Lit Service

Samantha Hastings joins the Lit Service Crew to talk about how to approach writing a historical romance. Samantha is the author of The Last Word, The Invention of Sophie Carter (which is available for pre-order now! It will be available July 14) which is a Jr. Library Guild Selection. Her next book A Royal Christmas Quandary will arrive October 6, 2020.

Caitlin, Cameron, Aliah, and Kristen chat with Bridget Howard about building a social media platform. Bridget owns the bookstagram account @darkfaerietales_ which has over 116,000 followers. She is also part owner of Storygram Tours, a Bookstagram Tour company that has run over a thousand successful instagram tours. She works closely with publishers like Harper, Little Brown, Disney, Macmillan, Sc...

The Lit Service crew chats with the Lady Janies (Jodi Meadows, Cynthia Hand, and Brodi Ashton, NYT bestselling authors of My Lady Jane, My Plain Jane, and My Calamity Jane) about how to collaborate on a project. 

Literary agent DongWon Song joins the Lit Service crew to chat about what authors can do to get an agent's attention and why some stories work and some don't. DongWon Song is an agent at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency representing science fiction and fantasy for adults, young adult, and middle grade readers as well as select non-fiction. He was formerly an editor at Orbit and a product manager for...

Lauren Spieller joins the Lit Service Crew to chat about the differences in tension in stakes between grounded, realistic, contemporary novels vs genre fiction.  Lauren is an agent at TriadaUSA, and the author of She's the Worst and Your Destination is on the Left. If you'd like a first chapter critique from the podcast, be sure to check out our guest schedule and submission guidelines on our webs...

Marissa Meyer joins the Lit Service crew to chat about how to make different points of view in a story sound distinct, how to best utilize your different points of view, and how to avoid common pitfalls that go with having more than one point of view character.   Marissa Meyer is the NYT bestselling author of The Lunar Chronicles, Heartless, and the Renegades series.    If you would like to see th...

Kiersten White joins the Lit Service crew to chat about how to help readers identify with and root for characters who aren't exactly shiny white souls. Kiersten is the New York Times bestselling author of the And I Darken trilogy, the Paranormalcy trilogy, Beanstalker and Other Hilarious Scarytales, The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, Slayer, and many other novels.

Join Lit Service for their first socially distanced--wait no, we're almost always socially distanced--episode about how to write good dialogue. Ben Grange is an agent at the L. Perkins literary agency.

The Lit Service crew chats with Misa Sugiura about creating flawed characters, why we like flawed characters, and how flaws can drive a story. Misa Sugiura is the author of the award-winning It's Not Like It's A Secret (2017) and This Time Will Be Different (2019) Our next two guests will be Kiersten White and Marie Rutkoski. If you'd like a first chapter critique from the either of these NYT best...

The Lit Service crew chats with Katherine Arden (NYT Bestselling author of The Winternight Trilogy: The Bear and the Nightingale, The Girl in the Tower, and The Winter of the Witch as well as the two middle grade horror books Small Spaces and Dead Voices) about how to create layers of tension in your story in order to keep it from feeling flat. Sorry about the beeps. We were recording in a new spa...

The Lit Service Crew chats with middle grade author Tae Keller about how to approach writing from a child's perspective and what we owe to the audience for whom we're writing. Tae Keller is the author of The Science of Breakable Things and When You Trap a Tiger. She grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she danced hula and subsisted on kimchi and spam musubis. Now, she writes about biracial girls try...

Rebecca Ross joins the Lit Service crew to chat about layering characters (like onions! Imagine the Scottish accent) and how that relates to plot. Rebecca is the author of The Queen's Rising, The Queen's Resistance, and the forthcoming Sisters of Sword and Song.

Online pitching and mentorship contests can be kind of confusing. Sarah Nicolas breaks down Pitch Wars for us. Sarah Nicolas is a recovering mechanical engineer, library event planner, and author who lives in Orlando with a 60-lb mutt who thinks he’s a chihuahua. Sarah writes YA novels as Sarah Nicolas and romance under the name  Aria Kane . Sarah has published both traditionally and independently...

The Lit Service Crew chats with Emily Duncan about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the Mandalorian. Spoilers abound (though not so much on the Mandalorian front!) so be forewarned.

The Lit Service crew chats with NYT Bestseller Emily Duncan about how she approaches researching high fantasy. Emily A. Duncan is the New York Times bestselling author of Wicked Saints. She was born and raised in Ohio and works as a youth services librarian. She received a Master’s degree in library science from Kent State University, which mostly taught her how to find obscure Slavic folklore tex...

Due to a recording snafu, we are posting a bonus episode early! Tony Daniel, who is a senior editor at Baen publishing, chatted with the podcasters about some things that go on behind the scenes when it comes to books being acquired and published. The chapter we critiqued with Rebecca Ross is available on our website with all our notes.

Caitlin, Cameron, and Kristen talk in depth about how inciting incidents relate to character and how people accidentally mess them up.

The Lit Service Crew chats with Tony Daniel about how to approach building a character and how that interacts with setting. Tony Daniel is a senior editor at Baen Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster. He is also an award-winning author (a few of his titles: Guardian of Night, Metaplanetary, Superluminal, Earthling, Warpath, and the two Star Trek Original Series novels, Devil’s Bargain and Savag...

Cameron, Kristen, Aliah, and Caitlin chat about POV usage and how to best make your choices fit the kind of story you want to tell.

Another in our series of query letters that succeeded (and then went on to become published books) Enjoy Kate Watson (author of Seeking Mansfield) reading the query that landed her an agent, and then some questions we answered at Salt Lake ComicCon/FanX this last September.

Ben Grange, agent at the L. Perkins agency, joins the Lit Service crew to talk about what "high concept" means, why everyone talks about high concept books, and why it's important to be able to put together a high concept-ish pitch for your book even if it isn't a high concept story.

Caitlin, Cameron, and Aliah discuss with Jodi Meadows why books need themes, where themes come from, and how to make the ones that creep up on you seem intentional. Jodi Meadows wants to be a ferret when she grows up and she has no self-control when it comes to yarn, ink, or outer space. Still, she manages to write books. She is the author of the INCARNATE Trilogy, the ORPHAN QUEEN Duology, and th...

The Lit Service Crew chats with Susan R. Matthews about seeking out in person experiences that inform the sensory detail, blocking, and the plausibility of your planned plot. Extra points that in person experience gives you the heebie jeebies. Special welcome to our guest Susan R. Matthews, whose debut novel An Exchange of Hostages was nominated for the 1997 P hilip K. Dick Award and for the 1998...

The Lit Service crew recorded live at FanX Salt Lake City ComiCon with Sara B. Larson and Kathryn Purdie. Sara B. Larson is the author of the acclaimed YA fantasy DEFY trilogy (DEFY, IGNITE, and ENDURE) and the DARK BREAKS THE DAWN duology (DARK BREAKS THE DAWN and BRIGHT BURNS THE NIGHT). She can’t remember a time when she didn’t write books—although she now uses a computer instead of a Little Me...