Writing Stories

Teddy Wayne talks with Jessica Kinnison about his new novel The Au Pair. Along the way they cover what to do when you are stuck, fame, unlikable characters, screenplays, and shifts in publishing. Teddy is the author of Kapitoil, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine , Loner , Apartment , The Great Man Theory , The Winner , and The Au Pair This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Candice Wuehle tells the story of ultranatural.   Candice and host Jessica Kinnison discuss the physical demands of writing, differences in the process behind novels and poetry, and what it means to have an embodied experience of publishing a book.  More about Candice here More about Jessica here  Buy ultranatural here   This is a public episode. If you would like...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Series Editor Nicole Lamy and featured author Jessica Treadway talk about the Best American Short Stories Anthology 2025. The episode covers: Trends among the stories Who reads the anthology in 2026 and how representation may show up differently How to define a contemporary short story This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribe...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Pat Lipsky talks about her acclaimed new memoir Brightening Glance and covers: What having a space means as an artist and the discipline necessary to endure Her life in the New York City art scene from 1960s to present day, including accounts of experiences with Tony Smith and Pierre Rosenberg The role Marcel Proust has played in her life and work And the experienc...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Marguerite Sheffer talks about Iowa Short Fiction Prize winning collection The Man in the Banana Trees and covers: the content of Marguerite's wide ranging speculative fiction stories that dive deeply into the practice of making art and some of our most critical justice issues in our culture how design thinking helped Marguerite get to a place of wildness and...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode T Clark talks about All This Want and I Can't Get None and covers: the content of T's feverish and honest short stories about girlhood, shame, want, and choices how T found an agent what the path to a book deal looked like how living in a certain place can foster a more balanced writing life how writing collaborative plays has informed their fiction This...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Samantha Browning Shea talks about MARROW and covers: writing her own book as a literary agent for others when her first novel didn't find a publisher writing with small children  writing characters in the context of their relationships  worry over whether a book will work  find out more about Samantha here pre-order Marrow here Learn more about the upcoming h...

Send us Fan Mail Lorraine Russell tells the story of Love and Shadows . Along the way she covers:  Self-publishing on Amazon Using Fiverr to find cover designers and editors  Fear of failure  Getting yourself into a flow state  Working with a writing coach Writing as though telling a story around a campfire  Also in this episode:  The Long Road to Publishing with Eva Langston  Our upcoming new Wri...

Send us Fan Mail Danielle Teller tells the story of Forged and talks about:  success as a writer  rule-breaking  the pitfalls of newspaper articles in novels  Cassie Chadwick  All the Ever Afters  When your agent can't place your manuscript  How her work as a doctor has informed her writing process  Learn more about Danielle here  buy FORGED here  This is a public episode. If you would like t...

Send us Fan Mail Christine tells the story of FLOOD and talks about:  Westport Writers Workshop  Christine Pakkala Copy editing your own work  Thinking about text structure like architecture  Agent shenanigans  Woodhall Press  Shampoo and sugar as essential writing tools  Combatting perfectionism Jaclyn Gilbert and Drift(less) Literary  Poets and their memoirs  Learn more about Christine here Buy...

Send us Fan Mail Deesha Philyaw tells the story of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies  Along the way she covers:  Being in the Norton Anthology of Literature  Jamaica Kincaid's story Girl  The ways Church Ladies is proudly Black  Ways white supremacy shapes the stories we read and tell  Misconceptions about race in publishing  Revision for her novel  Boundaries  Her brilliant agent and unortho...

Send us Fan Mail Sasha Hom tells the story of Sidework.  Along the way she covers:  Profluence Including multiple nows in your writing  Making appreciation a discipline Polyphonic nature of restaurants and motherhood (especially when living in a tent!)  Living life as an artist's residency  Black Lawrence Press ( Immigrant writing series )  Learn more about Sasha here or here  Buy Sidework he...

Send us Fan Mail Jennie Case tells the story of We Are Animals .  Jennie talks about:  - control, safety, and risk in the creative process  - speaking to the current moment  - how to gesture toward the place beyond concepts in writing  - agent troubles  - writing a letter to your book  - publishing with a university press (Trinity) Find out more about Jennie here Buy We Are Animals here This is a...

