell you something, or they show you they—they have a skill that you weren't aware of, you want to dig deeper and find out, you know, where did they get that skill?Sarina BowenAnd that is a really fun way to show it. I mean, you're talking today with two people who have also kept chickens.Multiple Speakers(All laughing)Jess LaheyAnd had foxes take their chickens, actually.Sarina BowenOh yes, because the two go together.Tess GerritsenYes.Sarina BowenBut yes, I admit I have never shot a fox, and maybe wouldn't.Jess LaheyI have yelled very loudly at a

Hey writers! Sarina here! I have never been quiet about how much I enjoy Karin Slaughter’s work. So when the opportunity arose for me to read her brand new book, We Are All Guilty Here, and then interview her about it, I raised my hand faster than an extra in a deodorant ad. The new book is a series starter with a kickass female heroine, and I could not have loved it more! Join as as I quiz Karin on: * How to write a sweeping series starter* Small towns as a setting. How small is too small?* The difference between a procedural and psychological suspense* Character development and much more! Karin is incredibly smart and such an important voice in suspense. You won’t want to miss this one!Other favorite’s of Karin’s that we discussed include:Pieces of Her The Grant County seriesHey, Jess here to talk to you about a series I have created just for supporters of the #AmWriting Podcast.I met an aspiring author and speaker who has an idea for a book that just knocked me over. I said, please, please write that book. This is someone who had an idea that has a place in the market. It's timely. She's the perfect person to write it, and I asked her, I begged her, if I could please mentor her through this process publicly on the podcast.So while we're not giving her full name and we're not giving the actual title of the book, because we don't want to hand those things away, I am coaching her through the entire process, from preparing her book proposal to querying an agent. I'm going through the whole thing with her. She knows nothing about the publishing industry, she knows very little about how one goes about writing a book—so essentially, this is as I mentioned before, from soup to nuts, From Authority to Author, and hopefully we'll get her there.But really, whether or not this book ends up selling, whether after this book she ends up having a speaking career, this is about the process of preparing to do that. I hope you’ll join us.This series is for supporters only, so if you are a free subscriber right now, consider upgrading. Remember, if you upgrade, you'll also get the ability to submit for our First Pages Booklab, and lots of other fun stuff that we put out just for supporters—So come join us. It's a lot of fun.Transcript below!EPISODE 461 - TRANSCRIPTJess LaheyHey, Jess here to talk to you about a new series I have created just for supporters of the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast. I met an aspiring author and speaker who has an idea for a book that just knocked me over. I said, please, please write that book. This is someone who had an idea that—it has a place in the market, it's timely, she's the perfect person to write it—and I asked her, I begged her, if I could please mentor her through this process publicly on the podcast. So while we're not giving her full name and we're not giving the actual title of the book, because we don't want to hand those things away, I am coaching her through the entire process, from preparing her book proposal to querying an agent. I'm going through the whole thing with her. She knows nothing about the publishing industry. She knows very little about how, you know, one goes about writing a book. And so she—essentially, this is, as I mentioned before, From Soup to Nuts, From Authority to Author, and hopefully we'll get her there. But really, whether or not this book ends up selling, whether this book—she ends up having a speaking career—this is about the process of preparing to do that. How do you write a book? How do you prepare to become a speaker on the back of that book? So I hope you join us. This is a series for supporters only, so if you are a free supporter—or if you're a free subscriber right now—consider upgrading. Remember, if you upgrade, you'll also get access to the ability to submit for our First Pages Booklab and lots of other fun stuff that we put out just for supporters. So come join us. It's a lot of fun.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.Sarina BowenHello, my name is Sarina Bowen, and you're listening to the AmWriting Podcast. This is the podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, fictional things, non-fictional things, pitches and proposals—in short, this is the podcast about sitting down and getting the work done. I am alone today with an interview that I could not be more excited about. I don't know how I drew the long straw here, but today I have the pleasure of interviewing Karin Slaughter. She is the author of more than 20 instant New York Times best-selling novels, including the Edgar-nominated Cop Town and standalone novels The Good Daughter, Pretty Girls, and Girl Forgotten. That's actually an amazing one, by the way—go read it. She's published in 120 countries, with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. She also has a number one Netflix series and another long-running series. She has hit all the bells and checked all the boxes in thriller land, and she is also just one of my favorite writers. So happy to be here. Welcome, Karin Slaughter.Karin SlaughterIt's my pleasure. Thank you.Sarina BowenWe're here to talk about your August release, which is called We Are All Guilty Here. I received this ARC a few months ago—actually read it immediately—because I love your suspense, and I also was really excited to see that it was clear as day on the release. So you owe me now that it's a series starter.Karin SlaughterIt is, yeah. It was a lot of fun planning it out.Sarina BowenOh, good, yeah. And I want to hear a little bit about that, but I'm just going to read the very short flap copy for We Are All Guilty Here so we all know what we're talking about.[Reads flap copy]The first thrilling mystery in the new North Falls series from Karin Slaughter. Welcome to North Falls—a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think. Until the night of the fireworks, when two teenage girls vanish and the town ignites. For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend's daughter needed help—and now she must bring her home. But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did. Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?So, flap copy very much pitched as a thriller. Here is the problem here—you know, we're wanting the solution, but I would argue that your novels are always, always about bigger than the problem and its solution. So how did you conceive of this town, and what does North Falls mean to you as you were getting into it?Karin SlaughterWell, I mean, North Falls is a very small town inside of a larger county. So it's rural, but it's not tiny like my Grant County Series. And I think that I learned some lessons in Grant County—mainly, make it a larger town so there's more people you can kill, because at a certain point, why would anyone live in this tiny town? But also, I knew going into it that it was going to be a series. And so, you know, unlike Grant County and Will Trent—which I was hoping would be series, but I wasn’t sure, and I was at a different point in my writing life—you know, I'm pretty sure, 25 books in, that they're going to publish at least two or three more of my books. So I thought, let me set this up as a series, and let me do this world building that can carry on into several books, and let's make this town. You know, North Falls is the seat of the county, but it's also in a county called Clifton County. And the main narrator you meet is called Emmy Clifton, and she's a sheriff's deputy. Her father, Gerald Clifton, is the sheriff of this county. There are Cliftons everywhere—there are rich Cliftons and poor Cliftons—and so you have this family saga potential. But also, it gave me the opportunity to plant a lot of different seeds that will later grow into novels. So I was really happy about that, but I definitely structured the county in a way where there's plenty of space to tell stories.Sarina BowenRight. So I noticed, and when I read a book like this, I am reading it as a reader, but also as a writer.Karin SlaughterYes.Sarina BowenAnd so I really noticed how long the character count in this book is—by which I mean how many characters there really are, how many named characters. There's so many of them, and that felt really fearless to me, you know, like you weren't sitting there at your keyboard wondering if you were going to ask your reader to remember this other family member, but you just went for it. And is that something that you ever try to balance? Like, you're not taking it easy on us here, and ultimately, I loved every word of it. But do you ever worry about that? Like, do you let that voice from other books past into your brain to say, like, well, that one time…Karin SlaughterNot really. You know, I think a writer's job is to trust the reader, and it's certainly my job to tell a story that is gripping and that makes sense and that pulls them into the world. And so what I was thinking about as I was writing this was, I need to write these characters in such a way that you care about them; otherwise, you won't care what happens. And, you know, Emmy is in a pretty universal position for a lot of millennial women. She's in a marriage that's not a great marriage. She's trying to raise her son. Her parents are starting to get older—you know, they're failing a little bit—so she's noticing that. And in the middle of this, she has this horrific crime happen where these two girls are abducted. And because they are in this small town, she knows one of these girls, who's actually a stepdaughter of her best friend—her best friend since kindergarten—and so just that one thing happening blows her world apart. To me, that's what the hook is. Yo

How dare you? That’s the first question KJ asked Ally Carter, whose name is “synonymous with hilarious action and heart-pounding romance” (TRUE). Is KJ outraged? Hell no. It’s a legit question. Ally’s books are so so much fun, with wild action scenes befitting a Bond movie (or a Jason Bourne, OBVIOUSLY) and plots that trot the globe while dancing backwards in high heels and KJ really wants to know—how did Ally give herself permission to just go there? To write the dreamy, wild, sure it could happen but also we don’t even care because we’re so in it story that scares many of us (especially ex-journo KJ, who wastes far far too much time on such non dramatic questions as “but how would someone with that job pay for health insurance? and “technically, how much snow could that unit make in one night?). Also asked: how did you learn to write action so well? Do you take all kinds of crazy self defense classes? Or dissect movie fight scenes in slo-mo? Are you fun to watch a spy movie with, or terrible?I would have asked her if she used to BE a spy…but then she would have had to kill me.LINKSNational Spy MuseumThe Blonde Who Came In from the ColdThe Most Wonderful Crime of the YearThe Blonde IdentityAlly CarterAlly’s rec: Netflix: The ResidenceInstagram @theallycarter The newsletterHey everyone, it's Jenny Nash. This episode happens to feature an Author Accelerator book coach. Author Accelerator is the company I founded more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. If you've been curious about what it takes to become a successful book coach, which is to say, someone who makes money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers, I've just created a bunch of great content to help you learn more. You can access it all by going to bookcoaches.com/waitlist. We'll be enrolling a new cohort of students in our certification program in October, so now's a perfect time to learn more and start making plans for a whole new career.Transcript below!EPISODE 460 - TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHey everyone, it's Jennie Nash, founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, the company I started more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. In October, we'll be enrolling a new cohort of certification students who will be going through programs in either fiction, nonfiction, or memoir, and learning the editorial, emotional and entrepreneurial skills that you need to be a successful book coach. If you've been curious about book coaching and thinking that it might be something you want to do for your next career move, I'd love to teach you more about it, you can go to bookcoaches.com/waitlist to check out a free training I have—that's bookcoaches.com/waitlist. The training is all about how to make money, meaning and joy out of serving writers. Fall is always a great time to start something new. So if you're feeling called to do this, go check out our training and see if this might be right for you. We'd love to have you join us.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is Hashtag AmWriting the weekly podcast about writing all the things—short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction. We're the podcast about getting things done. And I'm going to be solo this week because I am interviewing, and I'm so excited to interview one Ally Carter, whose name, I'm stealing this from her bio, because it was such a great line—is synonymous with hilarious action and heart-pounding romance. And as someone who's read much of it, I can vouch kids. So Ally's most recent big book that you've probably seen around was The Blonde Identity . Her current book that you're going to want to go straight out and grab is The Blonde Who Came In from the Cold, and her other book that she wrote just for me—because it was like exactly what I needed in a book in that moment and I really appreciate it. I'm glad other people got to read it, but it was really, for me— The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year those are her adult books. She's got a ton of young-adult books, also with heart pounding action and hilarious...wait, heart-pounding romance, hilarious action. I feel those are exchangeable. And even some middle grade if you've got some kids who might be reading in those lines. So Ally does all the things, and we're going to find out how, and immediately be able to do it ourselves. Ha! Ally, thanks for coming.Ally CarterThank you so much for having me, KJ. I appreciate it.KJ Dell'AntoniaWe are super excited.Ally CarterI also wrote The Most Wonderful Crime [The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year] just for me, because it's— that's like, I love a mystery, and I pick them up, and I'm like, this would be great. Where's the romance? And then I love a romance, and I pick it up, and I'm like, where's the mystery? And so that's, that's how Most Wonderful Crime [The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year ] came to be. It is two great genres better together.KJ Dell'AntoniaAlso, it's writers in a—like writers in a mansion, with secrets and surprise identities, and things people can do that no one knows they can do, which is my jam. Yeah, really enjoyed it.Ally CarterThank you.KJ Dell'AntoniaThank you for that. Not that I didn't I love The Blonde Identity. My daughter has it right now, and she's super excited, because I can give her The Blonde Who Came In from the Cold, early, because I might have gotten an early copy. So she'll be reading that on the beach next week after she finishes the first one.Ally CarterThat is some good cool mom points right there.KJ Dell'AntoniaWell, it is, yeah, and they're rare. But that is a great thing about your—I mean, my daughters are 21 and 19, so they're older, but I would have given the blonde books and The Most Wonderful Crime to, you know, a 16... ?... like, they're not—not that I don't actually give some pretty steamy stuff to my kids, but if you're not somebody who does that, they're steamy, but they're not—anyway...Ally CarterYeah, there are books that, like, grandma and mom and daughter can all read togetherKJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, I was just going to say I would give them to my mom too. Yeah. I mean, they're just super fun. Because sometimes the better test is not “Would I give it to my daughter?” It’s “Would I give it to my mom?”Ally CarterYou're exactly right. Agreed, agreed.KJ Dell'AntoniaSo my first question is this: how dare you?! Okay, and now you're like, wait, what?! No, seriously, like, your books are—the plots are so out there, and glorious, and outrageous, and the action scenes are wild, and they're sort of everything you fantasize about in a spy romance novel. And as a former journalist, I spend a lot of time sitting around staring at my plot thinking things like, yes, but how would this person have health insurance? And I feel like you've transcended that. So can you talk to me and all of us about how you've, you know, embraced this world of the wild, glorious, fun, and outrageous in your plotting?Ally CarterYou know, that's a—thank you. First of all, that's a lovely compliment. I really credit it toward, you know, how most things are in my life and my career—it was total accident and sheer dumb luck. So 20 years ago—I realized not long ago—like, literally 20 years ago this spring, I saw it. I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You. And I was, you know, big dumb kid, didn't know what I was doing, sheer dumb luck, had this amazing idea. And most of all, I had an amazing idea at a time when the YA [young adult] genre was just expanding exponentially—like the shelves of shelf space at Barnes and Noble was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so it was a big tent, and there was room for everybody. And so I was lucky in that I got in there. I was especially lucky because I had a brilliant editor named Donna Bray. And Donna could see, like the shift coming—like, she could see Twilight and the, like, the move to paranormal, and the move to, you know, moving away from contemporary fiction to genre fiction. And she was like, we have to get this out fast. And so we crashed it. And so I sold it in, like, April or May of 2005, and then I had to go to copy editing in October, and I had—I had 32 pages.KJ Dell'AntoniaSorry, (laughing)Ally CarterAnd a day job!KJ Dell'AntoniaOh, my goodness!Ally CarterSo I had the summer of absolute deadline. I would come home from my day job, I would eat a fast dinner, and I would write till midnight. But this was also back, like, before we really had smartphones in our pockets all the time—definitely pre, like, social media—and so that's what you did. And I'm like, man, if I did that every day, think about how much writing I would get done today.