Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for Writers
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Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for Writers kicked off in September 2018 and airs every week. We are a podcast for writers craving a unique blend of inspiration and real talk about the ups and downs of the writing life. Hosted by Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner, two friends and colleagues who bring a community-minded sensibility to the writing journey, each theme-focused episode of Write-minded features an interview with a writer, author, or publishing industry professional.
Write-minded features a segment called Substackin’ at the end of each episode to talk about topics, ideas, trends, and writerly inspirations that Brooke and Grant are tracking in their weekly Substacks (Writerly Things and Intimations), and sometimes the Substacks of people they admire, too. Brooke and Grant bring to this weekly podcast their deeply held belief that everyone is a writer, and everyone’s story matters.
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This week’s episode is a deep conversation that covers love, embracing contradiction, and guest Carvell Wallace’s journey to and through memoir. This is an enlightening interview for anyone who’s ever contemplated paradox, or how to tackle big, tangly ideas in your writing. Writing a memoir is an ambitious act of the heart, and we honor that journey this week in all its complexity and bigness. On Substackin’, we’re pleased to be sharing some of our favorite memoir writers’ Substacks, and hope you’ll take a look.
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This week Write-minded is exploring listening—as a practice, as an experience, as something that interacts with our writing. Guest Elizabeth Rosner’s new book is Third Ear, a book that she describes as a hybrid memoir. Listen in to find out why, to consider your own relationship with listening, and to consider all the ways that listening drives and inspires our writing. On Substackin’ this week, we revisit Grant’s post about being patient with impatience, with themes resonant to the episode.
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This week’s episode is inspired by guest Barbara Ridley’s new novel, Unswerving, whose central protagonist is gay and disabled. We explore the dearth of disabled characters in fiction, and hear from Barbara how choosing to write about a character who was doubly “othered” drew critiques that she was perhaps going a bridge too far. This episode examines sensitivities to consider when writing “the other” in fiction, and also why it’s important to write characters who don’t often get an opportunity to be centered—as it creates empathy and opens our eyes to the broad range of human experience.
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It could be said of this week’s guest that she, like the title of this week’s show, is fascinating and daunting. And that this is a pull toward the things we’re interested in, that we want to dive more deeply into, is the subject of this week’s show. Edwidge Danticat is a powerhouse in the literary world who’s written about immigration and poverty, exile and political upheaval, and so much more. There’s much to learn from the wisdom of a writer like Danticat who has been well and widely published for three decades, and who offers up insights across form—from memoir, to fiction, to essay. Tune in to hear from a literary force of nature.
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As Write-minded is wont to do, we bring you another tell-it-like-it-is reality bites episode about book publishing. And while the news isn’t all good, it’s also not all bad—and guest Michael Castleman is living, breathing proof that it’s worth it, as long as you’re ready to do the work and understand what you’re getting yourself into. Join us on this journey from the Gutenberg Press to modern-day publishing. Whether you’re a reader, writer, author, or industry person, you’re bound to learn something new from this week’s show.
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This week’s Write-minded is a thoughtful conversation about where writers’ values meet public persona and the writing life. Guest Maggie Tokuda-Hall treats us to her thinking about career, ambition, and why she writes what subjects and characters she writes, and why she doesn’t write for adults. We get into the important topic of what’s at stake when writers speak up and out—touching upon the tensions that exist between standing up for what you believe in and a literary world that doesn’t always make those choices easy. Substackin’ this week takes a look at Brooke’s post about genre and category, “Your Story Is More Important Than Your Category.”
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A rocking ride through punk influence on prose and story, this interview with guest Joshua Mohr is, more than anything, about pushing your limits and getting out of your comfort zone. In his new book, Saint the Terrifying, Josh does a few things he’s never tried—and he walks us through why that’s been so invigorating, and how it’s pushed his limits as a writer. We delve into not outlining and the power of alternative histories, and get to hear about why Josh wrote this book wanting it to feel like it might fall apart at any moment.
