First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer has been writing and sharing a poem a day since 2006—a practice that especially nourished her after the death of her teenage son in 2021. Her daily poems can be found on her blog, A Hundred Falling Veils, or a curated version (with optional prompts) on her daily audio series, The Poetic Path, available with the Ritual app. Her poetry collection Hush won the Halcyon Prize....

Alan Shapiro was born in Boston, Massachusetts and graduated from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Shapiro has published fourteen poetry collections, including A Dress Rehearsal for the Truth; By and By; Life Pig; Reel to Reel; Night of the Republic, a finalist for the 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize and the National Book Award; and Old War, winner of the Ambassador Book Award.  Learn more...

David Wroblewski is the author, most recently, of the novel Familiaris, his followup to the internationally bestselling The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle, an Oprah Book Club pick, Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, winner of the Colorado Book Award, Indie Choice Best Author Discovery award, and Midwest Bookseller Association's Choice award, in addition to being selected as one of the...

Paolo Bacigalupi is an internationally bestselling author of speculative fiction. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, John W. Campbell and Locus Awards, as well as being a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. Paolo’s work often focuses on questions of sustainability and the environment, most notably the i...

This episode on literary friendship with Claire Messud and Amitava Kumar was recorded live at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado at the June 2024 Lit Fest. Learn more about Lighthouse. Claire Messud is the author of six works of fiction. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her essay co...

Boyce Upholt is a journalist and essayist whose writing has appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic, the Oxford American, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among other publications. He is the winner of a James Beard Award for investigative journalism, and he lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.  His book is called The Great River: The Making & Unmaking of the Mississippi. Learn more about your ad c...

Kevin Barry is the author of the novels Night Boat to Tangier, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, Beatlebone, and City of Bohane as well as three story collections including Dark Lies the Island. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter lives in County Sligo, Ireland.  His new novel is The Heart in Winter....

Amina Gautier is the author of four short story collections: At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy, The Loss of All Lost Things, and The Best that You Can Do. Gautier is the recipient of the Blackwell Prize, the Chicago Public Library Foundation’s 21st Century Award, the International Latino Book Award, the Flannery O’Connor Award, and the Phillis Wheatley Book Award in Fiction. Learn more about your ad c...

Kiley Reid is the author of Come and Get It and Such A Fun Age, which was a New York Times Best Seller and longlisted for the 2020 Booker Price. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, The Guardian, and others. Reid is currently an assistant professor at the University of Michigan. We talked about religion and fiction, philosophy, acting, Buddhism, ma...

Simon Rich has written for “Saturday Night Live,” Pixar and “The Simpsons.” He is the creator and showrunner of “Man Seeking Woman” (FXX) and “Miracle Workers” which he based on his books. His other collections include Spoiled Brats and Ant Farm. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.  His new story collection is Glory Days. We talked about Ray Bradbury, the similarities between humor and...

This is a selection for the Best of 2024 of First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing. Julia Alvarez has written novels including How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, ¡Yo!, In the Name of Salomé, Saving the World, Afterlife, collections of poems including Homecoming, The Other Side/ El Otro Lado, The Woman I Kept to Myself, nonfiction works including Something to Decla...

Anna Noyes's debut novel is The Blue Maiden and was a New York Times Editors' Choice, with starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Forward. Her short story collection, Goodnight, Beautiful Women, was a finalist for the Story Prize and the New England Book Award, as well as a New York Times Editors' Choice. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She lives in New York, on Fishers Islan...

Elizabeth Rosner is a bestselling novelist, poet, and essayist. Her works include Survivor Café: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award, and the novel Electric City, named a best book by NPR. Rosner's essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Elle, and numerous anthologies. She lives in Berkeley, California.  Her new book is Third...

Maggie Smith is the author of the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change, as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, winner of the 2012 Dorset Prize and the 2016 Independent Publisher Book...

Edward Hirsch is a celebrated poet and peerless advocate for poetry. Edward Hirsch’s first collection of poems, For the Sleepwalkers received the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University and the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets. His second collection, Wild Gratitude, won the National Book Critics Award. Since then, he has published eight additional poetr...

Megan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith, her debut collection.  Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, Lit Hub and elsewhere. She has won the Anne Halley Prize from the Massachusetts Review and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers, as well as scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative...

Tracy O'Neill is the author of the memoir Woman of Interest. Her novels include The Hopeful, one of Electric Literature's Best Novels of 2015; and Quotients, a New York Times​ New & Noteworthy Book, TOR Editor's Choice, & Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2020.  In 2015, she was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. In 2012, s...

Charles Baxter is the author of the novels The Feast of Love, nominated for the National Book Award, First Light, Saul and Patsy, Shadow Play, The Soul Thief, and The Sun Collective, and the story collections Believers, Gryphon, Harmony of the World, A Relative Stranger, There’s Something I Want You to Do, and Through the Safety Net. His stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The...

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, Everything Inside, a Reese’s Book Club selection and National Book Critics Circle Awards winner. She is also the editor of...

Elizabeth Strout is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lucy by the Sea; Oh William!, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Olive, Again; Anything Is Possible, winner of the Story Prize; My Name Is Lucy Barton; The Burgess Boys; Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction a...

Richard Powers is the author of fourteen novels, including Bewilderment, The Overstory, and Orfeo.  He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award.  He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. His new novel is called Playground. We talked about the ocean, plot and games, the structure of Playground, beguiling endings, water, play, the gam...

Dr. Alan Townsend is a scientist, author and Dean of the Franke College of Forestry & Conservation at the University of Montana. His writing has appeared in multiple national venues, including The Washington Post and Scientific American. Alan's nonfiction book is called This Ordinary Stardust.  He is a highly cited author of more than 140 peer reviewed articles, and received his bachelor’s degree...

Natalie Goldberg is the author of fifteen books, including Writing Down the Bones, which has sold over one million copies and has been translated into fourteen languages.  She co-edited a collection of talks by revered zen teacher Katherine Thanas, The Truth of This Life.  Her new book is Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice.   We talked about writer’s block versus losing the regular ro...

Lorrie Moore is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, as well as the PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award for her achievement in the short story. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessica Shattuck is The New York Times Bestselling author of the novels Last House, The Women in the Castle, a New York Times Bestseller, #1 Indie Next Pick, and winner of The New England Book Award; Perfect Life, and The Hazards of Good Breeding, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a Boston Globe Editor’s Choice Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the 2003 PEN/Winship Award. Her fictio...