Diy Mfa Radio

Hey there word nerds! Today’s episode is extra-awesome because I’m speaking with not one, not two, but three fabulous ladies, who have had hand in bringing a truly buzz-worthy novel to life, on the show! First we have author Samantha Downing, whose debut novel My Lovely Wife has been getting a lot of attention. When she was a kid, Samantha’s mom brought her to the library every two weeks, where she would check out a stack of new books that she couldn’t put it down. She walked around with a book in front of her face, often walking into walls and stubbing her toes because she never watched where she was going. In her adult life she decided she wanted to be the one telling stories that would make people walk into walls and My Lovely Wife, is one such book. Next we have Samantha’s agent Barbara Poelle who began her publishing career as a freelance copywriter and editor before joining the Irene Goodman Literary Agency in 2007. Barbara also did a brief stint as a standup comic in Los Angeles and if you’ve ever bump

Hey there word nerds! Today we have a little change of pace in store for you. As you may recall, when I’m at different conferences, I’ll sometimes record a live-from-the-conference interview, and this happens to be one of those episodes! This interview was recorded in front of a LIVE studio audience at INBOUND 2018. Now, if you’re not familiar with INBOUND, it’s a fantastic conference hosted by HubSpot and takes place in Boston every fall. INBOUND has featured some truly incredible keynote speakers during the years I’ve attended like Michelle Obama, Brene Brown, and Deepak Chopra. I know right! Now if you’re a marketing nerd like me, or your day job happens to be in marketing, social media, or design, this is the conference to attend. And the INBOUND team has graciously given us a discount code, which will give you $150 off a 4-Day, All-Access pass to this year’s event. Check out our show notes page for the info to take advantage of this amazing deal! So why do I love INBOUND so much? Well over the years I ha

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the absolute pleasure of hosting New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Heather Graham on the show! A theater arts major at the University of South Florida, Heather began her career with several years in dinner theater, back-up vocals and bartending. After the birth of her third child, she decided to stay home and that’s when she began to write. Since then, she has written over two hundred novels and novellas including category, suspense, historical romance, vampire fiction, time travel, occult, sci-fi, young adult, and Christmas family fare. She has been published in twenty-five languages with about 60 million books in print and has been honored with just about every major writing award under the sun, including the  prestigious Thriller Master Award, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romance Writers of America. Heather has also been featured in several media outlets including People and USA Today, as well as on newscasts such as Today and Entertainment

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with co-authors Anita Sarkeesian and Ebony Adams on the show! Anita is an award-winning media critic and the creator and executive director of Feminist Frequency, an educational nonprofit that explores the representations of women in pop culture narratives. She is best known as the creator and host of the highly influential video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, and she dreams of owning a life-size replica of Buffy’s scythe. Ebony Adams is an author, activist, and former college educator whose work foregrounds the lives and work of black women in the diaspora. She writes widely on film criticism, social justice, and pop culture, and lives with a steadily-increasing collection of Doctor Who memorabilia. On top of all this these ladies are now co-authors of the YA nonfiction book History vs. Women: The Defiant Lives that They Don’t Want You to Know, which is a fascinating (and aesthetically beautiful) book highlighting the lives of wome

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with Glynn Stewart on the show! Glynn was liberated from a bleak future of being an accountant by his unstoppable writing habit which led him to write several science-fiction, space opera, and fantasy series. He is the author of the Starship’s Mage, a bestselling science fiction and fantasy series where faster-than-light travel is possible—but only because of magic. His other works include science fiction series Exile and Castle Federation, as well as the urban fantasy series ONSET and Changeling Blood. Glynn is also the author of the space opera trilogy Duchy of Terra as well as its sequel series Light of Terra, the first book of which (Darkness Beyond) was released in October of 2018. I am in the midst of reading the first book in the original Duchy of Terra series, and OMG it is so awesome! It combines my two favorite things, pirates and outer space, into one epic story. So listen in as Glynn and I talk about this amazing series, and turn

