Diy Mfa Radio

Hey there word nerds! Today I’m pleased to have Katherine Neville on the show. Katherine’s colorful, swashbuckling adventure novels, in the epic “Quest” tradition, have graced the bestseller lists in forty languages. In fact, her works—including The Eight which we discuss in the interview—have “paved the way” for books like the The Da Vinci Code and others in that genre. In our interview, Katherine and I dive into her book The Eight and the craft elements she used in writing the expansive quest novel. This episode is brought to you buy our amazing word nerd fans and supporters on Patreon. If you’d like to help support this show, hop over to patreon.com/DIYMFA.   Embed Episode Here In this episode Katherine and I discuss: How influences as varied as The Odyssey, the French Revolution, and chess inspired The Eight’s intricate plot and kept readers turning pages. What defines a quest novel, and how Katherine adapted this structure in her writing. Katherine’s unexpected strategy for introducing the main protagon

Hey there word nerds! This episode is brought to you buy our amazing word nerd fans and supporters on Patreon. If you’d like to help support this show, hop over to patreon.com/DIYMFA Today I’m thrilled to have Herb Freed on the show. Herb started his adult life as an ordained rabbi and became the spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Lake Mahopac, New York, at the same time producing and directing three shows at the Maidman Playhouse in New York City. Eventually, he resigned his pulpit to become a movie director. Today we’ll be speaking about his book Bashert, which is out now.   In this episode Herb and I discuss: When you’re writing based on true events, which elements do you change for the book? Which things do you keep the same? What are some of the considerations that drive these choices? Why tell a story as a novel instead of a memoir, if it’s based on true events? What do you need to consider when you are deciding between telling the absolute truth versus the conceptual Truth? Write about things y

Hey there word nerds! Today I’m pleased to have K.J. Howe on the show. K.J. is the executive director of Thrillerfest, the annual conference of International Thriller Writers. This is one of my favorite genre conferences and I look forward to it every year. Today I'm talking to Daphne du Maurier Award winner, K.J. Howe about her debut thriller, The Freedom Broker and how to craft a strong female lead in this genre. We also talk about why it's important to give even the most heroic characters a flaw or personal obstacle and for the first time ever on this show, I share a behind-the-scenes look at a personal obstacle I have in my own life. This was such an honest and deep conversation and I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed interviewing K.J. Howe. In this episode K.J. and I discuss: Some of the challenges of writing a strong female character. How do you walk that line between over-masculinizing her or making her seem like a “token” character in a male-dominated world? Giving your characters l

Hey there word nerds! Today we’ll be doing something a little bit different on the show. I am so delighted to welcome Kathleen Audet. Kathleen is a brilliant image consultant and is president and owner of Your Authentic Image. She is also a good friend and someone who has helped me turn my own mindset about clothing and image upside down (in a good way). Today we’ll be talking about how to use components of image to make your characters come to life and also help you shift your own mindset and attitude.   In this episode Kathleen and I discuss: Why is what we wear important? If we’re just hiding in our writing cave, why does it matter what we wear? The work you do around choosing your four words, how to do that, and what to do with those words once we have them. Using paint chips to represent different characters. Interestingly enough when you put characters of opposite sides of the color wheel in same scene, that’s usually when tension and conflict happens. Designing your characters visually. Think about wh

Hey there word nerds! Today I am excited to interview author and creative writing professor, Susan Perabo. Susan is the author of two short story collections and the novel, The Broken Places. Her fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, and New Stories from the South, and has appeared in numerous magazines, including One Story, Glimmer Train, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, and The Sun. She is a writer-in-residence and professor at Dickinson College, and her new book, The Fall of Lisa Bellow, is out now. In this episode Susan and I discuss: How we get to know characters through little glimpses of their lives (in writing workshop terms, we get a lot of “showing” rather than “telling”). We dive into one of those moments in Susan’s process and unpack how writers can give readers a full perspective of the characters by showing them in a scene. Why it is important for writers to be able to write short form as well as book-length fiction. We also discuss some of t

