#AmWriting

This week, Jess got a message from some family members who’d read the draft of her forthcoming book, The Addiction Innoculation. They had … thoughts. Those thoughts turned out to be nothing drastic—but the emotional roller coaster Jess rode while waiting to hear more was a doozy, and got us all thinking about how much of ourselves is exposed when we write non-fiction with a memoir element, how rea...

Kari Lizer is best known for her work in television, as writer and co-executive producer of Will & Grace and the creator of The New Adventures of Old Christine . When her essays about parenting took the shape of a book, she found that her real life provided more than enough material for a comedic memoir. Aren’t You Forgetting Someone? has it all - chickens, Kate Middleton’s bangs, psychics, and th...

We have trouble believing you haven’t already heard of our guest this week, Susan Wiggs, but just in case—she’s the author of many many novels, a multiple #1 New York Times bestseller and an overall amazing storyteller. Her current novel, The Lost and Found Bookshop , is on sale now and her most recent bestseller, The Oysterville Sewing Circle , is just out in paperback. We talk crafting a story,...

This episode springs from a question asked in the #AmWriting Facebook group (if you’re not in it, you should be): Sarina has talked about her decision to be independently published, but we’ve never heard from Jess and KJ about why they go the traditional route. We discuss the three things you should think about when making the Indie/Traditional call, why you need to think hard about airport bookst...

You listen to podcasts. You love podcasts. (Perhaps we’re assuming here, but after all, we ARE a podcast.) And you’re a writer, with books or articles or ideas or other projects you want to get out into the world. Which just might mean you’ve imagined yourself as a guest on a podcast, sharing your work. (It’s the writer version of the sportscaster doing an imaginary play-by-play while a kid shoots...

This week we talk to Maria Konnikova about her new book, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win . After a series of devastating health and financial setbacks, Konnikova, a former New Yorker staffer whose other books include Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock and The Confidence Game: Why We Fall for It…Every Time set out to understand how luck, skill and human...

This week, the How to Launch a Book series continues with everyone’s favorite: book launching on social media. Twitter. Instagram. Canva . PicMonkey . Crello . Pinterest. Linked In. Head blowing up yet? We talk about planning your launch social media, how to use social media and image-creating apps to share and promote and why you shouldn’t feel one bit like you’re talking about your book too much...

Hey all—this week, a special mini episode on diversity in sources for non-fiction work, from light-hearted articles on favorite baby food flavors to seriously researched pieces for high-profile outlets. BIPOC, non-binary and women are outweighed by white men when it comes to who gets quoted in the news, whether the voice is adding an expert perspective or just a little local color. Here’s some hel...

Why stick to any one genre? Our guest this week is Catherine Newman: memoirist, middle grade novelist, etiquette columnist and now the author of How to Be a Person: 65 Highly Useful, Super-Important Things to Learn Before You’re Grown-Up . While she’s at it, she writes a cooking blog, co-authored a book on crafts for kids and edits ChopChop , a kids cooking magazine. And she pens frequent funny es...

When your book launches, you want to meet your readers where they are: anywhere people are talking about—or better yet, buying—books. Of course we want to support our local Indies (that’s why the links here are all to Bookshop.org )—but if there are readers on Amazon, we’re going to be there too. This week, we’re talking about how to get yourself set up on Amazon, Goodreads and Bookbub—and why you...

She might just have the perfect job. This week, Jess and I interview Abbe Wright, Senior Editor at ReadItForward.com and co-host of The Adaptables, a podcast that hashes over every detail of the movies and shows that are adapted from the books we love. Links from the pod : I wanted to break up. Then he got a tattoo of my name. Read It Forward Podcast The Adaptables The Longform Podcast Bookbento (...

Back in December 2019, we set #WriterGoals for 2020. We had no idea. This week, we go back in and revisit—which goals still stand? Which do we have to let go, and which just don’t feel right any more? Was there any point in setting these goals in the first place? In the end, we decide (not very cheerfully, it has to be admitted) that while our goals are necessarily changing, they’re always worth s...

Check out this Minisode where Jess discusses the mistakes she made writing her first book, and her new tricks to avoid making them again. Usually, Minisodes and Top Fives go out weekly to our supporters. But once in a while, we send one out to everyone—like this one. If you’d like more Minisodes (coming soon: Jess on Pitching Podcast Producers), or Top Fives like the Top Five Things to Know About...