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of speaking with New York Times and USA Today bestselling author B.J. Daniels! After a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist, B.J. wrote and sold over 37 short stories before she finally wrote her first book, Odd Man Out, which went on to be nominated for Best First Book and Best Intrigue for 1995 in the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Awards. Since then she has sold more than 40 short stories and over 100 books, and has won numerous awards including a Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award in 2002 with her novel Premeditated Marriage, and a Career Achievement Award for Series Romantic Suspense in 2002 from the Romantic Times. Her latest novel, Stroke of Luck, kicks off her newest romantic suspense series, Sterling’s Ranch.So listen in as B.J. and I chat about this awesome book and how to weave together the suspense of mystery with the tension of romance into one amazing story. In this episode B.J. and I discuss: Using a compressed space to amplify t

Hey there word nerds! Today I am delighted to have Dan Grant on the show! Dan is an author with a background in electrical engineering who has always loved the world of stories and intriguing tales, especially suspense and thrillers that weave science, medicine, or technology into the fabric of the drama. As a licensed professional engineer he’s had the unique opportunity to work with a variety of medical and technological projects and to get behind the scenes at military facilities. And as you read his debut thriller, The Singularity Witness, you can definitely see how his engineering background has filtered into the narrative to form a broader storytelling tapestry. Dan is currently hard work on his next thriller entitled Thirteen Across, as well as the next book in his Singularity series. Now listen in as Dan and I chat about his awesome debut The Singularity Witness, and how to balance hard science with the fast pace of thrillers. In this episode Dan and I discuss: How to use research for a science based

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited to be hosting Brazilian author Tony Bellotto on the show! As some of you may know, my parents are from Brazil and my first language is actually Portuguese. Though I was raised in the U.S. I consider myself as much Brazilian as American so I am super thrilled to have a Brazilian author here today! Tony is the author of the best-selling Bellini mystery novels, which have been released as major feature films and translated widely, establishing him as the preeminent writer of Brazilian detective fiction. He is also a guitarist and songwriter for the famed Brazilian rock band Titãs (The Titans), which has released twenty albums and sold over six million copies. On top of all that, Tony is also the editor of Rio Noir and São Paulo Noir, both published by Akashic Books, who are also releasing the English translation of his Bellini mysteries starting with his debut novel, Bellini and the Sphinx, which is now available. Now listen in, and get ready to hear a little Portugues

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of hosting Kevin Brooks on the show! Kevin is a critically acclaimed young adult novelist whose first book, Martyn Pig, was named a Publishers Weekly “Flying Start” selection. Kevin has written many books since then including Black Rabbit Summer, which was shortlisted for the 2009 Carnegie Medal, and The Bunker Diary, which won the Carnegie Medal in 2014. His most recent novel, Born Scared, is a terrifying thriller about a 13-year-old boy named Elliot confined to his home by incapacitating fear. But then on Christmas Eve, a mixup at the pharmacy leaves him with not enough pills. His mother must go out into the snowstorm to get more, and when she doesn’t come back Elliot has to venture out after her on his own. This book really resonated with me on so many levels and I’m sure it will resonate with many of you as well. So listen in as Kevin and I talk about this amazing book, and learning how to embrace the fear of writing not just on the page but as writers. In t

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Somers on the show! I first met Jeff at BookExpo this past spring and had the opportunity to hear him speak at the Writer’s Digest Conference this past summer, and the moment we crossed paths I knew that we were going to be instant writing besties. First off, he’s hilarious. Second, he’s an iconoclast, so not really into following the rules, which is totally my jam. Plus, his wife is also super-awesome which means he has great taste. This is why I just knew I had to have him on the show so we could geek out about his book Writing Without Rules. But first, a little more about Jeff. Jeff began writing by court order as an attempt to steer his creative impulses away from engineering genetic grotesqueries. He has since published nine novels, including the noir-scifi novels in the Avery Cates Series, the darkly hilarious crime novel Chum, and most recently tales of blood magic and short cons in the Ustari Cycle, which includes the novel We Are N