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Ally CarterBut because I was so fast, the turnaround there was so fast, I didn't have time to, like, go down a rabbit hole of, well, exactly what type of nylon cord would they use to rappel into such and such—you know, I just got—I made it up, and I got away with it. And so I realized that, you know, I would—I did do a lot of research on actual tradecraft.KJ Dell'AntoniaRight.Ally CarterSo the things like the girl—there's a scene where the girls have to go through the boy’s garbage. And there's this—you know, there are scenes where they're, you know, planting bugs and those types of things. Those—I watched documentaries, I read a lot of, like, actual decommissioned, sort of old CIA handbooks and things.. The International Spy Museum has a wonderful reference section, and you can actually order...KJ Dell'AntoniaOh, that’s cool.Ally CarterOld, like, World War Two training manuals and things. It's really greatKJ Dell'AntoniaI did not know that.Ally CarterSo I did do that. What I did not do was I didn't worry about, like, the bran

Sarina’s second thriller is now out. It’s a twisty thriller with a single-mom protagonist and some deep, dark secrets. It’s called Dying to Meet You and it is creepy in the best possible way. In this episode, Jennie interviews Sarina about the new book, and about the difference between writing romance and writing thrillers. You may think that’s obvious, but Sarina has recently shifted into writing thrillers and she has such a nuanced understanding about what it all means. She gets into what defines a genre, how you have to honor your readers expectations, and the different ways you hold tension when telling a story. It’s a masterclass in genre.Books mentioned:Dying to Meet You, Sarina BowenSarina’s other thriller, The Five Year LieThe Guest List, Lucy Foley On a Quiet Street, Seraphina Nova Glass Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of romcoms.Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car.Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.Digital books at: Amazon | Nook | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | AudiblePhysical books at: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | More paperback links here!Transcript below!EPISODE 459 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaListeners who I know are also readers—have I got a summer book for you. If you haven't yet ordered Dying to Meet You, Sarina Bowen's latest thriller with just enough romance, you have to. So let me lay this out for you. Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring a historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine, but inside, she's a mess. She knows stalking her ex's avatar all over Portland on her phone isn't the healthiest way to heal from their breakup, but she's out of ice cream and she's sick of rom-coms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He's dining out while she's wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. But instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect. But Rowan isn't the only one keeping secrets. As she digs for the truth, she discovers that the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past. Struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him. Will she be the next to die? You're going to love this. I've had a sneak preview, and I think we all know that The Five Year Lie was among the very best reads and listens of last summer. Dying to Meet You is available in every format and anywhere that you buy books. And you could grab your copy—and you absolutely should—right now.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three.Jennie NashHey, writers, I'm Jennie Nash, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, the place where we talk about writing all the things—short things, long things, fiction, non-fiction, pitches, and proposals. I'm here today to talk to our own Sarina Bowen. Her newest thriller, Dying to Meet You, just came out a few weeks ago, and I've been dying to talk to Sarina about the way she's been switching back and forth between romance and thriller. This is her second thriller. The last one came out last year. That one's called The Five Year Lie. And so we're just here to talk about genre, and romance, and thriller, and how Sarina does it—this back-and-forth kind of code switching between genres. So, welcome, Sarina.Sarina BowenThank you. It's always fun to talk about genre. It's my favorite thing.Jennie NashWell, I just was really struck when I was reading. I've been reading your romances for so long, and you have so many of them, and you're so good at them, and...Sarina BowenWell, thank you.Jennie NashAnd then here we have an entirely new genre that you have entered into in a really big way. And it's not—so this is not about, how do you come up with your idea, or how did you do it? Or—I mean, all those are great questions. We love those. And I've heard you talk about those other places. But what I want to try to get at here is this idea—really, what is genre? So when you think about that, you're sitting down to start one or this other. What do you think about, like, what are the things that—genre? What does the genre mean to you?Sarina BowenWell, I talk about this a lot when I am discussing my books, which is that I don't find that—that the thriller genre and that the romance genres are all that different. Like, each one of those things makes a promise to the reader and then must deliver it by the last page. It's just that the promise is slightly different between those two things. So in a romance, the reader is promised a satisfactory romantic conclusion to the book. And in a thriller, the reader is promised that whatever mess and confusion is established on page one, that it will be rectified and solved by the end of the book—that the chaos will become at least understanding, if not order. So the thing is that the job of the novelist is kind of the same in both situations, which is, we are going to take the main character on a journey, and she is going to learn some stuff before it's over—or it's not really a novel. Now, to be fair, not every novel is constructed like that and does both of those things. Like what—what makes it feel familiar to me in both cases is that I always write an empathetic main character, and not every author of suspense does this. So there are a lot of really popular suspense novels where you're not sure who to root for, and you don't really like any of the characters. And those books can be really exciting and really well written, and there's a total—a huge audience for that. But that is not what I do in suspense space, and that doesn't make me unique. Like, there are a lot of suspense authors who also operate this way. For example, Harlan Coben and Karin Slaughter write best-selling novels of suspense where you always know who to root for from the first chapter. Like, you are given a main character who is a likable human—a flawed person—but still, like, you know, somebody to root for, and you're rooting for that person until the end of the book. So it's not like this is just my special romance author's twist on it—like, it's a thing. It's just that there are other suspense authors who don't operate under that, you know, scenario. So that's one of the reasons why, to me, like, the job feels kind of similar to writing a romance and writing a suspense the way that I do it. It's just that when I'm writing a suspense, first of all, it takes a lot longer, because a suspense reader is really there to match wits with you, and you have to deliver on—on that experience of paying a lot of attention to where the camera is swinging, and to show them some truths that will turn out to be only half-truths, and to make it a really great ride. Like, the roller coaster of a suspense novel requires more engineering than the roller coaster of a romance, and it can be a lot less linear in construction. And, you know, there are complexities that a romance does not need to—to succeed. So yeah, it's not exactly the same job. But, you know, romance requires on a different level a lot of those same narrative tricks. Like, people love to say that romances are formulaic, and I always want to cry, because if that were true, then it would be so easy. And I—I would spend less time sweating at my keyboard if a romance was formulaic, because then I would know what to do. And it's almost harder to hold the tension when the reader knows you're going to get somewhere satisfying. So, you—you know, you have to make sure that couple has some real issues to work through, and that's hard.Jennie NashYeah, we're going to come back to so many things that you're saying because...Sarina BowenOkay.Jennie NashThis is—this is great. But I want to return to something you said at the very beginning, where you were explaining this, which is the promise to the reader, and this idea of a contract that the writer and the reader enter into. When—when a reader starts a book, there's this promise, there's this expectation, there's—And you—it sounds like what I heard from you, which I just think is so interesting, is a very deep respect for the writer—I mean, for the reader's experience. And is that something that you have as a human, or, you know, like, is it—is that just—does that just come from respect for the time somebody's going to spend and that sort of thing? Or is that respect of the genre?Sarina BowenOh, it's both. I mean, of course, we were all readers before we were writers, and I know what I find frustrating and unsatisfying in a book. So I want to deliver a reader experience that aligns with my most satisfying experiences in—in each genre. And it's such a work in progress. Like, over 10 years of delivering stories, my understanding of what really matters is constantly shifting.Jennie NashOoh, can you say more?Sarina BowenYeah. So—I have the things that I like as a reader. So of course, those are going to figure in heavily. Like, I love a good secret unv

Jess, Sarina, Jennie and Jess are all here to talk about taking a break from various angles: the mechanics angle, the guilt angle, the fear angle, the identity angle and inspiration angle. Mechanics. * Leave yourself notes about the project when you leave off, for example, “The next thing that needs to happen is this…” so when you come back, you know how to get back into the project. This is Sarina’s daily practice, but it really helps when she has to leave a project behind. This can be especially helpful when you have to go away for an unexpected emergency. * Jennie adds that the only way you can do this is if you have a place to keep and find those notes to yourself. In one of your 47 notebooks or in the document itself? Or, as Jess adds, on the side of the cardboard box you use for trash in your basement workshop that you almost recycle by accident. * Jennie also notes that you have to have intentionality, to know what you are writing so you can know what comes next, whether that’s in your outline, inside outline, or whatever. * Jennie has a little notebook she brings on vacation with her and she downloads those ideas into that just before going to sleep at night when she’s away. * These vacation inspiration moments are much like shower thoughts, part of the magic of our brain unhooking, getting into deep default mode network, and becoming its most creative. * Sarina mentioned an article about how walking makes you more creative, also a study in why tapping into the default mode network is so effective as a practice. Fear * The only way to get over this is to sit down and do it. Open the document. Just start. * Jennie points out that getting back into a manuscript when it’s disappeared feels horrifying but it’s much easier than it sounds and has happened to one of our frequent guests, Sarah Stewart Taylor, when her then-toddler created a password for the document that was not recoverable. She had to give in to the fact that her book was gone, and recreate it out of her memory. Guilt and Identity* It only took Jess until her fiftieth year to figure out that her process - of walking, gardening, beekeeping, musing - is a part of writing, and that’s cool. * Can you be a writer if you are not actively writing? Yes, if research, planning, thinking and otherwise cogitating is a part of your writing process. Get over it. The words have to land on the page eventually, of course, but if you are doing both, have grace for the not-actively-writing part of the writing process. #AmReadingTess Gerritsen’s series set in Maine (The Spy Coast and The Summer Guests) and, once she finished those two books, Jess went back to The Surgeon, where it all started for Tess Gerritsen. Stay tuned for our interview with her! Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary (Don’t watch the movie trailer if you plan to read the book!)Sarah Harman’s All the Other Mothers Hate MeAmy Tintera’s Listen for the LieRosemerry Wahtola Trommer The UnfoldingRichard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club (coming to Netflix in August!)Janelle Brown’s What Kind of Paradise Want to submit a first page to Booklab? Fill out the form HERE.Writers and readers, KJ here, if you love #AmWriting and I know you do, and I know you do, and especially if you love the regular segment at the end of most episodes where we talk about what we've been reading, you will also love my weekly #AmReading email. Is it about what I've been reading and loving? It is. And if you like what I write, you'll like what I read. But it is also about everything else. I've been #AmDoing: sleeping, buying clothes and returning them, launching a spelling bee habit, reading other people's weekly emails. Let's just say it's kind of the email about not getting the work done, which I mean that's important too, right? We can't work all the time. It's also free, and I think you'll really like it. So you can find it at kjdellantonia.com or kjda.substack.com or by clicking on my name on Substack, if you do that kind of thing.Come hang out with me. You won't be sorry.Transcript below!EPISODE 458 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaWriters and readers, KJ here. If you love Hashtag AmWriting, and I know you do, and especially if you love the regular segment at the end of most episodes where we talk about what we've been reading, you will also love my weekly Hashtag AmReading email. Is it about what I've been reading and loving? It is. And if you like what I write, you'll like what I read. But it is also about everything else. I've been ‘hashtag am-doing’, sleeping, buying clothes and returning them, launching a spelling bee habit, reading other people's weekly emails. Let's just say it's kind of the email about not getting the work done—which, I mean, that's important too, right? We can't work all the time. It's also free, and I think you'll really like it. So you can find it at KJdellantonia.com or kjda.substack.com or by clicking on my name on Substack, if you do that kind of thing or of course in the show notes for this podcast. Come hang out with me. You won't be sorry.Multiple SpeakersIs it recording? Now it's recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting Podcast, the weekly podcast, while writing all the things—short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction. And somebody told me they thought this was a recorded intro. And I just want you to know I do this live every time, which is why there's this, come on, there's more variety here, people, and you should know that. Anyway, here we are, all four of us, for we got a topic today. But before we do that, we should introduce ourselves in order of seniority, please.Jess LaheyI'm Jess Lahey. I am the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation. And I laugh, because when you said seniority, all I could do was think of us in our little eave space in my old house, down the street from you, not knowing what the heck we were doing. But yeah, we've been doing this for a long time now. You can find my... you can find my journalism at The New York Times, at The Washington Post, at The Atlantic, and everything else at Jessicalahey.com.Sarina BowenI'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of many novels. My new one this fall is called Thrown for a Loop, and it will be everywhere that books are sold, which is very exciting to me, and all about me at Sarinabowen.com.Jennie NashI am the newest of the co-hosts, and so happy to be among this group of incredibly smart and prolific and awesome women, and I'm the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, which is a company on a mission to lead the emerging book coaching industry. And you can find us at bookcoaches.com or authoraccelerator.com.KJ Dell'AntoniaI'm KJ Dell'Antonia. I'm the author of three novels, the latest of which is Playing the Witch Card, and the most televised of which is The Chicken Sisters—Season Two coming soon to a Hallmark network near you. And I'm also the former editor and lead writer of The Motherlode, making me our... well, and Jennie too, like the crossover. I've done too many different kinds of writing—probably should have stayed in my lane. Oh well. And our plan today—as we're recording, it is summer. And a pretty frequent thing that happens in the summer is that you need to put your project down for a little while, because you have house guests, because you're going on the kind of vacation that does not involve working, because you just need a break or you're sick. That's not really a summer thing, but it definitely happens. Anyway, we wanted to talk about how, you know, what—what do you do to make that work better?Jess LaheyI think a lot about being a parent and needing to take a break too. And you know, this is something I talk a lot about with, you know, other writers who are sort of struggling, especially since I read a lot about parenting—who are struggling to—with that guilt of, you know, like, I feel like I owe my time to the words, and I feel like I owe my time to the children. And finding a way to take a break from the words and not feel guilty about not being with the words can be really, really hard, especially when you're going gung-ho on something. So I want to make sure that we figure out a way to have a break without guilt. That's like the big question I get a lot—is, how do you, you know, either from the parenting or the writing side?KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd I was thinking about it more from a mechanics side.Jess LaheyYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaHow do you put this thing aside for a week or two weeks or even a month? And know where you were?Jess LaheyRight.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd come back and feel like it does not take you forever to dig in.Sarina BowenYeah. Um, so we've got the guilt question. We've got the mechanics of how to do it. And I would just like to add a layer, which is the fear factor.Jess LaheyYeah.Sarina BowenI have this thing where, when I walk away from a manuscript, I become afraid of it. So it seems scarier when I take a break. Like, even if it's not true—that I don't know where I am or that I become unmoored from the channel of that book and it seems intimidating to go back to.Jess LaheyCan I add one more layer as well? And that's the identity factor. You know, if I identify as a writer, what am I if I'm not actively writing something? And that messes my head up a lot. So I would love to add that added layer in as well and make sure we discuss that.Jennie NashWell, and I have something totally different from all of those, which is that I often find when I go on vacation, I am more inspired and motivated to work on my project than I was in my real life. It tends to light a fire under me. So then I'm faced with that choice of, you know, wanting to really lean into it. And, you know, just like a really small piece of that s

When Sarina found Stephanie Pao on social media, she knew she had to interview her. Stephanie has the job we all want—she owns a bookstore on wheels. La Fleuria is L.A.’s first mobile romance bookstore, and we are here for it. Tune in to hear our interview with Stephanie. We’re discussing how she got this idea, where she turned for advice, and how she figures out what to stock and where to park La Fleuria!Show links include: #YouAndYourBookstore episode with Mary Laura PhilpottLa Fleuria book truckStephanie on InstagramStephanie’s LinktreeLa Fleuria’s popup schedule Thrown for a Loop, Sarina’s upcoming release (pub date 11/4/25)TropeTruck, a book truck whose owner generously contributed knowledgeIngram, the wholesale bookseller we discuss in some detail (because Jess needed to understand how this bookseller access to indie authors works!)Books Stephanie recommends and loves to sell at La Fleuria:Yes No Maybe by Jessica Sherry (La Fleuria’s #2 bestseller!)Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana ZapataHey, Jess here to talk to you about a new series I have created just for supporters of the #AmWriting Podcast.I met an aspiring author and speaker who has an idea for a book that just knocked me over. I said, please, please write that book. This is someone who had an idea that has a place in the market. It's timely. She's the perfect person to write it, and I asked her, I begged her, if I could please mentor her through this process publicly on the podcast.So while we're not giving her full name and we're not giving the actual title of the book, because we don't want to hand those things away, I am coaching her through the entire process, from preparing her book proposal to querying an agent. I'm going through the whole thing with her. She knows nothing about the publishing industry, she knows very little about how one goes about writing a book—so essentially, this is as I mentioned before, from soup to nuts, From Authority to Author, and hopefully we'll get her there.But really, whether or not this book ends up selling, whether after this book she ends up having a speaking career, this is about the process of preparing to do that. I hope you’ll join us.This series is for supporters only, so if you are a free subscriber right now, consider upgrading. Remember, if you upgrade, you'll also get the ability to submit for our First Pages Booklab, and lots of other fun stuff that we put out just for supporters—So come join us. It's a lot of fun.Transcript below!EPISODE 457 - TRANSCRIPTJess LaheyHey, Jess here to talk to you about a new series I have created just for supporters of the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. I met an aspiring author and speaker who has an idea for a book that just knocked me over. I said, please, please write that book. This is someone who had an idea that it has a place in the market. It's timely. She's the perfect person to write it, and I asked her—I begged her—if I could please mentor her through this process publicly on the podcast. So, while we're not giving her full name and we're not giving the actual title of the book, because we don't want to hand those things away, I am coaching her through the entire process—from preparing her book proposal to querying an agent. I'm going through the whole thing with her. She knows nothing about the publishing industry. She knows very little about how, you know, one goes about writing a book. And so she essentially—this is, as I mentioned before from soup to nuts, From Authority to Author, and hopefully we'll get her there. But really, whether or not this book ends up selling, whether this book—she ends up having a speaking career—this is about the process of preparing to do that. How do you write a book? How do you prepare to become a speaker on the back of that book? So I hope you join us. This is a series for supporters only. So if you are a free supporter, or if you're a free subscriber right now, consider upgrading. Remember, if you upgrade, you'll also get access to the ability to submit for our First Pages Book Lab and lots of other fun stuff that we put out just for supporters. So come join us. It's a lot of fun.Multiple Speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.Jess LaheyWelcome to the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. This is the podcast about, oh, writing all the things—the short things, the long things, the nonfiction, the fiction, the poetry, the book proposals, the agent queries—all the things. In reality, though, this podcast is about two things. It is about getting the work done, and flattening the learning curve for other writers. I'm Jess Lahey. I am co-hosting today. I am the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation, and you can find my journalism at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic.Sarina BowenAnd I'm Sarina Bowen. I am the author of many romance novels. My next one is called Thrown for a Loop and it's coming from Forever in November, and I could not be more excited. And it is in the vein of romance, publishing, and readership that I have invited a guest to talk to us today because she has done something so outrageously cool that I needed to hear more in person. So please welcome Stephanie Pao, who has started Los Angeles' first romance book truck. She’s become a bookseller, and I am here to hear all about it. Welcome, Stephanie.Stephanie PaoHi, thank you so much for having me.Sarina BowenMy pleasure. If you wouldn't mind, I would love to hear—how did this happen? Like, how did you decide that the world needed a book truck? Because that is just a cool idea and I never thought of it. And like, so how did you decide to actually make it a thing? And what did you do?Stephanie PaoYes, okay. The idea actually came to me—I lived by the beach, so I was walking by the beach and I saw a vintage Volkswagen truck for sale, and I just couldn't get it out of my mind. It isn't the truck that I have now, but I kept thinking, what could I do with it? And I've always loved books—romance in particular—and I've been looking for something that I could do that kind of took my previous experience, which is marketing, but melded it with something I really enjoyed. And I just thought maybe I could start a book truck. And I started to do research and I saw that there are many book trucks across the country. At the time, I think maybe there was just one or two romance ones and I was lucky enough to be able to speak with someone who had a romance book bus called Trope. She has a bookshop now and she really gave me a lot of confidence that I could probably do this too. I ended up taking a course on bookselling and started looking for a truck. The truck I ended up finding was actually the first truck I found on Facebook Marketplace. The man who was selling it had completely restored it. And he was so excited that I wanted to do this book shop in a truck idea, that he actually helped me and designed all the shelves, and he built it, and he didn't charge me for it.Sarina BowenOh my goodness!Stephanie PaoYeah. So it felt very serendipitous and almost meant to be. And now it's been like two months and I'm having so much fun.Sarina BowenWow. Wow. Oh my goodness. I feel like you should be teaching a class on how to live, right? You're like, "I'm good at this thing, but I'm really interested in this other thing, and I'm going to stick them together and it's going to be great."Stephanie PaoYeah, I feel like it was a little bit of like manifesting, I guess.Sarina BowenWell, wow, that’s so great. So how many books does your truck hold at once? Like, what is the size of your store?Stephanie PaoYeah, so it holds about 350 books, and I've taken to also stacking books on top to display my favorite books. So I think it might hold almost 400.Sarina BowenOkay. And so of course, when we think about the bookstores that we grew up going to—you know, there are these giant cavernous Barnes & Nobles, there are smaller independent bookstores—and they’re all numbering in the thousands. But by specializing in a category that you really love, like suddenly 400 is you know, it’s a workable amount for what romance readers might be looking for on any given day. So, but still, there's a lot of good books in the world. How do you choose?Stephanie PaoYeah, I do a mix of like books that I've read and loved. I have been a voracious reader—I've read my whole life—but I've been a voracious reader for a couple of years. I also do a lot of books that I get recommendations from friends or that I just see are very popular online. So I think people will want to find those, but I think it is hard. I'm still figuring out the right balance of what types of romance to carry.Sarina BowenRight. Right. Because we all have our favorite you know, parts of the genre and they might not be the ones that are killing it.Jess LaheyBut the thing that I'm really excited to hear about is the thing that I love so much about independent booksellers. I get a sense for the bookseller when I go to the bookstore. Like, there are certain bookstores I rave about not necessarily because they're huge, not necessarily because they're beautiful—but because I can tell that when the bookseller recommends something to me; I know who that person is. Or I know the sense of the curation at the store. And that excites me because I feel like I'm in capable hands. So I'm really curious—especially to hear about your curation, and how you decide what you're going to carry—and then I'm also, and I know Sarina is going to ask this question, but in my head, I'm like, how do you find your readers? That's the part I'm so excited to hear about. Like, how do you know where to go? How do the people find you? Because I think that's the magic—is connecting the people with