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Anne Lamott joins Write-minded this week to talk about so many things—what she writes about; how she kills her darlings; her process with her early readers and editors; and more. On the question of being compulsively readable, she shares with us some of the ideas from Bird by Bird that have stood the test of time, why to cut your darlings, and how she thinks about those early first shitty drafts. Write-minded and Anne Lamott also invite you to join us the last weekend in October for a special writing retreat in Los Angeles. Visit WritersRising.com and enter code writeminded10 to get 10% off. And this week’s Substackin’ is drawn from Brooke’s Substack, Why You Maybe Should Write a Memoir.
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This week, to draw attention to Banned Books Week and to stand in solidarity with publishers, authors, and all industry professionals who fight to keep diverse voices on library shelves, Write-minded features guest Amanda Jones, an educator and librarian whose book, That Librarian, is necessary reading. Amanda shares her more than two-year journey of being bullied, harassed, and smeared because she dared to stand up for diverse books and diverse voices. The phenomenon of canceling librarians or get them fired is not singular, and Amanda Jones’s story serves as a stark reminder about what’s at stake in our country right now. She draws attention to efforts to defund libraries and shares why representation in literature matters so much. Listen and take action. And check out Grant’s Substack about another kind of banning—banning the story we want to tell—in this week’s Substackin’.
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This week’s episode is inspired by Grant’s recent rejection journey. Yes, listeners, Grant’s book about rejection has been roundly rejected—so we’re taking an excursion into the world of rejection, how we deal with it, and what some options might be for a book that doesn’t get picked up by a publisher. Grant and Brooke explore their relationship with and to rejection—and unpack all the ways in which rejection is interconnected to the publishing journey—and not just for authors. This goes for publishers, agents, editors, and other publishing-adjacent folks too. This week’s Substackin’ gets into self-pity, which we might take straight up, or neat, or on the rocks with our rejection. Grant and Brooke are drawing from their own Substacks and others for these features, and we invite you to find us at https://grantfaulkner.substack.com and https://brookewarner.substack.com.
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This week’s guest, Brontez Purnell, is the kind of writer who’s either hard to pin down, or just won’t be. As such, he’s inspired an episode about who gets to draw outside the lines and why in the realm of book publishing. Whether you love your lane, feel confined by your lane, or insist on busting out of your lane, we invite you to consider what it means to be classifiable and contained, and whether or not it suits you to be so—or to refuse the categories and labels publishing loves to put on authors. An existential episode inspired by an author who’s blowing up the boxes and having fun doing it.
This week’s Substackin’ is based on Brooke’s post, “Why You Can't Equate Your Substack Posts to a Book: On the Staying Power of the Book.” Grant and Brooke are drawing from their own Substacks and others for these features, and we invite you to find us at https://grantfaulkner.substack.com and https://brookewarner.substack.com.
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We kick off a new season with the brilliant Jane Alison and a wide-ranging conversation about form and structure in fiction and memoir. Brooke and Grant were so inspired by Meander, Spiral, Explode, Jane’s her book about craft and the theory of writing, that this episode is dedicated to the ideas around structure and form that are at the heart of that book. This is a nerdy, writerly deep dive to welcome listeners to a new season. Also of note is a new feature, Substackin’, which will be rounding out each episode this season. This week’s Substackin’ is inspired by Brooke’s post.
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For our final summer round up of our favorite shows, Write-minded chose Maggie Smith and Shze-Hui Tjoa, highlighting two bright lights in the Memoirsphere who are elevating the genre and showcasing new ways of thinking about memoir. It’s an exciting time to be a memoirist and a memoir reader, and if you missed these two interviews the first time around—or even if you didn’t—make sure to catch the insights and inspiration of these two groundbreaking writers.