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited to have Ashley and Leslie Saunders on the show! Ashley and Leslie are award-winning filmmakers, twin sisters, and authors. Hailing from the suburbs of Dallas these two honed their love of storytelling at The University of Texas at Austin. While researching their debut novel, The Rule of One, Ashley and Leslie fell in love with America's national parks, as they traveled the path of their main characters (also twin sisters) Ava and Mira. I’m reading The Rule of One right now, and OMG it is soooooo good! I was delighted to learn that this book will be followed by a sequel, The Rule Of Many, releasing in spring of 2019. So listen in as Ashley, Leslie, and I chat about this awesome book, and crafting a visually stunning near-fi dystopia on the page. In this episode Ashley, Leslie, and I discuss: Crafting a realistic twin sister relationship. Worldbuilding techniques for “near-fi” stories. The challenges of writing a novel vs. a screenplay. How to build a visual story on

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of hosting David Corbett on the show! I know David as a highly sought-after instructor at ITW’s Master CraftFest and CraftFest, and it’s easy to see why as he is the award-winning author of six novels, the story collection Thirteen Confessions, and the writing guide The Art of Character which has been called “A writer’s bible.” His short fiction has been selected twice for Best American Mystery Stories, and his non-fiction has appeared in several places including Writer’s Digest magazine where he is a contributing editor. David’s latest novel The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday (OMG best alliterative title EVER!) about the possible discovery of the most notorious love letters in American history was released in 2018. So listen in as David and I discuss this awesome book and how to ratchet up the realness of your story’s world through its characters. In this episode David and I discuss: Choosing the right details to include that will pull your readers in.

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure and honor of hosting David Morrell on the show! David is the bestselling author of numerous books including First Blood, the award-winning novel in which Rambo was created, and the classic spy novel, The Brotherhood of the Rose, which was the basis for the only television mini-series to be broadcast after a Super Bowl. In his over forty years of writing experience David has received many well deserved awards and honors, including the Thriller Master award from the International Thriller Writers organization and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Bouchercon, the world’s largest convention of mystery and thriller enthusiasts. He holds a Ph.D. in American literature from Penn State and was a professor in the English department at the University of Iowa. He is truly a phenomenal teacher of writing and every time I hear him teach or speak on a subject, I learn something new and different. And today he’s here to talk with us about his latest novels, the Thomas De Quinc

Hey there word nerds! Today’s show is our last episode of 2018 so Happy New Year everybody! And this episode is an especially awesome one because it features three members of my awesome DIY MFA team. I am so excited to have DIY MFA columnists Melanie Marttila, Brenda Joyce Patterson, and Stacy Woodson on the show! I also want to take a moment to mention that these three amazing women are only a tiny sample of the awesome members of DIY MFA. We currently have 21 members on our team, from columnists who contribute articles to people who work their magic maintaining our archives and helping to curate all the voices we feature on our site. So a big thank you to all the members of the team for another awesome year! Now, let me introduce the three amazing ladies I’ll be chatting with in this interview. Melanie Marttila is a certified corporate trainer by day and fantasy writer by night. She writes the DIY MFA column Speculations, which is all about science fiction and fantasy. Her own works of scifi and fantasy hav

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of hosting Caroline Donahue on the show! Caroline is an American writer living in Berlin, and the host of The Secret Library Podcast (where I’ve had the good fortune of being a guest!). She is also the co-editor, with Dal Kular, of the essay anthology I Wrote it Anyway, which is all about writers overcoming obstacles in order to do the work they love. Proceeds from this anthology benefits Arts Emergency in the UK and 826 LA in the US. I happen to be a huge fan of 826, having volunteered for several years at the NYC branch, so when Caroline put out a call for submissions, I immediately raised my hand. Now listen in as Caroline and I chat about this amazing project, and do a deep dive into the process of crafting an anthology from beginning to end. In this episode Caroline and I discuss: A step-by-step process of putting an anthology together. The importance of choosing your editorial stance early on. How to handle the submission process. The biggest hurdles to l