One of the writing skills I am asked about the most is, “How do I get emotion on the page?” People ask this no matter what genre they are writing, because no one wants to produce a manuscript that is flat and unengaging. Emotion is the key, but figuring out how to inspire your reader to feel something is a tricky thing to learn and an even trickier thing to master.In her debut novel, Slanting Towards the Sea (Simon & Schuster, July 2025), Lidija Hilje has mastered it. The story feels so raw and so real—and English is not even Lidija’s first language! It’s a remarkable achievement. I’m excited to speak with Lidija about her path to publication and how she figured out how to get the emotion of her characters onto the page.Links from the Pod:Article from Jane FriedmanGuide on Literary Fiction from LidijaLidija’s website: www.lidijahilje.comAuthor Accelerator book coaches Barbara Boyd and Nita CollinsHey everyone, it's Jenny Nash. This episode happens to feature an Author Accelerator book coach. Author Accelerator is the company I founded more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. If you've been curious about what it takes to become a successful book coach, which is to say, someone who makes money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers, I've just created a bunch of great content to help you learn more. You can access it all by going to bookcoaches.com/waitlist. We'll be enrolling a new cohort of students in our certification program in October, so now's a perfect time to learn more and start making plans for a whole new career.Transcript below!EPISODE 456 - TRANSCRIPTJennie NashHey everyone, it's Jennie Nash. This episode happens to feature an Author Accelerator book coach. Author Accelerator is the company I founded more than 10 years ago to lead the emerging book coaching industry. If you've been curious about what it takes to become a successful book coach—which is to say, someone who makes money, meaning, and joy out of serving writers—I've just created a bunch of great content to help you learn more. You can access it all by going to bookcoaches.com/waitlist. That's bookcoaches.com/waitlist. We'll be enrolling a new cohort of students in our certification program in October, so now’s a perfect time to learn more and start making plans for a whole new career.Multiple Speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. Alright, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.Jennie NashHey writers, I'm Jennie Nash, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting podcast, the place where we talk about writing all the things; short things, long things, fiction, nonfiction, pitches, and proposals. Today I'm talking with Lidija Hilje, the author of the novel Slanting Towards the Sea. And what we're talking about is how to capture emotion on the page—the most elusive thing in the entire writing universe. Lidija lives in Croatia. She's a former lawyer who I know because she became a book coach through Author Accelerator. This is her first novel, and it's something else. As a longtime book coach, it’s really hard for me to read for pleasure anymore, because it's so hard not to see the writer at work and the seams of the creation. But Slanting Towards the Sea—I saw none of that. I fell wholly into the story and became lost in it; the olive trees and the sea, the pain of these people and this love triangle, and also just the love that they had for life and each other. It's almost unbearably raw—the way life itself can feel sometimes. And yet, since I know Lidija and her story to becoming a writer, I also know how much work it took to create this feeling and emotion. I'm so excited to speak with Lidija today, and so excited for people to hear about her and her story. So welcome, Lidija. Thanks for coming onto the podcast.Lidija HiljeThank you so much for having me and for this incredible introduction. I'm so honored.Jennie NashWell, before we get started, I want to read the jacket copy for Slanting Towards the Sea, so that our listeners can hear the bones of the story that you wrote. Is that okay if I read it for our listeners?Lidija HiljeAbsolutely. Thank you so much.Jennie NashOkay.Ivona divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago. They met as students at the turn of the millennium, when newly democratic Croatia was alive with hope and promise. But the challenges of living in a burgeoning country extinguished Ivona’s dreams one after another—and a devastating secret forced her to set him free. Now Vlaho is remarried and a proud father of two, while Ivona’s life has taken a downward turn. In her thirties, she has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father. Bewildered by life’s disappointments, she finds solace in reconnecting with Vlaho and is welcomed into his family by his spirited wife, Marina. But when a new man enters Ivona’s life, the carefully cultivated dynamic between the three is disrupted, forcing a reckoning for all involved. Set against the mesmerizing Croatian coastline, Slanting Towards the Sea is a cinematic, emotionally searing debut about the fragile nature of potential and the transcendence of love.That’s it! What a—what a—what a summary, right? So I want to start by talking about the genre of this book, Lidija. As a book coach, you specialize in helping people write literary fiction. And you're extremely articulate about defining exactly what it is. And I'd like to just start there, by talking about how you see this novel, where it's positioned and, um, and your sense of it in, as a—in the genre, um, categories, if you will. Um, and I'll share with our listeners before you answer that English is not your first language—which is something we're going to talk about from a writing perspective, but just from a listening perspective, to give people some context for that. So let's talk about—let's talk about genre.Lidija HiljeYeah, well, genre is one of my favorite topics as a book coach, and so naturally it is something I love talking about. So the first book I ever wrote, which is now safely shelved in a drawer at the bottom of a drawer, was women's fiction. And the reason why it was women's fiction was that because I was learning how to write, I was learning how to weave a story together. And in doing so, I was trying to find some commonalities in stories—like how stories work, how you develop them, how you develop a character arc, how you wrap it up towards the end. And—but my intention always was to write literary. I was just not very good at doing it. And so I kind of—like all the feedback that I got throughout my—from developmental editors—it was like geared towards kind of channeling the book towards women's fiction. And this is something that really still strikes me as a book coach: how different it is to coach literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction, which is more formulaic. So basically, that first book is safely shelved. And when I started writing this book, I was working really hard at trying to make it not be formulaic. And actually, one of the book coaches from our community helped me. I had a conversation with Barbara Boyd where I outlined my story for her, and she said there was this moment where I kind of did something in my outline…what could basically be called a cop-out—so that… I killed a character, basically, so that the…you know, that the book would close neatly, right? And so she called me out on it and said—because I talked to her specifically because she coaches literary fiction but didn't like or coach women's fiction—and I thought that perspective was something I needed. And so she said, "Why are you killing that character?” And that was the wake-up moment for me, because that was the moment when I realized that in doing so, that was the typical moment where a writer kind of goes toward the genre. And where the interesting thing in the literary fiction genre lies is exploring, you know, what happens when you don't kill the character—when you don't take the easy way out. And so, genre-wise, what I, you know—I run a book club for writers, and we read a lot of literary fiction. And so, I was constantly trying to figure out, like, what is it about these books that, you know, define genre? And in studying these books, there are several things, and I could talk about this, I guess, for centuries, but I'll try to...Jennie NashI—I love it. Let's do it.Lidija HiljeSo basically, in literary fiction, there are many things that genre fiction also has. There are themes, there are character arcs—you know, a character might grow, though not necessarily. But basically, it's much less clear than in genre fiction. In genre fiction, for instance, you have—especially in women's fiction—you will have a woman who is shy and then she becomes confident toward the end. Or you have a horrible, you know, self-obsessed character who learns their lesson toward the end of the book. It's really clear-cut. The reader can latch on to what the problem is without thinking too much about it. And literary fiction does the opposite. It fans out a little bit. It touches on many different things that kind of seem unrelated, but they are related. And this is a problem in writing it, as well as coaching it, because as a coach or as a writer, you have to be aware of all these things. You have to beware of how these things tie together so that you have the idea of this through line that goes throughout the story, whereas the reader might not be catching on as fast but does have the confidence that you, as the writer, are going to get them there, if that makes sense.Jennie NashOh, it makes so much sense. So when you were working on—I actually remember reading some opening, maybe the opening chapters of the novel that has been shelved. When I read those pages, they struck me as if they had that feeling of literary fiction.

I’m a big fan of Nathalia (Nat) Holt’s books, and am so excited to have the opportunity to talk to her about her new book, The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda. I first met Nat when her book Cured: The People Who Defeated HIV came out and I attended a book event at Dartmouth Medical Center. She is so smart and curious and in this episode we will be talking about the process of researching elusive history, where her ideas come from, and who gets to tell what stories. Nathalia Holt’s websiteTranscript below!EPISODE 455 - TRANSCRIPTJess LaheyHey, AmWriters! It's Jess Lahey here. I am so excited to talk about a new series that I am putting out there on the Hashtag AmWriting platform called From Soup to Nuts. I interview and work with and mentor an author—a nonfiction author—who has subject matter expertise and a killer idea, frankly, that just knocked me sideways. This author really thinks this is the time and place for this idea. And I agreed, and I asked her—I begged her—if I could mentor her through this process in a series. We're having to work together on agenting and proposal and all the stuff that you've got to do, from soup to nuts, to get a book out into the world. This series, From Soup to Nuts, is subscriber-only. The first episode is free, so you can go back and listen to that. That's for everyone. But if you want to join us for the whole process and learn from her mistakes—and learn from the stuff that I'm working on right now too—you have to subscribe. So consider supporting the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. It helps us bring you stuff like this—these extra series—not to mention the podcast itself. Alright, it's a lot of work. Help us support our podcast and these extra bonus series. By becoming a supporter, you'll get a sticker for it. You'll get your hypothetical, figurative sticker for being a good Hashtag AmWriting.Multiple speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause… I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, this is the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. This is the podcast about writing all the things—writing the short things, writing the long things, writing the queries, the proposals, the poetry, the fiction, the nonfiction. This is the podcast actually, at its heart, about getting the work done. I am Jess Lahey. I am your host today. I'm the author of the New York Times best-selling The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation. And you can find my journalism at The New York Times and The Atlantic and The Washington Post. And today I am interviewing an author I respect deeply. I have known this author since she wrote her first book, which overlapped with some work that my husband does and some work that I had done in a previous career, and she has gone on to have a glorious and enviable career in nonfiction. My dream has always been to be one of those people that can, like, get curious about a topic and then just go off and write about that topic. And this is what she does. So Natalia—NAT—Holt, I am so excited to introduce you to our listeners. They are deep, deep, deep lovers of the nuts and bolts and the geeky details of the writing and the process. So welcome to the Hashtag AmWriting podcast.Nathalia HoltThank you so much. I'm excited to talk to you today.Jess LaheySo we have a book on HIV—the first book, Cured, which is the way that I got to know you. Also, full disclosure, we share an agent. Laurie Abkemeier is our agent, and I think she actually may have introduced us in the first place. Yeah, your first book—yeah, your first book, Cured, about the Berlin patients. Really interesting—if you've never heard of the Berlin patients, listeners, just, just Google it. It's really a fascinating story. I'll go over—I'll go read Cured. Cured is all about the Berlin patients. And then we have The Queens of Animation—the women behind, sort of, the way Disney does what they do. And—and—and then we also have Rise of the Rocket Girls, which is another fascinating book out there about the women behind a lot of the math and the planning and the work that was done to get us into space. And so when I heard about your new book, I'm like, "Oh, NAT's working on a new book. Great! What women are we going to talk about this time?" And it's such a departure for you, and it is such a fascinating topic for you. And, well, for me, it’s like—it’s deep in my geeky, Jess-book-loving nonfiction zone. Could you tell us a little bit about it and where the idea came from for this book?Nathalia HoltSure. The book is called The Beast in the Clouds, and it's about an expedition that the two eldest sons of President Theodore Roosevelt took in 1928 and 1929. And they went to China and Tibet in search of the giant panda, which at that time was unknown to Western scientists. And even in China, there were very few people that were aware of where this animal lived, what it ate—so little was known. So during this time period, the 1920s, you have all of these expeditions going to China, trying to find this black-and-white bear that no one is really sure exists. It's just a crazy period of history, because you have all of the other bears at that time—even polar bears—were known and even were in zoos. But the panda was not, and many people even thought it would be a ferocious bear. They thought this was going to be, you know, a combination of polar and black bears.Jess LaheyYeah, yeah.Nathalia HoltSo that's what the Roosevelts are going to. And so the expedition ends up being torturous, deadly. They're going through the Himalayas. They're not very well prepared. They lose all their food. They're attacked. They get lost. Just every crazy thing happens to them. But it's also a journey of transformation. They're documenting all of the ecology around them, and it really ends up changing their own worldview. And so it was such a fun book to research and to write. And I spent a lot of time also going into many of the other ex—many of the other members of the expedition, which was—which was fun, and maybe a little bit different than other books in this genre. But yeah, for me, you know, it's scary to be writing a part of history that is very different than what I've done before—but it's also fun.Jess LaheyWhere'd the germ of the idea for the book come from? Because I had never heard this story before. I guess it had just never occurred to me—like, where do we—how do we know about the panda bear?Nathalia HoltYeah, it's not a topic that has been written about much before, and I came across it while I was researching my last book, which is called Wise Gals, and is about women that helped form the CIA. And as part of that book, I was looking into the Roosevelts' role in World War Two. And it's so confusing when you research the Roosevelts, because they all have the same name. It's just Theodore and...Jess LaheyActually, I have to tell you, Tim's a huge fan—my husband, Tim, who you also know, is a big fan and has read a lot about—and he's like, "Well, which Roosevelt?" So you—and I'm like, "Oh, that's a really good question. I don't know which Roosevelt... like, the adventuring ones." He's like, "Well..." [unintelligible]Nathalia HoltYeah, there's so many of them, and they all have the same name. And so as I was trying to parse out son and father—who are both named Kermit Roosevelt and both served in World War Two—I kind of stumbled across this expedition that the elder Kermit Roosevelt had taken. So he and his older brother, Theodore, who were the sons of President Theodore Roosevelt, and so it just kind of—it came from there. Just sort of came from wanting to learn more about it. And I always love a challenge. If there's a topic that's difficult to research, that seems impossible to find anything about—I'm there. I want to know everything.Jess LaheyYeah. So, okay, so here's a—really a question that I—well, first of all, you and I are both research geeks. I just—I have said I could just keep researching books and not actually write the books. I just love that process. So aside from the easy answer, which is Google, like, where do you start with a story that hasn't been told yet? How do you start diving into that story, and where do you find information?Nathalia HoltIt's difficult, and it depends on the topic. For this one, I went through a number of different archives, and that was great. I was able to get old letters that the Roosevelts had. But I really wanted to bring in other voices. I was really, really persistent in my desire to bring in Jack Young, who was this young, 19-year-old, Hawaiian-born translator and naturalist on the trip. And I was fortunate enough that I was able to track down some interviews he had done with another author back in the 1990s, and I just was persistent. I just pleaded until I got these tapes and was able to get all these interviews with him. And then I also contacted his daughter, who lives in Hawaii, and was able to get his unpublished autobiography. And it gives such an interesting perspective, because Jack Young went on and became a very impressive person and really deserves a biography all of his own, but he was also very close friends with the Roosevelts. They had a real connection—a real bond. And you get a different sense of the story when you're hearing it through his descriptions of what it was like, because he is young, and he is sort of really documenting things for the first time. And then, in addition, I was so lucky with this book because I was able to also get the field journals from a scientist that was on the expedition, as well as all the writings from another naturalist. So it was fascinating, because there were so many different accounts of the same events, which really lets you go into detail about what it was like, what people were feeling, w

