Writers on Writing

Richard Russo is the author of ten novels, most recently Somebody’s Fool, Chances Are, Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; one previous essay collection about writing — The Destiny Thief: Essays on Writing, Writers and Life; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which, like Nobody’s Fool, won multiple awards for its scr...

Charlotte Wood is the author of seven novels and three books of non-fiction. Her novel Stone Yard Devotional was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize. It was described by the UK Guardian as ‘a quiet novel of immense power’ and has been praised by authors Anne Enright, Tim Winton, Karen Joy Fowler, Hannah Kent and Paula Hawkins among others. Her previous books include The Luminous Solution, a book...

Vauhini Vara grew up alongside internet startup companies. She was in middle school when AOL sent those first floppy discs to our homes, inviting us to dial up to the world wide web. A graduate of Stanford and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she became a tech writer for The Wall Street Journal and a business reporter for The Atlantic, The New Yorker and other publications. In 2017, Vara profiled Sam A...

Jennifer Haigh’s first novel, Mrs. Kimble, won the PEN Hemingway Award for debut fiction. Mercy Street, was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker and won the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Her short stories have been published widely, in the Atlantic, Granta, The Best American Short Stories, and many other places. Published in eighteen languages, her work has been recognized...

Andrew Porter is the author of two story collections, The Disappeared and The Theory of Light and Matter. He’s also the author of the novel In Between Days. His latest, out this month, is The Imagined Life and it treads on some familiar territory as the others. Andrew joins Marrie Stone to talk about it. His work has been compared to Richard Yates and John Cheever. He talks about those influences...

Tova Mirvis is the author of the memoir The Book of Separation as well as three novels, Visible City, The Outside World and The Ladies Auxiliary, a national bestseller. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine and Real Simple, and her fiction has been broadcast on NPR. She lives in Newton, MA with her family. Her most recent novel is We Would N...

In 2007, with his Caldecott-winning masterpiece The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick invented a new way of storytelling. The book became the basis for the 2011 Oscar-winning movie Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese. Brian is the author and illustrator of many other books for children, including Wonderstruck (also a movie), The Marvels, Kaleidoscope, and Big Tree, which was named one of the...

Colum McCann first came on the podcast in 2010 to talk about his National Book Award winning novel, Let the Great World Spin. He most recently returned in 2020 with his New York Times bestseller Apeirogon. He’s back this month with a stunning new novel, Twist. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book and his inspiration. They also discuss the need for stories in this current historical moment,...

Scott Turow is a writer and former practicing lawyer and the author of 13 bestselling works of fiction, including Presumed Innocent. Scott has also published two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student. His books have been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, and have been adapted into movies and television projects. H...

Charlotte McConaghy is an Australian author living in Sydney with her partner and two children. She has a Masters Degree in Screenwriting from the Australian Film Television and Radio School, and a number of published SFF works in Australia. Her novel Migrations was her first foray into adult literary fiction, published in North America by Flatiron Books, and by Penguin Random House in Australia a...

Eowyn Ivey was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for her debut novel, The Snow Child. Her latest, Black Woods, Blue Sky, offers a dark fairytale, a love story of a different kind, and depicts a mother-daughter relationship like none we’ve read before. Ivey joins Marrie Stone to talk about the backstories behind the novel. They also chat about writing different points of view, i...

Adam Ross is the author of Mr. Peanut, selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He’s been a fellow in fiction at the American Academy in Berlin and a Hodder Fellow for Fiction at Princeton University. He is editor of The Sewanee Review. Born and raised in New York City, he now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his two daughters. His...

Laila Lalami’s fifth novel, The Dream Hotel, is a dystopian story for our time. Set in Los Angeles in the near-distant future, the novel follows Sara –– a museum archivist and mother — who just landed at LAX from London and is retained by the Risk Assessment Administration for a crime they believe she might commit based on data and algorithms the government uses to track its citizens through their...

Tana French is the New York Times bestselling author of eight previous books, including The Searcher, The Likeness, and The Witch Elm. Her novels have sold over three million copies and won numerous awards, including the Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, and Barry awards, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller, and the Irish Book Award for Crime Fiction. She’s been called a mystery wri...

Eric Puchner is the author of two story collections — Music Through the Floor and Last Day on Earth. His first novel, Model Home, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction. His latest novel, Dream State, publishes February 18. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about it. They discuss controlling time in a novel, since the book takes place over generations and moves not linearly but fluidly t...

Renee Fountain is president of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Lit Mgmt. She’s been in the publishing industry for more than 30 years. She’s worked at Harcourt and Simon & Schuster with some of the best writers and illustrators in publishing, has managed iconic classics like Raggedy Ann and Nancy Drew, and brokered film and television options. Renee also spent five years with the CW Television Network a...

Danielle Prescod is a 15-year veteran of the beauty and fashion industry. She is also the author of the memoir Token Black Girl, which was one of the buzziest books of 2022, and cited as a must read by People, USA Today, Town and Country, Ebony, The LA Times, and landed her on NBC’s Today Show and elsewhere. Her debut novel is The Rules of Fortune. It’s published by Mindy Kaling’s Book Studio, an...

Kim (Freilich) Dower (City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood from October 2016 – October 2018) has published six highly acclaimed collections of poetry all from Red Hen Press. Her newest What She Wants is called, “witty, sultry and thoughtful,” by the Washington Post. The bestselling, I Wore This Dress Today for You, Mom, an Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist, was called a “fantastic collection” by The...

Bradford Morrow is the author of 10 novels, as well as short stories, children’s books, essays, anthologies, and illustrated books. He is also the founder and editor of the literary journal Conjunctions, which has been in publication since 1981. Professor Morrow has taught literature at Bard College for 35 years. His latest is The Forger’s Requiem. It’s the third in a trilogy, following The Forger...

Rebecca Renner is a journalist and fiction writer from Daytona Beach, Florida. She’s a seventh-generation Floridian, and is committed to making life in her state better for everyone through writing about politics, social issues, and the environment. She has a Master’s of Fine Arts in creative writing from Stetson University, the oldest university in the state of Florida. Her writing has appeared i...

One of the questions I often get this time of year is who were my favorite interviews and what were my favorite books? This year, the question prompted me to begin digging through my 25+ hours of recordings to find the gems from 2024. I decided to edit some of them together and share them here. Of course, this is just a small sampling and doesn’t include Barbara’s many treasures. One of my New Yea...

I have a Christmas and Hanukah gift for you: my show with Stephen Dunn. This is one of my favorite shows and he was one of my favorite poets. He published something like 21 collections of poetry. The show you’re about to hear from 2001, the first time he was a guest on the show. Writers on Writing was on the radio then. Podcasting wouldn’t be along for four more years and it would be a number of y...

Karl Marlantes served as a Marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. He is the bestselling author of Deep River, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, and What It is Like to Go to War. His latest, Cold Victory, is out in paperback by Grove Press. Karl joins Marrie Stone to discuss it. He...

Caroline Leavitt, the New York Times bestselling author of thirteen novels, most recently Days of Wonder, A finalist for the Midatlantic Fiction Prize and longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize. Caroline is also the co-founder of A Mighty Blaze and a book critic for People Magazine. Find out more at www.carolineleavitt.com Caroline joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about writing t...

Suzanne Redfearn didn’t discover her talent for fiction until her 30s. A trained commercial and residential architect, she’d also worked as a copywriter, marketing manager, graphic designer, and other odd jobs. Today, Suzanne is the #1 Amazon and USA Today bestselling author of seven novels: Two Good Men, Where Butterflies Wander, Moment In Time, Hadley & Grace, In an Instant, No Ordinary Life, an...