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In celebration of the kind of fiction readers love but the industry doesn’t always know what to do with comes two past episodes honoring fan fiction and gothic fiction, respectively. Revisiting these episodes is a reminder of the vast world of fiction outside the narrow confines of upmarket or commercial or historical fiction. Our two past guests, Rainbow Rowell and Isabel Cañas, take us on a journey through their respective inspirations, views of the industry, and insights into the world of writing fiction that exists in the margins.
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In this second week of Write-minded’s August mashups, we bring back the heartfelt interviews with Javier Zamora and Susan Kiyo Ito, both of whom spoke so honestly and supportively about writing and sharing stories they’ve carried with them their entire lives. Javier’s harrowing journey from El Salvador to the US border when he was just nine years old, traveling as an unaccompanied minor is the subject of his memoir, Solito, and Susan’s I Would Meet You Anywhere centers her adoption story, touching upon themes of longing, abandonment, identity, and more. Both authors grapple with exposure in these soul-searching stories of identity and survival.
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Every August Grant and Brooke share their summer plans and writing aspirations and hopes and fails, along with some mashups of their favorite interviews of the year. Write-minded kicks off this best-of series with two beloved industry experts—agent Lisa Leshne and publicist Kathleen Schmidt. There’s real wisdom and straight-talk in these conversations that writers and authors will want to take in and absorb. So even if you heard these the first time around, take it in again—and have a wonderful start to your August.
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Most writers either have or will have a failed or abandoned book project—or two, or three, or four—over the course of their lifetimes. The more you write, the more crisis moments you’ll face. It can be hard to come back from those moments, which is why this week’s episode with Paolo Bacigalupi is so encouraging. He shares with us his journey back from the edge of despair, having lost all motivation to write—and how he found his way to his latest book, Navola. This inspiring episode closes out our fifth season, and includes tips for world-building and wise words about this existential question so many of us face: why write.
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This week’s episode airs Brooke in conversation with Naomi Klein at this year’s Bay Area Book Festival. While this interview does not hew to Write-minded’s effort to offer weekly doses of inspiration for writers, Brooke and Grant decided to make this available both because our listeners requested it and because we admire the work Naomi Klein is doing in the world. This is a conversation about Israel/Gaza, Jewish heritage and history, American politics, and about Doppelganger, Klein’s 2023 book, which was Brooke’s favorite book of last year.
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Secrets come in all forms, big and small. We inherit secrets, carry the secrets of others, and struggle with the burden of all they hold and how they sometimes fester within us. This week’s episode with guest Margaret Juhae Lee explores the difference between people who want to keep the past buried and those who want to set it free. We explore intergenerational trauma and how that’s often its own form of carrying secrets forward from the past. This week’s trend is about book festivals, so please follow the link to find a festival near you.
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This week’s guest, Jayne Anne Phillips, is a Pulitzer prize-winning author for her latest book, Night Watch, which gives Write-minded an opportunity to muse about awards—why they matter, what we make of them and do with them, and where we might find awards from things we seek out in addition to those we receive. Join us for this wide-ranging literary conversation about storytelling, language, flash fiction, reading, and, of course, awards.
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You could tell your daughter, "I'm not a fatphobic asshole."
it's an interesting idea but no there's a very clear distinction between plotting and pantsing it 😅 def inspiring me to finally take part in a nanowrimo tho! I'm not big on structure and counting words etc. but if I take it as honing my sense of discipline I def can see value in that my main goal right now is to rediscover joy for writing and to quiet my inner perfectionist so it's always inspiring to hear clearly passionate and dedicated writers talk about their art! love love "a rough draft is perfect bc it exists"
brilliant author ♡
I love this episode! I loved learning about strategies to build your author platform, and it was great to get tips on the book publishing industry from Jane Friedman.
Very insightful perspective on writing from the POV of other people!
Love everything NaNoWriMo is about! So happy they're taking the usual inspiration and quirkiness to a podcast! This is definitely going to keep me writing and inspired. Thanks for this :)