Hey there word nerds! Today I’m absolutely thrilled to introduce you to Jessica Strawser, the editorial director of Writer’s Digest magazine, and author of the stunning debut novel Almost Missed You. As editor of Writer’s Digest magazine, she has interviewed luminaries like David Sedaris and Alice Walker and her debut novel—released yesterday from St. Martin’s Press—has already garnered early accolades from a humbling list of bestselling authors like, Garth Stein, Adriana Trigiani, and Jacquelyn Mitchard. Her second novel is slated for release in Spring 2018. In this episode Jessica and I discuss: Strategies for setting up your first chapter. Jessica and I unpack ways to craft your first chapter for maximum effect. Shifting POV between multiple main characters. Picking which elements of the characters’ stories you want to show, and which you want to keep hidden. Tapping your personal perspective, emotions, and experiences to help illustrate character experiences in your novel. Balancing work, writing, and fa

Hey there word nerds! Today I am excited to interview Dan Blank, founder of WeGrowMedia and author of the new book Be The Gateway that just came out a few weeks ago. Dan helps writers and creative professionals share their stories and grow their audience. He has worked with hundreds of individuals and some amazing organizations who support creative people, such as Random House, Hachette Book Group, Sesame Workshop, Workman Publishing, J. Walter Thompson, Abrams Books, Writers House, The Kenyon Review, Writer’s Digest, Library Journal, And more. His work has been featured by Poets & Writers magazine, The National Endowment for the Arts, Professional Artist magazine, Compose Journal, and 99u. To read the post titled “Be the Gateway” where Dan first talked about the gateway idea, click here. Embed Episode Here In this episode Dan and I discuss: Sometimes setting limits helps you make something big out of something small. We talk about the ups and downs of writing this book and how Dan landed on this particu

Hey there word nerds! Today I’m delighted to interview journalist and statistician, Ben Blatt, about his new book Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve. Ben is a former staff writer for Slate and The Harvard Lampoon who has taken his fun approach to data journalism to topics such as Seinfeld, mapmaking, The Beatles, and Jeopardy! His previous book, co-written with Eric Brewster, is I Don't Care if We Never Get Back, which follows the duo’s quest to go on the mathematically optimal baseball road trip, traveling 20,000 miles to a game in all thirty ballparks in thirty days without planes. Blatt’s work has also been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and Deadspin. In his latest book, Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve, he offers a playful and informative look at what numbers have to say about our favorite authors and a wide range of books, from bestsellers and classics to guilty pleasures. He sets up a slew of original analytical experiments and uses big data to answer some of our most persistent q

Hey there word nerds! Today I am thrilled (pun intended) to have award-winning and bestselling author, Clare Mackintosh on the show. Clare spent twelve years in the Thames Valley Police Department, during which time she worked on criminal investigations. After leaving the police force in 2011, she worked as a freelance journalist and social media consultant before writing her bestselling debut novel I Let You Go. She is the winner of two major international Crime Awards and for one of them, she even beat out J.K. Rowling’s pseudonym Robert Galbraith to win. She is the Director of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival and lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, a police officer, and their three children. In this episode Clare and I discuss: Balancing work and life and knowing how to give your best where it’s needed most. How work and life can influence your writing, both in terms of the topics you write about and the detail you give to certain aspects of the story. And some not-so-obvious ways that your expe

Hey there word nerds! Today I’m interviewing Dale Wiley, author and Missouri attorney, who has some fascinating credits to his name. For starters, he has had a character named after him on CSI, owned a record label, been interviewed by Bob Edwards on NPR's Morning Edition and made alternative fuel motorcycles for Merle Haggard and John Paul DeJoria. He is also one of the few people to who have met Ronald Reagan and Flavor Flav. Dale has three awesome kids and spends his days working as a lawyer fighting the big banks. He has als0 written three novels and is currently developing two original scripted projects for TV: the gritty drama, The East Side with Andréa Vasilo; and the sitcom, Confessions of a Bunny Smuggler, with Fayr Barkley. In this episode we discuss: The subgenre of metafiction, how it works to tell a story, and how it might not work, as well. Writers writing about writing for writers. Finding ideas and inspiration from the fact that the elements of story are, in fact, universal. Plus, their #1 t