Our guest today is Anne Bogel, most recently the author of Don’t Overthink It , which came out on March 3, 2020. Followers of this podcast who’ve taken my advice may have checked out her podcast, What Should I Read Next , where she talks books, reading and recommendations with guests—because I’m a huge fan. Anne is also the author of I’d Rather Be Reading and Reading People: How Seeing the World T...

This week, it’s Jess and I (KJ) talking to Olivia and Meghan from the Marginally podcast , which we love for its frank conversations about challenges and setbacks and day jobs and the struggle to keep your butt in the chair (sound familiar?). We talked about finding your writing people, the joys of keeping that day job, and the things that grow from grabbing a friend and starting the thing you wis...

Do mystery and thriller writers ever “pants” their stories? What’s it like to give a dark protagonist some elements of your own history? How much fun is it to fill a book with references to all of your favorite books ever? We cover those things and more with author Peter Swanson, whose new book, Eight Perfect Murders , is a hybrid of psychological thriller and who-dunnit that all three of us loved...

Hey #AmWriting Listeners. It’s April 13, 2020, and this episode, like the last, is a throwback to a simpler time, when we left our homes without masks and took baristas and lattes and a whole lot of other things for granted. So it may feel jarring that we’re not discussing the current situation, but at the time there was little to discuss—and we wouldn’t have, anyway, because our guests, Greer Hen...

Hey campers, KJ here. In this week’s episode, we talk to the brilliant Jessica Abel, a creativity coach extraordinaire, about how to get past whatever’s stopping you and develop a sustainable creative life. In so many ways, it’s a timely episode, and it WILL inspire you to get in there and get some work done. But it may also inspire you to wonder what planet we are living on, as we lightly discuss...

Hey writers—super-practical episode this week! Call it part two of the Sarina coaches KJ through her book launch series. This week, it’s the #MarketingMojo page—things you’ll need as you market your book no matter what the book is or when it launches. This is the road to creating things like back-of-the-book or flap copy, ad copy, social media post copy and more, for fiction and non-fiction both....

Feeling a wee bit stuck? Struggling to get anything on the page? Well, we all are—and not only does this week’s guest know from writer’s block (her last book came out in 2004), but she gave a raging case of it to her protagonist in her new novel, which allowed her—and us—to really dig in deep into what happens when the words don’t come. Join KJ and Sarina as we talk to Laura Zigman, author of Sepa...

Well, fellow writers, when we recorded this we were just at the beginning of it all. It’s safe to say things have already changed—all of us have families at home, we’re all shut down, with noisy houses full of people trying in various ways to work online. We went from “trying to work anyway” through “I give up for a few days” and now we’re back to “trying to work anyway.” So this advice still appl...

Hey listeners! It’s been a mad mad mad week here (all of you in the future, check the date), and I bet there too. Result: there are no shownotes for this episode. We’re talking about revamping my website to get it in gear for my forthcoming second book. Here’s the image we mention—the before—and for the after (which is still in progress), head over to my site and see what you think. Any questions,...

And you thought our shelves full of self help books were just to manage our own issues! Nope, there’s another use for them. Our guest this week, Kathleen Smith, is a therapist and writer and the author of Everything Isn't Terrible , a helpful and humorous guide to shedding our anxious habits and building a more solid sense of self in our increasingly anxiety-inducing world. It’s very useful, and w...

It’s our 200th episode! In all that time, we’ve never missed a week and never regretted our choice to spend 40 minutes (ish) together—and with you. We love doing the podcast, so this week we thought we’d answer a few podcast-y questions we get a lot: should you start a podcast? Can a podcast help promote a book? Is there gold in them thare podcast hills? We talk about all that and more—but here’s...

Our guest today, Dan Blank, sure seems like a man who loves his work. On his own podcast, the Creative Shift, he’s a warm and engaged interviewer. In his emails, he’s genuine and engaged. Is he selling his book and his services as an advisor to authors developing their platform and launching their work into the world? Sure, but it never feels like he’s selling. It feels like he’s sharing. Wouldn’t...