Our goal words, as a reminderSarina: presenceJess: growthJennie: Teflon™KJ: inner compass#AmReadingJess: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins ReidKJ: The Spy Coast by Tess GerritsenJennie: Shakespeare: The Man Who Plays the Rent by Judi DenchSarina: Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby JimenezTranscript below!EPISODE 454 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaHey, writers. KJ here announcing a new series and a definite plus for paid supporters of Hashtag AmWriting it's Writing the Book, a conversation between Jennie, who's just finished a Blueprint for her next nonfiction book, and me, because I've just finished the Blueprint for what I hope will be my next novel, Jennie and I are both trying to, quote, unquote, play big with these next go rounds, which is a meta effort for Jennie, as that's exactly what her book is about. And we're basically coaching each other through creating pages thoughts and encouragement, as well as some sometimes hard to hear honesty about whether we're really going in the right direction. So come all in on Team Hashtag AmWriting and you'll get those Writing the Book episodes right in your pod player, along with access to monthly AMAs, the Booklab: First Pages, episodes, and come summer, we shall Blueprint once again. So sign yourself up at AmWriting podcast.comMultiple Speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. Alright, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, listeners, its KJ here. And this is Hashtag AmWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction. This is the podcast about getting that work done. And this week we're all here with a mid-year check in, but still introduce yourselves, people.Jess LaheyI'm Jess Leahy. I am the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation, and you can find my journalism at The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Atlantic.Sarina BowenI'm Sarina Bowen, the somewhat exhausted author of many romance and thriller novels, and my brand new one is called Dying to Meet You.Jennie NashI'm Jennie Nash. I'm the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator and the author of 12 books in three genres. And today, not so tired. So you know, day by day.KJ Dell'AntoniaYay. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, the author of three novels, most popular, which is The Chicken Sisters, and the most recent is Playing the Witch Card. And also the former editor and lead writer of The Motherlode at The New York Times, which feels like a total past life, And this is our mid-year "Are we achieving our goals?" check-in, and I badly wanted to make fun of Jess, who said she had to go get her notebook—so she would know her goals. But then I didn't realize I didn't have to, I didn't know mine, so I had to go get my notebook. So now I can't, and it's pretty much a crushing blow to me. So anybody achieved anything so far? I can't. I can totally believe we're six months into the year. It's been a really long six months, and also, I haven't done anything. Okay, that's me.Jennie NashKJ, you were saying that. Actually, it's funny, because you were saying that about was it January or February? You kept saying this month is lasting forever. You think you're just having that year.KJ Dell'AntoniaI am.Sarina BowenAren't we all though?KJ Dell'AntoniaI thought we were all having that year, but maybe not.Sarina BowenI'm looking at my goals page here, and I'm kind of astonished to see that I really am accomplishing a lot of them, because every day feels like such a battle. You know, it's I have write a romance, write a thriller, plan another romance, and maybe revise this one other thing. And, man, I'm doing it. I have written the words count for one entire book, even though neither of them is finished yet, but I'm, I'm chugging along. The other stuff I wrote down for doing at home and in my personal life is sort of happening, but it just feels, um, it feels hard, like the weight of the world is weighing down on my week. And so it's actually kind of lovely to look at this and see like, oh, okay, yeah. Well, we're getting some of this done.Jess LaheyThat's why we do this. That's why it's nice to check in. And I think it also, you know, it's, it goes back to a long time ago. We used to talk about accountability buddies, or accountability bunnies, as we have called them sometimes. And I think it's just great to have them, not just to hold you to task when you're not doing the stuff, but to help you, help you remember that it's important to check in and realize that we are getting the stuff done it may not look exactly like what we were expecting, and in fact, mine going forward, I'll go ahead and go next, because mine looks so different from what I expected it to be, and yet it's going really well. But before I move on, Sarina, is there any chance you could share with us for the big picture like mile high view, what was your word for this year?Sarina BowenWell, I did just notice that I left...KJ Dell'AntoniaOh! I have it your word was "present". I wrote them down. Your word was "present".Sarina BowenYou know. And I am. I am not doing a terrible job on presence. I'm not doing a bad job.KJ Dell'AntoniaJennie, your word was "Teflon".Jennie NashThat's what I thought. Let's stick with Sarina a minute, though, because I'm fascinated by the fact that the way you're describing that you're feeling, and the fact that you achieve these goals and you feel like you're doing well, all of that happened despite the fact that you didn't think it was... like, it's just the daily actions that that lead up to the goals, right? I mean, that sounds silly, but that's like you sit down and you do the work, and you achieve the things.Sarina BowenI guess I do. And part of what's disorienting about this year is that I'm actually writing less overall, and I am going more places. You know, presence means my presence is in several different states and countries, and so that it feels disorienting because I've had to be better at switching from working on the novel, to being on vacation with my family, to working on the novel, to doing a book tour in May, which was super time consuming. But I guess, you know, with some hiccups here and there, like I've been able to switch tasks in a way that is getting it done.Jennie NashThat's very cool.Jess LaheyIt's also nice every once in a while, you know, to look back on those stickers that are on the calendar. And for those of you who have joined us recently, we haven't really talked about stickers in a long time, but our sticker thing is, you know, we all tend to have the same kind of plan book, and on our calendar we get a sticker if we reach whatever goal it was for that day. Often it's a word count goal, and it's really nice to be able to look back... well, I guess it depends on the month, but generally speaking, it's really nice to be able to look back at the calendar and see those little stickers. Plus at the first day of every month, we have a little text thread where we decide what the sticker is going to be, what kind of vibe we're feeling that month, because we do have a lot of stickers. There's a lot of stickers, but Sarina has been killing it with her stickers, and I'm very impressed with her.Sarina BowenI do love to flip back and see how, you know, like, last month, it's like, oh, look at the good job you did. That's so pretty.Jess Lahey People ask me all the time if that undercuts that… you know, one of the things I talk about in The Gift of Failure and when I'm speaking at schools, is about, you know, trying to use the carrot and stick method to make kids do what you want them to do. And you're we're not supposed to rely exclusively on extrinsic motivators. We're supposed to rely on things that make us like want to do the thing for the sake of the thing itself. But when you when you reward yourself with something. It is an intrinsic process. And I think that the sticker, for us anyway, has been such a now, it's been going on for a long time, and it's such part of our language as a group of people, and it is really rewarding to slap that sticker on there.Sarina BowenI really believe you about intrinsic versus extrinsic goals, because I know for sure that no sticker chart I ever made for one of my children was any damn good, but like but mine is for me, and that's why it works.Jess LaheyDo you know that there's an exception when it comes to sticker charts? There is one situation in which sticker charts work really well for kids, and that's potty training, because there appears to be something about getting out of the diaper and into big boy or big girl panties/underpants, that makes them intrinsically motivated to do it. So if parents out there hearing this and thinking, oh man, sticker charts don't work, and they don't over the long term, but for potty training, for some reason they do anyway, I think it's great. And plus, when we buy the stickers, we're just envisioning all that writing we're going to do. And so when you put the little sticker on there, it's our nice little reward. Am I going next?Multiple Speakers: [Overlapping voices]: Yeah. You go next. Go for it.Jess LaheyAlright. So my year, my word this year, was a really appropriate and very topic specific, uh, one for me, and my word this year was "growth". And many of you know, I went back and went back to school and I got my master gardening certificate, and I'm now in my intern phase. I have to do two; I have to do 40 hours of volunteer work over the next two years to get my full certification. Working on that. But all things, looking back the first six months of this year, which is when this class ran, and when I was doing studying like I had to study botany and entomology and all that sort of stuff, I have grown a lot this year. In other news, I also after 10 years of debati

This is the how-to book you need right now, the one with “am I ready to query” and “what does my platform need to look like” and “what if no one buys my book” and “what happens if someone buys my book”. We have a great episode, talking about creating this book, writing this book and living this book—because Kate McKean is not only a very experienced agent, she has also lived the answer to all those questions and that’s part of what makes it special. Follow: Kate McKean Agents and Books Also find her at agentsandbooks.com And buy this book! Write Through It: An Insider’s Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life#AmReadingKate: Madeleine Roux, A Girl Walks into the Forest (Dark, feminist and rage-y)KJ: Francesca Segal, Welcome to Glorious Tuga (not any of those above things) Alison Espach, Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance (somewhere in between)Writers and readers! KJ, here. If you love #AmWriting—and I know you do—and especially if you love the regular segment at the end of most episodes where we talk about what we've been reading, you will also love my weekly #AmReading— find it at kjdellantonia.com or kjda.substack.com or by clicking on my name on Substack, if you do that kind of thing. Your #tbr won’t be sorry.Transcript below!EPISODE 453 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaWriters and readers, KJ here, if you love Hashtag AmWriting, and I know you do, and especially if you love the regular segment at the end of most episodes where we talk about what we've been reading, you will also love my weekly Hashtag AmReading email. Is it about what I've been reading and loving? It is. And if you like what I write, you'll like what I read. But it is also about everything else I’ve been hashtag am doing, sleeping, buying clothes and returning them, launching a spelling bee habit, reading other people's weekly emails. Let's just say it's kind of the email about not getting the work done, which I mean that's important too, right? We can't work all the time. It's also free, and I think you'll really like it. So you can find it at kjdellantonia.com or kjda.substack.com or by clicking on my name on Substack, if you do that kind of thing. Or, of course, in the show notes for this podcast, come hang out with me. You won't be sorry.Multiple Speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording. Yay! Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now, one, two, three.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is Hashtag AmWriting the weekly podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, pitches, proposals. This is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done. And I interviewed someone last week, who told me that they did not realize I did the introduction live, to which I was like, "Wait, does it sound the same to you every time?" Because I don't know, in my mind, I go off on a tangent every single time. So I am KJ Dell'Antonia, as you probably know, author of three novels and a couple of nonfiction books, and former editor at the New York Times, and, gosh, I have, I have done a bunch of things, but I'm not going to tell you about them right now, because I am really excited about my guest today, who is Kate McKean, and she is the creator of Agents and Books, which is a Substack slash, an email newsletter. For those of you that are not Substack users, you don't have to know what that is to get this, but I'm telling you fundamentally that if you're listening to my words right now, you should be signed up for that, and you're probably going to need the book that we're talking about, which is called Write Through It: An Insider's Guide to Publishing and the Creative Life. It is excellent. It is all the books that I relied on deeply when I got into this industry, rolled up in one book, which doesn't mean you won't buy all the others, because we're writers, and that's what we do. We buy books about writing. We're supposed to right? But I feel like sometimes that's what we do, we buy books about writing, anyway. All right, I'm done introducing, Kate I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for coming.Kate McKeanI'm really happy to be here. I'm excited to chat.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, this is going to be good. So this is, this is the book that anyone who is considering traditional publishing needs as both an encouraging guide to how hard it is going to be to get to all the points that you need to get to be ready to even try to traditionally publishing, and then to the process of traditionally publishing. This is how do you know when you're finished? This is how do you know when to pitch? This is how do you pitch. This is how do you deal with the inevitable rejections when you are pitched, this is what happens next. This is the good news and the bad news and the other news and all the news. And the blurb on the front is that it is a wildly generous guide. It is from Sarah Knight, who I adore, and it is! That is, that is most accurate...Kate McKeanThank you.KJ Dell'AntoniaBlurb that I have ever read, I think, or...Kate McKeanSarah was so kind to read. I know she reads the newsletter too, and we know each other from way back when she was an editor at Simon Schuster. And I could not be more grateful that she said the kind words she did.KJ Dell'AntoniaShe's amazing, and they are and you this is a generous book. So I do have questions, but first I just have to gush for a while. So...Kate McKeanI’ll take it.KJ Dell'AntoniaI have kind of an unspoken policy of being very judicious in taking writing advice of any kind from someone who has not published. And there are 100% exceptions to that. I have an amazing freelance editor who she reads and she edits and wow. But there are also people who write books about writing from a place of having written things, and that's about it. And. And you know that truly, I mean, first of all, you're, you're an agent, you've, you know, you've been in this industry, you've got masses of experience. And secondly, although this is your first published book, it is not your first finished book, it is not...Kate McKeanNot at all.KJ Dell'AntoniaEven your first pitched book. It's not the book that got you an agent. And you are so generous in sharing those experiences with people, and they're going to help.Kate McKeanI hope so. I mean, it's not lost on me that the first published book I have about writing and publishing books, and I even say it in the book. You know, I've tried to sell several picture books and several novels, and maybe I'm just not a great fiction writer. You know, it's very possible that is true. We'll find out. I don't know. I do have a picture book coming out in 2026, so one of them did eventually work. It's coming out with Sourcebooks, and I'm very excited. It's, you know, I know that people probably think, Oh, well, you're just, you're an agent. You could just, like, walk into a publisher and get a book deal like my friend. I am sorry that it's not true. If it had been true, I would have written 50,000 books by now, because I actually really, I mean, it's my job, but I also like doing it myself, but I'm not. I'm not special, you know, like I'm special and privileged because I know all the ins and outs, but I'm not. Nobody's just like rolling out the red carpet and handing me 1000's, billions of dollars to write a book.