Send us Fan Mail Rebe talks about:  querying (and querying again!)  hiring a publicist writing about grief  art vs archiving  enjoying the ride  the changing publishing industry  Monkfish Press  Find out more about Rebe here Buy My Mother in Havana here  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit writingstories123.subst...

Send us Fan Mail Libby Maxey talks about:  - using sonnets to put the pandemic in a box  - writing 'off of' other writers  - the ancient tradition of starting a book with an author's address to the book  - poetry land vs. fiction land, and how time doesn't matter - editing other poets' poems - giving dignity to small things  - being 'bad' at 'pub days' ...

Send us Fan Mail Dori Lumpkin talks about:  Comp titles and queries Creature Publishing  Religious tea drinking  Setting up a book signing Method writing (like method acting)  Book tattoos Learn more about Dori here   Buy Antenora here  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit writingstories123.substack.com

Send us Fan Mail Emma Pattee talks about Postpartum creativity  Writing by hand  Navigating the distance between one's own vision and feedback and finding one's breaking point with a project  Confusing a desire to make art and a desire to be famous  Going on sub for only 24 hours Helen Phillips The Need  Julia Phillips  Margaret Malone Lidia Yuknavitch and Reading the Waves  Buy TILT her...

Send us Fan Mail Wayne Scott talks about  Writing well-rounded characters that can surprise us  Trying to sell a book that publishers don't think will sell to women  Marriage as a story EM Forrester's Aspects of the Novel  Publishing a Modern Love piece, getting an agent and then having your agent lose steam  Memoir as coping strategy  Rayhané Sanders Corporeal Writing   Tin House reside...

Send us Fan Mail Mariam Rahmani talks about:  Preserving voice  How to know when you are ready to bring editors and other readers in to your process Racialized pay gaps and racialized double-standards in publishing  Streamlining of stories in publishing  Putting a manuscript of 7 years aside  Challenges of short story versus novel  Danielle Bukowski (agent) and Evan Hanson-Bundy (editor)   Buy LIQ...

Send us Fan Mail Cally talks about:  Hardware and software in a story  A need to detox from the marketplace  Woeful inefficiency in the writing process Zadie Smith and 'obsessive perspective disorder '  Furious throat-clearing  Pregnancy creating writing urgency  Sewanee review  Keeping a manuscript under wraps and writing as solitary  The sense in which approval is contagious Iowa Unive...

Send us Fan Mail Nicole Graev Lipson tells the story of Mothers and Other Fictional Characters. Along the way we talk about:  Sexism in publishing  The 'mother shelf'  Microscopic truth and Brenda Ueland  Writing from "low-grade embarrassment" and "both-and-ness"  Growing up with with the belief that you can be anyone you want to be and do anything you want to do (and...

Send us Fan Mail Shubha Sunder talks about:  Constructing a narrative through the things that people say to the main character Characterization as a "portrait in the negative"  Writing through divorce and Covid lockdown Writing from an immigrant perspective and immigration as a step in one's path to becoming an artist  Characters as caricatures and the ways some caricature can stren...

Send us Fan Mail Nanda Reddy talks about:  Deadlines and focus  Manuscripts in drawers Querytracker  critiquematch.com Accepting previously rejected parts of ourselves as part of the process of writing fiction  Assimilation  Belonging Identity  BookPage review by Stephanie Harrison  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes,...

Send us Fan Mail Elyse Durham talks about:  Remaining open and flexible in the process  Following your fascinations  Focusing  Most adorable book deal celebration  Ballet, Greek Orthodoxy, and the body  Historical fiction  Writer to agent AWP  Alison Hunter Trellis Literary  Cameos from Brianna's kiddo Andy (he would like you to know that he DOESN'T have candy)  Find out more about Elyse...

Send us Fan Mail Emily J. Smith talks about:  Graphing plot points and clues  That whole job/money/housing/social class/art tangle  Validation, connection, tech, and writing  Bouncing back from failure Bringing an engineer mindset to writing and bringing a tech mindset to publishing  "Prestige thrillers"  Writing friends  Interesting theory about relative challenges of agents and editors...