Hey there word nerds! Today’s interview features Brian Meehl, author of four novels that have garnered several awards and starred book reviews: Out of Patience, Suck It Up, Suck It Up and Die, and You Don’t Know About Me. His latest genre-bending novel, Blowback ‘07, transports readers back to 19077, a time when legendary coach Pop Warner, future Olympian Jim Thorpe, and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School’s team the “Redmen” revolutionized America’s most popular sport—football. In a former incarnation, Brian was a puppeteer on “Sesame Street” and in Jim Henson films, including The Dark Crystal and he also wrote for television shows like “The Magic School Bus” and “Between the Lions,” for which he won three Emmys. He lives in Connecticut and is currently working on Blowback ’63 and Blowback ’94, the second and third installments of the Blowback trilogy. In this episode Brian and I discuss: Using history to inspire and inform your writing, and the wealth of ideas that come from true events that have come fr

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Sally Parry, the Executive Director of the Sinclair Lewis Society. She earned her PhD in American Literature (as well as 19th Century British Fiction and Medieval Literature) from Fordham University in NYC and wrote her dissertation on Sinclair Lewis (Sinclair Lewis: The Darkening Vision of His Later Novels). She is currently the Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Student Affairs at Illinois State University. In this interview, we’re going to talk about Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here. Originally published in 1935 as a response to the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe, It Can’t Happen Here has renewed relevance in the wake of Donald Trump’s campaign and election. In fact, sales numbers for this title have gone through the roof, with mass market sales up 2,611% over last year, and eBook sales have jumped 1,528%. Not only that, this book has gotten a lot of buzz in the media in the past year, and this momentum doesn’t app

  Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of interview award-winning author Sebastian Barry, about his latest book Days Without End. Sebastian Barry is the author of seven novels, including A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture (now a major motion picture starring Rooney Mara and Vanessa Redgrave). He has won the Costa Book of the Year Award, the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year Award, and the Walter Scott Prize. His work has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. He lives in Ireland. Days Without End is a historical novel set during the Indian Wars in the American west, and the Civil War, about two young men who are brothers in arms and also lovers. It’s a story where the gay relationship is the only consistently joyful thing against the otherwise bleak background of war, genocide and the American empire.   In this episode we discuss: Recognizing how your real life becomes infused in your best writing. Shaking off the self-consciousness of writing. Being aware of what’s not

  Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Shanthi Sekaran, author of the new novel Lucky Boy, a book that has been getting a lot of pre-publication buzz and is an Indie Next Great Read pick for January 2017.   In this episode Shanthi and I discuss: The importance of fiction in humanizing different groups of people by bringing them and their experiences to life on the page. Using both research and imagination to create a vivid experience for your readers, and in particular how she crafted the dramatic immigration scenes in her book. Connection to the point of view of the characters and how to capture their experiences and emotions with authenticity. Crafting her book around the theme of motherhood, and how “mother” can mean very different things to different people. The universality of the “immigrant experience” in America, and how there are many common threads between immigrants from wildly different experiences. How there are also stark differences between immigrants with different l

  Hey there word nerds! Today, I’ll be sharing a recap of all the exciting things I discovered at Digital Book World (or DBW) last week. 2017 marks the eighth year of this industry-focused event, with a shift toward solution-focused strategies paired with insightful in-depth programming. This year was also the the first time DBW has run a segment of the conference exclusively for indie authors. While this event is intended for the members of the publishing community—it truly is an industry event—there are a lot of things author can learn from DBW in order to thrive in today’s evolving landscape. And this doesn’t mean you need to be an indie author; even if writers planning to go the traditional route, there were a lot of important takeaways I got from digital book world this year. Three Main Themes at DBW While I heard a lot of fascinating statistics and gained so many new insights into publishing, there were three main themes that rose to the top.   Innovation: Cool new stuff that both publishers and author