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, what I have said about about my fiction writing experience was, and I feel quite certain it was true for you as well. The thing that I had, and I will own it, is that I knew the people that I was sending my query to would look at it, because they knew who I was. That actually just meant it had to be awfully good, because it also means they're going to remember who you are. And if it sucks, they'll remember that next time. Whereas, if you don't have that particular thing and you send out a query that that sucks, the agent is not going to remember your name. So the next time you roll around and you send a better query, it's going to be fine, but the next time that writer rolls around and sends a better query. People are going to be like, well, yeah, I don't know.Kate McKeanYikes!KJ Dell'AntoniaThis was not so great.Kate McKeanYep!KJ Dell'AntoniaYikes! I got to do this again. I got to send another tactful rejection to this person that I so they're coming into it with... So it's good...Kate McKeanYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaBecause you know, people read it and it's not the slush pile and yay. And it's bad because people read it.Kate McKeanPeople, people really do think that it's who you know and publishing, and of course, that helps, like you just said.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah.Kate McKeanBut also, you don't want to send your books to your best friends. Like, Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, who my agent is—Michael Bourret at Dystel Goderich & Bourret. Jim is one of my best friends in the entire world, in my life. Like, I do not want Jim to be my agent, even though he's fantastic, because I prefer Jim as my friend. Michael and I have been friends for more than 20 years. Jim and I are much closer. And it's not like, oh, I could just throw away my friendship with Michael, but we just know each other in a way that would lend us to be able to work together really well. And I... KJ Dell'AntoniaMy agent is my friend...Kate McKeanYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaBecause she's my friend, but she was my agent first. But I have a friend, a really good friend, that I have dinner with regularly, that's an agent we ditch about, dish about, and we just have, you know, and I don't want her to be my agent, because then we couldn't talk so much smack about…Kate McKeanYeah.KJ Dell'AntoniaYou know, among other things, and yeah. So yeah. I mean, I do like to to start. I like to remind people that it is actually not who you know in this it's faster to get people to read something if you have a way in, we cannot deny that. But people are actua

Karen Dukess’s first book, The Last Book Party, was wildly successful by any measure—sold at auction, Indie Next pick, Discover New Writers pick… you probably read it. The second…Didn’t sell. Not as in, not very many people bought it but as in, no publisher published it. She spent the requisite couple years or so, her agent signed on but… no takers. She felt like she was the only person in the whole entire world that that happened to… until she started asking around. Turns out, you know how people say writing books is hard? And publishing is tough? They’re right!Never fear, Karen lived to tell the tail. Her next novel (do we call it second or third?), Welcome to Murder Week, is wonderful and available in a bookstore near you (and as you’ll hear, I loved it and it’s the perfect page-turner but not-anxiety-producing read for a swimming pool, beach, airplane ride or couch). But the real joy is that Karen is willing to dish. You’ll hear:What happens when you want to be a bullet journal sticker getting writer with your butt in the chair but you’re just … not.How to have fun writing a book that maybe no one will want (and why you’d better).How Karen found the right mindset to keep going.Karen’s one rule as a beginning writer who couldn’t quite get the hang of 1000 words a day. Links from the Pod:LauraPaloozaKaren Dukess, The Last Book PartyZibby EventsThe Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray#AmReadingKaren: The Original, Nell Stevens KJ: Welcome to Murder WeekKaren’s Substack Keep Calm and Carry On, a Substack from Karen Dukess or find her on Instagram @karendukess, or her website www.karendukess.comDid you know Sarina’s latest thriller is out NOW? Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of romcoms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.Digital books at: Amazon | Nook | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Audible Physical books at: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | More paperback links here!New! Transcript below!EPISODE 452 - TRANSCRIPTJess LaheyHey, it's Jess here. A few years ago, I got to go to Laura Palooza. Laura Palooza is the conference that is run by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association. I was invited because I wrote about Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House on the Prairie books, and at the very beginning of The Gift of Failure, there's a mention in the opening chapter. And I was invited to go, and it was fantastic. And I got to meet Dean Butler, who had played Almanzo, which was quite a moment for me, because I had been quite in love. Anyway, this year's Laura Palooza 2025 is going to be taking place July 8 through 11th, 2025. Laura Palooza 2025’s theme is prairies, pioneers and pages. If you want more information on attending Laura Palooza 2025, you can go to L-I-W-L-R-A — L-I-W-L-R-A dot org slash laurapalooza. I will be putting it in the show notes for whatever episode this ends up on, and it's going to be really, really great. I'm jealous that I can't go again because it's not going to be near me. It's going to be in De Smet South, I hope that's how you pronounce it, South Dakota. But they're going to even have, like, a feature on the fashion at the time. They're going to have a section on planes, claims and all those land deals, a beginner's guide to mapping homestead claims. It's going to be cool, challenging gender norms. Laura Ingalls in fiction, and Rose Wilder Lane in reality. Folklore, fiction or forecasts, separating and linking science, storytelling and mythology in weather, lore, that's going to be by Dr. Barb Boustead, who has been on this very podcast. She's fantastic. Laura Palooza 2025... July, you should go, you should sign up. It's really fun. They're going to be doing a field trip also to the Ingalls Homestead, I believe. Check it out. It's pretty cool.Multiple Speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is Hashtag AmWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction, in short or really actually, usually long. We are the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done. And I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of a bunch of novels, the most popular of which is The Chicken Sisters, and the most recent is Playing the Witch Card, and you should read them all. And I have with me today a guest that I'm really excited about for a topic that you all are going to love. So, with me today, I have Karen Dukess, and she is the author of The Last Book Party, which you might have read in 2019 because it was unmissable. It was everywhere. It was an Indie Next. It was a Discover New Writers pick, it was...it was all over the place. And that is partly what we're here to talk about today. And we're also here to talk about her new novel, Welcome to Murder Week, which I have just read and enjoyed, but mostly we're here to talk about the six years in between. So, welcome. I am so glad to have you here. So, Karen and I have met in person. We met at a Zibby book event and at an event for the amazing Annabel Monaghan, who also has a book out this summer. The lovely thing about the universe is that nobody reads just one book.Karen DukessThat is true. Thank you.KJ Dell'AntoniaSo, you can be like, yes, read Annabel's book, read my book. Read. I mean, anybody who reads? I mean, yeah, there are people who read just one book, it's probably not going to be ours. Oh, well, people seem to like the Bible. I don't know that's a popular one. See that? A lot around a lot of Crawdads, also see that. Okay, so anyway, tell us what the story of the long six-year journey between your very, very successful debut novel, and what is about to be your very different sophomore novel.Karen DukessSo, I feel like I have an upside-down writing career in that most people write a lot of novels that don't get published before they write a novel that gets published, and mine went backwards. So, The Last Book Party was my first novel, and I wrote it...Didn't... I wrote it, finished it when I was in my early 50’s, around 54 -55, spent about four years writing it, and I had done a lot of writing before, then stopping and starting and thinking that. I must not have what it takes, because this is too hard. I didn't realize that novel writing just is hard, and that is the way it is for all but a few unicorn people. So that novel, I was so happy when I finally finished it. I was so satisfied to just finally have written a novel, and I was truly thrilled, and I I felt like, if it doesn't get published, I'll publish it myself. I'm just so happy to have achieved this goal. And then it sold incredibly quickly. It was unbelievable. I mean, it was like beyond my wildest dreams. It went to auction. It sold very quickly for a good advance, and the publishing experience was great, including the fact that they were originally going to publish it in 2020, but they decided to bump it up to 2019 I don't know why. But I was like, sure, I've waited to my 50’s to get this book out, like the sooner the better. And then I dodged the bullet of waiting all these years to publish a novel and have it come out during the pandemic. So, the paperback came out in the pandemic, which wasn't great, but I still felt so grateful that I had gotten this book out before then. So, then I started working on my second novel, which later someone had given me some someone, a friend...it might have even been Annabel. Someone gave her the advice that your second novel, don't make it very, very personal. And I kind of wish I had gotten that advice, even though I'm not sure I would have listened to it. But the thing about a second novel, and I don't know if you experienced this, KJ, but if you have success with your first novel, the second novel is scary because you're like, was I a one hit wonder? You know, was it a fluke? Can I do this again? And people would say, well, you know how to write novels now. And I'd be like, no, I know how to write THAT novel. I have no idea how to write another novel. And the novel I wanted to write at that time was drawing on the many years I spent studying and living in Russia and working as a journalist in Russia. I was in Russia in the 90's, and I wrote a novel that was about an American woman's journey in Russia and some American journalists in Russia. But it was set in Russia in 2017 and with flashbacks to the 90's, and it was hard to write. It was not fun. I think I had, like, sitting on my shoulder this sort of like, oh, can she do it again? You know that kind of thing. And I knew that the luck I had the first one, like, you know, I knew it was unlike, unluck, unlikely to be like that again. Plus, I had this sense of like, this is my Russia novel. And even though it wasn't a novel like, directly about Russia, it still was my chance to sort of give my take on things there. So, I think I also had sitting on my shoulder, like all the journalists I know knew in Russia, and people that studied Russia and the real Russia experts, and what were they going to think of my take?KJ Dell'AntoniaOh, yeah.Karen DukessSo it

Hi! Jess here. As an author and host of this podcast, I hear “I have a great idea for a book!” a lot, and while I believe everyone has a story to tell, I’ve only been knocked over by these book pitches twice. The first was the idea for the book Raising Empowered Athletes: A Youth Sports Parenting Guide for Raising Happy, Brave, and Resilient Kids by Kirsten Jones (pitched to me at speaking event in 2015, published in 2023) and the second was last week, in a conversation with this week’s guest, Dr. Megan.I’m SO excited to introduce you to our new series, “From Soup to Nuts,” and its subject, Dr. Megan. She’s a therapist, speaker, and hopeful author who presented me with that aforementioned great idea for a book and a hook for a speaking career. She’s the right person to write this book, there’s a hole in the market for it, and it’s timely.So….now what?Over the next weeks and months, I will be mentoring Dr. Megan through her proposal, querying an agent, and planning ahead for a potential speaking career whether or not she sells the book. This week, we talk through the preliminary process of getting to a book’s why and wherefores while crafting the introductory section of the book proposal (see resources below) and researching potential agents. This first episode is for all subscribers, but the rest of this series will be available to supporters only. Please consider supporting the podcast so you can follow along (and learn from) Dr. Megan’s planning and writing process. Resources we mention:While I am not an Author Accelerator book coach, I do find Jennie Nash’s book, Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book incredibly useful and asked Dr. Megan to read it. We will be referring to it from time to time throughout this series. Introductory section of a book proposal. Since we will be referring to the proposal for The Addiction Inoculation as a reference, I thought it would be helpful to make that available to #AmWriting Podcast listeners. Click through to Jess’ website to download. Jess’s episode: What is a “Comp”?Dr. Megan’s assignment: write the introductory section of her book proposal, identify and research potential agents, and compile a list of agents she would like to query.Geeky footnote: “From soup to nuts” means “from beginning to end” and refers back to the practice of serving soup at the very beginning of a formal Western meal and nuts at the end. As a former Latin teacher, I prefer the saying “ab uvo usque ad mala” or “from the egg to the apples” in the tradition of Roman meals, but regardless, this series will cover everything from the beginning to the end of Dr. Megan’s book process.Additional links from the Pod:Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Plot & The SequelVicki Hoefle, Duct Tape ParentingOp Ed ProjectNadine Burke Harris, The Deepest WellNed Johnson, The Self-Driven ChildDaniel J. Siegel, BrainstormAnna Lembke, Dopamine NationICYMI: Sarina’s latest thriller is out in the world!Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of romcoms.Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car.Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.Digital books at: Amazon | Nook | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | AudiblePhysical books at: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | More paperback links here!New! Transcript below!EPISODE 451 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaListeners who I know are also readers. Have I got a summer book for you, if you haven't yet ordered Dying to Meet You, Sarina Bowen's latest thriller with just enough romance you have to, so, let me lay this out for you. Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring a historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine, but inside, she's a mess. She knows stalking her ex's avatar all over Portland on her phone isn't the healthiest way to heal from their breakup, but she's out of ice cream and she's sick of rom coms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He's dining out while she's wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. But instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder and the primary suspect. But Rowan isn't the only one keeping secrets as she digs for the truth. She discovers that the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past, struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him. Will she be the next to die? You're going to love this. I've had a sneak preview, and I think we all know that The Five Year Lie was among the very best reads and listens of last summer, Dying to Meet You is available in every format and anywhere that you buy books and you could grab your copy, and you absolutely should right now.Multiple Speakers:Is it recording? Now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. I don't remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay, now one, two, three.Jess LaheyHey, this is Jess Lahey, and this is the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. Hashtag AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, book proposals, queries. It's about the publishing industry. This is the podcast about getting the work done. I'm your host today, this week. My name is Jess Leahy. I am the author of The Gift of Failure, how the best parents learn to let go so their children can succeed, and The Addiction Inoculation, Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence. I had a column at the New York Times for three years called the parent teacher conference, and I've written for The Atlantic and The Washington Post and numerous other outlets. Okay, today we are going to be talking with someone I am identifying for now as Dr. Megan. We're going to decide later on whether or not we get into her full name and all that stuff. But she is being super brave by coming on this podcast, because this podcast is going to be this episode of the podcast is going to be the first in a series. I met Dr Megan, I've been on the lookout for someone like her with a book idea like hers, with an aim towards, you know, an idea of wanting to be a speaker like her, and I just am really excited to mentor her through the process of hopefully getting an agent, hopefully getting a book deal and hopefully becoming a speaker, and we're just going to work our way through it. I also have been looking for someone like Dr. Megan, because I really wanted to pick someone for you so that we can mentor, someone who is dedicated to the process, interested in doing all the homework and is not going to, like, give up halfway through, and this is someone who's really dedicated to this series. I'm hoping you can learn as much as possible. As always, this podcast is about flattening the learning curve for other writers. So that's what Dr. Megan has offered to do with us... again, super brave, like the people who do the First Page's Booklab and submit their work. This is a really vulnerable position to be put in. And so, over the next hour, however many months this takes, we're going to be following her trajectory as an author slash speaker and see how it all goes. This first episode is going to be free for all subscribers to the Hashtag AmWriting podcast. And after that, we're going to be putting it under the umbrella of supporter podcasts. So, if you would like to follow along and learn from Megan's journey, go ahead and hit the support button and figure out a way to support the podcast, because we're you know, we're here because of you, and we're here and grateful for your support. So, with that, I'm going to introduce you to Dr. Megan, she is a therapist, she is a speaker, she is a wannabe author. She's someone who has a lot of experience in her field. She wants to write a book that is squarely in her field, related to her life, related to the life of her patients, her clients, and she is exactly the right person to write it. And it is a book that is needed right now. And so, with that, let's get started. As I promised. I have a hopeful, potential, exciting phase. new author here with me today. One of the reasons that I wanted to do this sort of it's not really book coaching, because that's not my domain. I'm not a Author Accelerator book coach. I also, but I get asked to do this a lot, and I get asked specifically about the speaking piece of it. So, I wanted to get our listeners started with how we met. I would love for you to explain how we met, and you don't have to get specific about places, but how we ended up in the same place together, because there's a reason I decided to work with you, and a reason that I thought that your potential book idea has a lot of a promise. And so anyway, could you tell our listeners how we met?Dr. MeganAll right, this is a good question. Let's see. So, we met before you knew me. I met you via the Hashtag AmWriting podcast.Jess LaheyOkay.Dr. MeganAnd then when I was... I think it was just after finishing my doctorate, I found your book The Gift of Failure. So, then I met you there. But then, since I moved about almost three years ago now, and as part of my move, I thought, oh, I

Meg Mitchell Moore is the author of Mansion Beach, a page-turner-y multi POV summer saga with everything you could ask for: a beach, a body, rich people behaving badly but also sometimes not behaving badly, parties, drama and just enough gender-swapped Gatsby to think hard about the meaning of the American Dream. I loved it (KJ here) and I also loved this conversation with Meg, who apparently thinks in multiple POVS and is always just as impatient as I am to feel like the book is done and wonderful when sadly it is… not. #AmReadingMeg: Audio: Great Big Beautiful Life, Emily Henry—Julia WhelanAlso mentioned: Julia Whelan’s Thank You for ListeningPrint: The Road to Dalton, Shannon Bowringfrom The Book Shop of Beverly FarmsKJ: Mansion BeachWelcome to Glorious Tuga, Francesca SegalFind Meg at @megmitchellmoore on IG, or visit her website at www.megmitchellmoore.comHEY. Did you know Sarina’s latest thriller is out NOW? Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of romcoms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.Digital books at: Amazon | Nook | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Audible Physical books at: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | More paperback links here!New! Transcripts below!EPISODE 450 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaKJ here announcing a new series and a definite plus for paid supporters of Hashtag AmWriting. It's Writing the Book, a conversation between Jenny, who's just finished a blueprint for her next nonfiction book, and me because I've just finished the blueprint for what I hope will be my next novel. Jenny and I are both trying to quote-unquote "play big" with these next go-rounds, which is a meta effort for Jenny as that's exactly what her book is about, and we're basically coaching each other through, trading pages, thoughts and encouragement, as well as some sometimes hard-to-hear honesty about whether we're really going in the right direction. So come all in on team Hashtag AmWriting, and you'll get those Writing the Book episodes right in your pod player along with access to monthly AMAs, the book labs, first pages episodes, and come summer, we shall blueprint once again. So sign yourself up at amwritingpodcast.com.All SpeakingIs it recording? Now it's recording. Yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. Alright. Let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay. Now one, two, three.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is Hashtag AmWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things. Short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, other things I'm probably not thinking of. We are the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done. And I am KJ Dell'Antonia, the author of three novels, The Chicken Sisters, In Her Boots and Playing the Witch Card, as well as a nonfiction book, How to Be a Happier Parent, former editor of The New York Times Motherlode. You've heard all this. With me today, more importantly, is Meg Mitchell Moore, who has written a book that I think you're gonna find is your summer go to. It is called Mansion Beach, and I loved it. And we'll talk about it in a second. She is also the author of Summer Stage, Vacationland, can attest to both of those great reads. The Islanders, Two Truths and a Lie, The Admissions, loved that one too. They're all great. So, anyway, lots of lots of novels in the family saga, sometimes touch of romance, beach, summer, deep, but also page turnery read genre, which is not a genre because that was too long. But, anyway, Meg, thanks for coming to chat.Meg Mitchell MooreThank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here. This is gonna be really fun.KJ Dell'AntoniaSo I've read some of your other books, obviously, and I felt like this one Mansion Beach was you sort of moving to a different this. It's a little how to describe it. You've got a lot of points of view, which you always, you often do, and a little bit of of a mystery, which actually, I've seen you do before, and then you've got a podcast going on so that you can have different people show show off what's happening. I guess I was hoping you would talk about the evolution of style, um, actually, over your whole career, sort of from, like, I'm writing a kind of a basic book with a couple of points of view and third person close, or maybe first person to these bigger, bigger stories with so much more to so much more to offer the reader. That's a really big question. Start wherever you want.Meg Mitchell MooreThat's a great question. I I don't know if it has been such an evolution. I have always written multiple points of view to the point where it makes me crazy. And I wish I could. I wish I could do one or two. I really wish I could. I've tried it. I can't do it. I just can't. My brain doesn't work that way. It's I can't do it. So even my very first novel, which I published in 2011 it was called The Arrivals, that was a much smaller story. So yes, I for sure, I've evolved plot wise, but I remember, and this was when I was brand new and did not know what I was doing, and I was just trying to figure out how to write a novel. I had so many points of view. And I remember my now agent. Maybe she was not my agent then and was becoming my agent, or maybe she was already my agent, but I remember her saying, we have to take out at least like five of these points of view. And it's still, it still has a lot. I just that's how I think those are the kind of books I like to read, usually, not always, for one thing, but it just. Must be how I think I'm always in everybody's head, and it's really hard for me to restrain that. So this book, I don't think, has any more points of view than any other. Might have fewer than some. It does have a mystery.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah it might, then some that I've read, I guess I I, I saw it as different, maybe in part because of the the use of the podcast to frame things.Meg Mitchell MooreYeah that's new. And then it's a bigger, you know, it's a bigger idea. It's a, it's not a retelling of The Great Gatsby, because I don't like to use that word, but it is inspired by The Great Gatsby. So it has definitely some bigger I was looking at bigger themes, maybe from the start. A lot of times I back my way into the themes based on what my characters are doing. I don't always start with the themes, but this time i i was looking at some of those big whether, what's the American dream and what does success mean, and how does money equate with happiness, and some of those bigger questions. And I don't always do that. I might do it in reverse, but I don't always do that first. So I do think it has bigger theme wise, it's bigger maybe plot wise, yeah. And some of the elements, some of the elements that move it along, are a little different. I was working with a new editor for the first time for this. This is my first full book with my new editor. So I think that had something to do with it too, because I think she was probably pushing me for some of those elements that don't come naturally to me, which I think ended up being good for the book.KJ Dell'AntoniaYeah, it's a little more thriller. Isn't exactly the right word, but there's definitely a page turning mystery in there. I know here's, this is like a so there's a page turning mystery in Mansion Beach, and the question all along for the reader, like, you know somebody is going to die. But I at least did not know who, but I had an advance, and it came as a as a digital book, so I didn't have the cover and I didn't have the blurb on the back, if a reader has those things, are they gonna know?Meg Mitchell MooreInteresting.KJ Dell'AntoniaAre they gonna know? Who it is that that dies?Meg Mitchell MooreI don't think so. I don't think so. The people I know who have read it both ways, I think have not known.KJ Dell'AntoniaThat's good.Meg Mitchell MooreIt's sort of that white lotus effect, you know, for White Lotus fans out there, where there is a mystery, and you care about the mystery, but you also it matters, but it doesn't matter as much as what's going on with everybody else. So I really like that as a framing device. I like watching it and reading it. And I tried it myself this time. I did it a little bit in two truths and a lie as well. I guess that's my only other one that has a dead body, and a lot of people are mad at me for who the person was who died, which I want. And two truths...KJ Dell'AntoniaDon't give it up.Meg Mitchell MooreNo, I won't. So that was interesting, so I hadn't tried it again, and this time I went in a little nervous, because people had been upset with me, particularly my husband. But I I still, I mean, I had the chance not to do what I did in two truths and a lie, and I still chose to. So I still, for me, it was the right thing, but it was an interesting experience. And I didn't try it again for a couple books. And this time I did also because I was playing with some of the Gatsby themes. I mean, Gatsby has three bodies, so I thought, I mean, I should have at least one, so I won't, yeah, I won't give anything away about…KJ Dell'AntoniaNo, don't.Meg Mitchell MooreWho or what or how, but I did enjoy having that as a device to propel it now that also, I don't think that was in the first draft. I don't think there was a

Greetings writers! Sarina here. Earlier in May I was surfing social media, as one does, when I came across a story about children’s author Erica Perl and an ill-fated school visit. Her scheduled visit to a school was abruptly canceled. After asking a few questions, it was determined that a single parent had objected to… Well, it’s hard to say. We’ll let Erica tell her story. But you should know that Ms. Perl’s twenty years of book publishing have included such salacious titles as When Cookie Met Carrot and A Whale of a Tea Party. (🔥!) When Erica’s visit was canceled, at first she had a lot of conflicting emotions. We’ll dig in to the vulnerability hangover that comes with writing as a career. But then she pulled herself together and fought back. In the fight, she had a few advantages on her side: 1. She is a lawyer, which didn’t hurt. 2. She had a contract! That’s the most important takeaway here, and 3. She had some help from writers organizations. It’s a great listen. 