#AmWriting

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit amwriting.substack.com Jess Lahey is the OG host of the #amwriting podcast and the author of The Gift of Failure and The Addiction Inoculation . She’s a teacher, a speaker, and a very accomplished journalist who writes for The Atlantic, The Washington Post and other media outlets. Now she’s writing a novel. Jess has been working on this...

I want to take you inside my favorite yoga studio in Santa Barbara. It’s called Yoga Soup, and it’s a giant, grounding mix of movement, actual nutrient-dense soup in a crockpot, fresh fruit from local trees, and community. My husband Rob and I practice there a few times a week, and one of our favorite instructors—who is also a middle school English teacher—starts every class by reading a poem. She...

You’ll get a regular Write Big episode tomorrow! Hi! As you may know, after ten years of #amwriting, KJ, Jess and Sarina are moving on to other endeavors and have handed the reins of the podcast to me. I’m honored—and very excited—to carry it forward. For the past nine months, I’ve been trying things, listening to what resonates with you, and weighing my own energy and my options for what #amwriti...

Have you ever looked at a project you’ve poured years of your life into and realized… it’s fine? Not catastrophic. Not terrible. Just fine . No one wants to read a book that’s fine — and I am certain you don’t want to write one. The first step in making sure you do better than fine is to catch yourself when you know you’ve hit a wall — which is way easier said than done. We get so used to plowing...

Paid subscribers can join us in the chat to respond to this invitation! #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. If you haven’t caught episode 523 yet to hear me and Dr. Diana Hill talk about juggling all the things, you can catch up below. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other...

On the #amwriting podcast’s Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Dr. Diana Hill, author of Wise Effort, about how writers handle mishaps and self-talk when juggling book-related obligations. Hill describes accidentally booking two plane tickets to a Washington, DC conference, prompting a discussion about shifting the story from “I’m disorganized” to one of abundance and opportunity. Hill intr...

Paid subscribers can join us in the chat to respond to this invitation! #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. If you haven’t caught episode 522 yet to hear me and Stuart Wakefield talk about his marketing efforts for his latest book, you can catch up below. This is a public episode. If you'd like to disc...

In this Margin Notes episode of the #amwriting podcast, host Jennie Nash talks with book coach and author Stuart Wakefield about approaching marketing as a creative project by making joyful “artifacts” that expand a story world rather than simply asking readers to buy a book. Wakefield shares his creative background, a past period when his creative practice stopped, and how he now immerses himself...

Jennie filmed this quick video message for everyone about today’s episode! Paid subscribers, come into the chat to respond! (Not a paid subscriber yet? That’s okay! You can become one today!) #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscrib...

Host Jennie Nash talks with novelist and journalist Caroline Madden about why writers crave traditional publishing deals and how that desire can become an unhealthy obsession tied to external validation and “pick me” energy. Madden recounts a 20-year path to publication, including losing two agents and dying on submission, then changing her writing through Lisa Cron’s Story Genius, Nash’s Blueprin...

In this episode of #amwriting, Jennie continues this series of “Write Big” episodes in which she vulnerably shares her own process of turning the Write Big concepts into a book, thanking listeners and inviting them to become paid subscribers. In this tough installment, recorded after a Zoom call with her agent while sick, she explains they are ending submission after sending the proposal to 30 pub...

In a bonus #amwriting podcast episode, host Jennie Nash talks with academic writing coach Kathy Mazak of Scholar’s Voice (and host of Academic Writing Amplified) about how writers keep going after completing a blueprint and finish what they start. Mazak explains her mission-based work helping academics—especially women and non-binary scholars—publish their research by aligning time management and...

Jennie Nash introduces an upcoming series of Write Big episodes that share her vulnerable, behind-the-scenes process of turning Write Big concepts into a Write Big book, thanking listeners and inviting paid subscriptions. In this episode, she revisits her “don’t wait to be picked” stance while confronting her own feelings as her book submission process stretches seven or eight months with rejectio...

Jennie Nash hosts a #amwriting podcast BookLab with guest Kathleen Barber, author of Truth Be Told and newly released Sisterhood Above All (co-written with Amayah Shaienne), and discusses Barber’s range across thrillers and romance, her character-first approach, and how RushTok inspired an authentic sorority-rush thriller featuring Madison, Shay, and Ava as tensions escalate and someone dies. They...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit amwriting.substack.com Jennie Nash hosts a hot seat coaching episode with #amwriting producer Andrew Perrella, who shares a 5,000-word draft of his Gothic vampire novel to be offered to paid subscribers. Jennie praises the draft as unusually strong and “authoritative,” then coaches Andrew on higher-level editorial concerns: pacing, dens...

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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit amwriting.substack.com I knew we’d get a huge response to our callout for first page submissions for a BookLab with Jo Piazza and I was right. I zipped through the google doc, skimming (there is a particular art to choosing the right submissions without ruining the freshness for me when I read and respond) and I did brilliantly, if I do...

On the #amwriting podcast’s Margin Notes, host Jennie Nash talks with Caroline Bicks, Stephen E. King Chair in Literature at the University of Maine and co-host of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast, about her book Monsters in the Archives: A Year of Fear with Stephen King. Bicks describes how she became the first invited into King’s Bangor archives after King called to meet her, and how her sabbati...

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

Join the Blueprint Summer Challenge Starting a book? Stuck in a draft? Planning a revision? The Blueprint Summer Challenge is designed to help you make meaningful progress on your manuscript this summer. Over six weeks, beginning July 10, you’ll use the Blueprint—a proven framework for developing stronger books with greater clarity, purpose, and reader impact—to move your project forward, wherever...

Jennie Nash interviews author Meghan P. Browne about her journey from picture-book nonfiction to selling her first middle-grade novel, after participating in the 2022 Blueprint Challenge. Browne began the project in 2019, drafted it during her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts, then used the Blueprint framework to “reverse engineer” the manuscript and discover it lacked plot; the inside outline...

Jennie Nash introduces a hot seat coaching episode where Author Accelerator coaches Stuart and Margaret work through Margaret’s new Blueprint for a historical novel set in Florence in the 1400s. Stuart helps Margaret pressure-test the story engine by differentiating two opposing forces—an Alchemist experimenting with mercury-based syphilis treatments and Savonarola (whom Stuart nicknames “Rolly”),...

In a hot seat coaching session on the #amwriting podcast, Jennie Nash coaches Brenna Humphries on a nonfiction proposal for Where It Hurts: A Couple’s Guide to Kicking Prostate Cancer, noting a disconnect between the proposal’s tone/claims and the sample chapters. They discuss how “salesy” positioning and language that can read as antagonistic toward the medical system may create legal and traditi...

On the #amwriting podcast’s “Margin Notes,” Jennie Nash talks with Dr. Diana Hill (author of Wise Effort) about how the urge to prove yourself—through resumes, accolades, or “pre-order my book” pleas—undermines authenticity and connection, especially when pitching ideas, proposals, or personal brands. Hill describes confronting this while rebranding her website and shifting from listing credential...

Jennie Nash returns to a #amwriting hot seat with novelist Andrew Perella. Building on prior guidance from ThrillerFest’s Samantha Skal, they refine Andrew’s thriller outline—especially antagonist Seward’s motivation, escalating twists, and clue/red-herring sophistication—while acknowledging outline fatigue and treating it as a living document updated alongside drafted scenes. Andrew adds a new op...