  Hey there word nerds! Today’s DIY MFA Radio guest has a fantastic double life. Author Frédérique Molay began her career in politics and administration as chief of staff for a commission of the French National Assembly. She then worked for local government in Burgundy, ran in the European elections, and was elected in Saône-et-Loire. She also writes crime novels and won France's prestigious crime fiction award the Prix du Quai des Orfèvres for The 7th Woman, which went on to become an international bestseller. We had our conversation through a translator, a different format than you’re used to from DIY MFA Radio, but I hope you’ll stick with it. Molay has some brilliant insights about writing and I’m so excited to share our interview. In this episode we discuss: Publishing foreign titles in the United States with Le French Book Vulnerability and idealism in writing Work life - family life - writing life balance. Plus, their #1 tip for writers. About the Author Writing has always been a passion for Frédériq

Hey there word nerds! Today I’m thrilled to welcome Manjula Martin on the show. Manjula is editor of Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living from Simon & Schuster. She’s the creator of the blog Who Pays Writers? And was the founder and editor of Scratch magazine, an online periodical focused on the business of being a writer. Her work has appeared in various publications like the Virginia Quarterly Review, Pacific Standard, SF Weekly, The Billfold, and The Toast, plus, she is the managing editor of Zoetrope: All-Story. Today, Manjula and I will be talking about writers and money, how to make ends meet, and generate revenue from your writing. In this episode we discuss: Why it’s so difficult—but so important—for writers to talk about money. Also why it doesn’t have to be difficult. Different options and strategies for how writers can make a living beyond a book deal. The pros and cons of working for free, and the broader implications this has on the publishing landscape. Knowing your stren

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to someone who has been instrumental in helping me up my speaking game. Whether you’ve been hearing me speak on this podcast or have seen me speak on stage, this person has had a tremendous impact in helping me become the speaker that I am. This person is Alexia Vernon. Alexia has been branded a “Moxie Maven” by the White House Office of Public Engagement because of her unique and effective approach to developing female leaders, for a decade she has been a go-to speaking coach to CEOs, New York Times bestselling authors, media personalities, and scores of visionary entrepreneurs and change-makers who are ready to go from best-kept secrets to hotshot, transformational speakers.   Her unique background as a former Miss Junior America, public speaker, professor, actor, dancer, TEDx organizer, and corporate trainer has enabled Alexia to speak on stages such as the United Nations during the Commission on the Status of Women, INBOUND, and the Associ

  Hey there word nerds! Thanks for being here with me today. I’m so excited to share this interview with you. It’s a little bit different from what I usually do. Instead of being the one hosting the interview, in this episode I’m sharing an interview that I gave for my friend Joanna Penn on The Creative Penn Podcast. You might remember Joanna from episode 106 when she came on DIY MFA Radio and I got to interview her! She is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers under J.F.Penn and also writes nonfiction for authors. She’s also a professional speaker and award-winning entrepreneur. Her site, TheCreativePenn.com, is regularly voted one of the Top 10 sites for writers. She is a self-publishing superstar and I’m thrilled that she had me on her show. Embed Episode Here In this episode Joanna interviews me about: How I started DIY MFA, where I got that first glimmer of the idea, and how I built it into what you see today. The writer’s need for validation and why that “stamp of approval” nee

Hey there word nerds! Thanks for joining me for DIY MFA Radio! I’m especially excited for this episode because today I get to interview agent Mitch Hoffman. I first met Mitch at ThrillerFest earlier this year, where I heard him speak on a panel and later got a chance to talk further at one of those conference mix-and-mingle shindigs. Right away, I knew Mitch was someone I wanted to bring on the show, not only because of his unique background both as a former editor at a major publisher and now as an agent, but also because of his measured, thoughtful approach toward publishing. Given how much has changed (and continues to change) in our industry, I wanted my word nerds to hear from someone who has been on both sides of the agent-editor realm, and also who’s been in the industry long enough to know where the book business has been, where it is now, and where it could be going. And from getting a chance to chat with him for a bit at ThrillerFest, I happen to know that he’s a pretty cool guy to talk to. Mitch jo