🎧Links from today’s episode: School Library Journal article about Erica’s experiencePen America Authors Against Book BansThe Authors GuildThe American Library AssociationPride and Less Prejudice Where to find Erica: Have Erica come to your school! Everything you need to know HERE.Erica’s latest: Whale and the Birthday RocksErica Perl on ThreadsThis has been Episode 449 of the #AmWriting podcast NEW! Transcript below!KJ Dell'AntoniaHey writers, KJ here. We just recorded the latest booklabs first pages episode and it is packed. We read the first page as in 350 words of a listener's work in progress and then ask that one all important question. Would we turn the page? But of course we do more than that. That would take about two minutes. We're trying to help both the writer and all you listeners out there figure out what's working and what isn't, and what might be the best way to bring a reader into the book's world. So here's the catch, and it's a small one. Booklab episodes and the ability to submit a first page are only available to paid supporters of #AmWriting. So come on over to AmWritingpodcast.com and sign yourself up and you'll get not just the monthly book labs, but also episodes of the Writing the Books series in which Jenny and I help each other through our latest drafts, access to monthly AMAs, and come summer, we shall blueprint once again. So come on in. The price tag's kinda ridiculously low and the water's fine.All SpeakingThe recording now it's recording, yay. Go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm gonna rustle some papers. Okay, now one two.KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is #AMWriting, the weekly podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, everything. This is a podcast about getting your work done and Sarina is going to introduce herself now.Sarina BowenI'm Sarina Bowen. I'm the author of many books of fiction. My latest one is called Dying to Meet You, and I can confirm that it is in a bookstore near you because I probably even visited that bookstore within the last seven days. It's been a little crazy around here in a good way, but in the midst of all the crazy, I was on threads, as one does, when one should actually be writing, and I saw an interesting story which led to us having a guest today that I am super excited about. The story I saw was an author who wrote books for children and writes books for children who had planned a school visit and then suddenly because of some real stupidity that I will let her explain to you, her school visit was canceled. They decided they no longer wanted to hear from this particular person. And that is a thing that I have been hearing more of lately. That's why I'm involved with The Authors Guild and Authors Against Book Bans. And she fought back in the most lovely way. So please welcome author Erica Perl to tell us what happened and what she has learned from it. Welcome Erica!KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd I'm gonna give Erica a quick shout out introduction because Erica and I have known each other as she has just pointed out for approximately seven billion years. Since there were dinosaurs roaming the earth and Erica roaming the New York state courts and me as well roaming the New York state courts. Me and the guys of a prosecutor, Erica and the guys of a criminal defense attorney, and we did things together, crazy, as that sounds, because although that sounds like an antagonistic relationship and sometimes is, it also really cannot be. And then she introduced me to people at Slate, and then she wrote a bunch of children's books, and then I wrote about those children's books in various ways, and all kinds of things have happened. And yeah, here we are. - Okay.Erica PerlIt's true. It's true, it's all true. What can I tell you all? I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. I love them... I love… I'm a fan of the show. So it's really exciting to be here in the first place.Sarina BowenOkay, so first let's have you set the scene. I'm looking at the titles in your extensive list of fantastic kids books. And I would say they look right off the cuff. Super controversial to me.Erica PerlYeah.Sarina BowenLike, The Three Little Guinea Pigs.Erica PerlThe Three Little Guinea Pigs.Sarina BowenA picture book. Yeah.Erica PerlA classic fairy tale. A retelling of The Three Little Pigs. Yes. With guinea pigs.Sarina BowenOkay. Well, The Three Little Guinea Pigs, right off the bat seems like, you know, a headline news kind of problem here. And also, When Carrot Met Cookie.Erica PerlYes. Yes. talking, talking food. Scary!Sarina BowenRight. So help us set the scene. How did you become persona non grata for, for books like this?Erica PerlYeah. So the story is this, as, as KJ mentioned, a lifetime ago, I was an attorney. I was a criminal defense attorney in New York, which is how KJ and I met. And, but I dreamed of writing children's books. And I actually, at that time, started taking classes at night because it was the secret passion of mine. And many, many years later, I started "Zen in the Mood." I started getting published. And I've now had books published over the course of the last 20 years. My first book came out in 2005. And I've published about 40 -something going on 50 books, all with traditional mainstream presses. And as you mentioned, it's not that I'm trying to avoid controversy, but most of the stuff I write about I write for kids from very little kids up to teens and most of the stuff I write about is about you know, kind of childhood centric experiences making friends and feeling different and searching for connections.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd um and going to bed and getting up and yes you know, my children's particular favorite of yours, which you want signed for them was Chicken Bedtime Is Really Early.Erica PerlChicken Bedtime Is Really EarlyKJ Dell'AntoniaWe say that in our house constantly. Chicken Bedtime is Early.Erica PerlThat makes me happy. I've always, in our house, we have the classic lines from books we read when my kids were little and I always aspire to that, just having, you know, kind of being in someone's childhood rotation. So anyway, in addition to writing books, I also teach writing and a variety of capacities. And I also do author visits. Many children's book authors do this. And it's sort of a nice way to, in addition to the, you know, what we make writing books on our advances and if we're lucky our royalties, we also get paid to go to schools and spend the day doing presentations about being an author, about the creative process, about where do you get your ideas. And the whole purpose of doing author visits isn't to sell books, it's really to kind of get kids excited about writing their own, telling their own stories and about reading. And so I routinely do those, you know, many times during the year. And I have an agent who specifically handles my bookings, as many authors do, because if there was a time when I did that myself, and it's just like way too many emails. And so It's nice to have someone who handles all the logistics so that when you go out to wherever you go. Everything's all set for you. Okay, so I had a school visit on my calendar coming up and I wasn't giving it much thought because as I said my my booking agent who's name is Sarah DeVore , and she's of How Now Booking, and she's great, she took care of all the details. I wasn't worried about it or thinking about it and then out of the blue I heard that it was canceled. I think Sarah actually forwarded an email she had received. And I thought it was really strange because sometimes things have to get rescheduled, like there's school testing or there's something going on. But I've never had a visit canceled. And there was no explanation for it being canceled. And Sarah and I kind of got our Spidey senses up because we didn't know what was going on, but it didn't feel right. And she did some research on her end, and we discovered that a single, individual parent had seen a social media video that I made about a year earlier for Pride Month. Because in addition to all the other books that I have, I have an early reader series called Whale, Quail, Snail. And Whale, Quail, Snail is a, like I said, it's early readers. So it's for like really little kids. It's really very low reading level for kids who are just starting, kids are just starting to, you can read it aloud, but you can also, if you're starting to learn how to read, it's a great book to kind of learn on.Sarina BowenSure.Erica PerlAnd it's about three characters, three friends, a whale, a quail, and a snail. And this book was selected by a group called Pride and Less Prejudice, which is a group, a nonprofit organization that provides collections, curated collections of books that have positive LGBTQ+ representation in them. And they picked this bo

Hi all, Jess here. This episode was Sarina’s idea, and when you listen you will understand why. It can be hard to focus on the work, whether it’s editing, world building, conjuring meet cutes, or translating research-based hope for the next generation. That said, it’s important that we keep creating and putting our words out into the world. We hope you are able to keep working while navigating the a balance between consuming, processing, and reacting to the news cycle and shutting the world out in self preservation. Stuff we talked aboutWrite Through It: An Insider’s Guide to Writing and the Creative Life by Kate McKeanKate Mckean’s websiteWe Are All Guilty Here by Karin Slaughter (release date August 12, 2025)The OpEd ProjectAuthors Against Book BansPossession by A.S. Byatt and the film I adore based on the bookA Complete Unknown filmHamilton, Non-Stop (“why does he write like he’s running out of time?”)On Writing by Stephen KingAll In by Billie Jean KingPermission by Elissa AltmanMeditation for Mortals by Oliver BurkemanHEY. Did you know Sarina’s latest thriller is out NOW? Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high-profile commission restoring an historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine. But inside, she’s a mess. She knows that stalking her ex’s avatar all over Portland on her phone isn’t the healthiest way to heal from their breakup. But she’s out of ice cream and she’s sick of romcoms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He’s dining out while she’s wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. Instead of catching her ex in a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder—and the primary suspect.Digital books at: Amazon | Nook | Apple Books | Kobo | Google Play | Audible Physical books at: Bookshop.org | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Indigo | More paperback links here!New! Transcript below!EPISODE 448 - TRANSCRIPTKJ Dell'AntoniaListeners who I know are also readers. Have I got a summer book for you, if you haven't yet ordered Dying to Meet You. Sarina Bowen's latest thriller with just enough romance you have to so let me lay this out for you. Rowan Gallagher is a devoted single mother and a talented architect with a high profile commission restoring a historic mansion for the most powerful family in Maine, but inside, she's a mess. She knows stalking her exes avatar all over Portland on her phone isn't the healthiest way to heal from their breakup, but she's out of ice cream and she's sick of rom coms. Watching his every move is both fascinating and infuriating. He's dining out while she's wallowing on the couch. The last straw comes when he parks in their favorite spot on the waterfront. In a weak moment, she leashes the dog and sets off to see who else is in his car. But instead of catching her ex and a kiss, Rowan becomes the first witness to his murder and the primary suspect. But Rowan isn't the only one keeping secrets as she digs for the truth, she discovers that the dead man was stalking her too, gathering intimate details about her job and her past, struggling to clear her name, Rowan finds herself spiraling into the shadowy plot that killed him. Will she be the next to die? You're going to love this. I've had a sneak preview, and I think we all know that The Five Year Lie was among the very best reads and listens of last summer, Dying to Meet You, is available in every format and anywhere that you buy books and you could grab your copy, and you absolutely should…right now.All TalkingIs it recording? Now it's recording, yay, go ahead. This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone. Try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. All right, let's start over. Awkward pause. I'm gonna wrestle some papers. Okay, now, 123,KJ Dell'AntoniaHey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, and this is hashtag AmWriting podcast the weekly podcast about writing all the things, short things, long things, pitches, proposals, fiction, non fiction, memoir. This is the podcast about finding a way to get your work done, and that is sure what we're gonna talk about this week.Jess LaheyI'm Jess Lahey. I am the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation and you can find my journalism over at The New York Times, Washington Post and The Atlantic.Sarina BowenI'm Sarina Bowen. I am the author of many contemporary novels, including Dying to Meet You, which is brand new right now. KJ Dell'AntoniaYay!Sarina BowenYay. Thank you.Jennie NashI'm Jennie Nash, I am the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, a company on a mission to lead the emerging book coaching industry, and also the author of the Blueprint books, which help people get their books out of their head and onto the page.KJ Dell'AntoniaAnd also in your past life, the author of a lot of other books.Jennie NashI know indeed. KJ Dell'AntoniaI think it's worthy. I do. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia, I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of three novels and two non fiction books, and the former editor and lead writer of the mother lode blog at the New York Times. We have all had a number of careers. And the reason I brought that up, Jenny is that I was just interviewing Kate McKean, who has a new book about the mechanics. Like, it's a great book. It's called Write Through It, and it's sort of like everything we've ever talked about the podcast on the podcast, all the how to stuff all rolled up into one book, which is really cool. But I was telling her that I kind of have a unspoken motto of only taking writing advice from people who have not published a book, very judiciously. Now my freelance editor is not someone who has, or, I think I don't know if she even wants to publish a book, and she's amazing. So with with some thought, but my point being that you have also published many, many, many books. So if anyone out there hesitates around that don't, don't. Yeah, all right, that was a really lot of introductions. We got something to talk about today, and I'm going to demand that Sarina announce our topic, because she came up with it. Okay.Sarina BowenWell, my topic is how to be present and devote yourself to your writing in a world that is so loud and confusing and it feels like whatever you're working on can't possibly matter as much as what's going on in the world, and all my writer friends are struggling with this right now. Jess LaheyIt's, it's hard, especially when the work that I do, the work around like writing about kids and parenting and stuff, requires a fair amount of optimism and requires a fair amount of like, it's gonna be great, and here's what you have to do in order to make it be great. And it's really, it's been very hard for me lately to to be in that head space.Sarina BowenWell, Jess, I would argue that, like, at least you're literally helping people. And some of us are fighting meet cutes and first kisses. Jess LaheyOkay, you are no but you are so helping people, because over and over and over again, what I hear from your readers and from readers of happy kiss, he a and kissing books that they are the the self care and the reprieve that they really need.Sarina BowenOkay, you you just are. You just gave, like, the point, the point at the top of the notes that I made for this discussion, because people keep saying that to me, and they're not wrong. But for some reason, it hasn't been enough lately, and I, um, I was struggling to figure out why. And then over the last 48 hours, in a feverish rush, I read this Karin Slaughter book that's called We Are All Guilty Here that doesn't come out until August, but please pre order it now and do yourself a favor, because it's so good. Jess LaheyI love her books. Sarina BowenYeah, so I had the opportunity to have that same experience from the reader side of the coin, which is that I totally lost myself in this fictional world. It It mattered to me as a person to work through those problems, um, in the way that a novel has a beginning and a middle and an end and and I think that part of my big problem right now is that I can't see an end to any of the stuff that's you know happening. So it was helpful to me to have the same experience that my readers described to me, to be like totally sucked into something, and to feel like it mattered to me in the moment.Jess LaheyWell…And to add on to that, I had a fantastic sorry KJ and Jenny, we're just we're off on our little happy tangent here. But I had a wonderful conversation with a fan recently in on one at one of my speaking engagements, and she was apologizing to me for feeling like she had a really close relationship with me, even though we hadn't met. And she said, and the reason for that is that you're in my head because I'm listening to your audiobook. And I said, You do not need to apologize to that for that to me, because I have the same experience. And she said, the thing that was nice, you know, because I'm such a big audiobook fan, I feel this weird, parasocial, fictional connection to this person, because it's not just their words, it's also their voice. But the thing that she said was really sweet was she listened in her car, and her car became a place of refuge and a place where she knew she was going to hear a voice that would make her feel like it was going to be okay. And so even though I hear that and I know that, and I've experienced it from the other side with the audiobooks that I listen to, it's still, it is still very hard to look down at the empty page and say, How do I help people feel like everything's going to be okay? And it's, it's a difficult moment for that.KJ Dell'AntoniaI have been thinking about this too, because I think we all are, and let me just say that this is not just a, you know, we're not, we're not making a grand political statement here, although we, we certainly could. This is, uh, it is a moment of some global turmoil.