Hey there word nerds! I have to admit that today I’m having a major fangirl moment because I’m interviewing Orson Scott Card on the show! Orson Scott Card is the author of the New York Times bestseller Ender’s Game and has won several Hugo and Nebula awards for his works of speculative fiction. In fact, his Ender novels are read widely by adults and young readers alike, and are increasingly used in schools. However his latest work of fiction, A Town Divided by Christmas, reads more like a Hallmark Christmas  movie than the science fiction and fantasy work he has become known for.  This novel is about a small, rural town divided by a decades-long feud over which newborn baby should be the baby Jesus in the Christmas pageant. But at its core is a Christmas time romance. So listen in as we chat about this awesome book, and how to craft a well told story for Christmas or any time of the year. In this episode Orson and I discuss: What makes a good Christmas story. Why writing within a formula can help you focus i

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Traci Lambrecht, of the mother-daughter writing team P.J. Tracy, perhaps most well-known for their Monkeewrench thriller series. Traci spent most of her childhood riding and showing horses, then graduated with a Russian Studies major from St. Olaf College in Minnesota. She then began writing in order to finance her propensity for travel and, much to her mother’s relief, found that writing was her true calling. Traci and her mother P.J. wrote several books together and had a long, prolific career as a team. Sadly, P.J. passed away in December 2016, but Traci continues to write and carry on this amazing legacy. So listen in as we chat about the newly released ninth volume in their Monkeewrench series, The Guilty Dead, and how to ratchet up suspense throughout a story to keep readers on the edge of their seats.   In this episode Traci and I discuss: Multiple protagonists vs. a single protagonist How to pull off a killer prologue. Creating vivid de

Hey there word nerds! Today I am pleased to have Kallie Falandays on the show! Kallie is a poet and the founder of Tell Tell Poetry, a poetry resource site and editing company that helps poets get published.   Her own poetry has appeared in numerous places such as Black Warrior Review and The Journal. She is also the author of the poetry collection Dovetail Down the House available now from Burnside Review Books. Listen in as Kallie and I chat about crafting a poetry collection that will keep readers flipping pages, and the specific of the poetry publishing process. In this episode Kallie and I discuss: Using titleless poems to immerse your readers in the heart of your collection. How to combine three different poetic formats in one book. Why there is no right or wrong way to read poetry. Characters and narrative arcs in poems. The specific details of publishing in the poetry world. Plus, Kallie’s #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: DIYMFA.com/228

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited—and I’ll admit I’m also having a bit of a fangirl moment—because I’m interviewing Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin, and Giovanni Rigano on the show! Together, they comprise the powerhouse team behind the heart-wrenching and powerful graphic novel Illegal. You probably already know Eoin Colfer as the bestselling author of the Artemis Fowl series (one of my favorite middle grade series of all time!). What you might not know about him is that before becoming a full-time writer he worked as a primary school teacher and he spent four years working in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Italy. Eoin’s co-author, Andrew Donkin, has written more than sixty books and graphic novels for children and adults, including collaborating with Eoin on the Artemis Fowl graphic novels. His books have been translated into thirty languages around the world and have sold more than eight million copies in the last decade. And the master behind the artwork of Illegal,Giovanni Rigano, is an Italian artist a

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so excited to have Camille Perri on the show! Camille is an author who has also worked in numerous book related fields. She has been a books editor for both Cosmopolitan and Esquire, a ghostwriter, and a reference librarian. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, The Assistants, was released in May of 2016 and was said to have captured the spirit of a generation: Millennials encumbered by student debt, struggling to rise through the ranks of their chosen careers, and completely fed up with the system. Camille’s newly released second novel, When Katie Met Cassidy, is a bit of a divergence from her first, but still holds the same wry humor and discerning eye she has become known for. This time she turns those talents to questions of gender, representation, and sexuality in an exhilarating romantic comedy with a twist: A “girl meets girl” love story between two very different women. So listen in as Camille and I chat about this awesome book, and how writing a fun read can be the g