#AmWriting

Karen Dukess’s first book, The Last Book Party , was wildly successful by any measure—sold at auction, Indie Next pick, Discover New Writers pick… you probably read it. The second… Didn’t sell. Not as in, not very many people bought it but as in, no publisher published it. She spent the requisite couple years or so, her agent signed on but… no takers. She felt like she was the only person in the w...

Hi! Jess here. As an author and host of this podcast, I hear “I have a great idea for a book!” a lot, and while I believe everyone has a story to tell, I’ve only been knocked over by these book pitches twice. The first was the idea for the book Raising Empowered Athletes: A Youth Sports Parenting Guide for Raising Happy, Brave, and Resilient Kids by Kirsten Jones (pitched to me at speaking event i...

Meg Mitchell Moore is the author of Mansion Beach , a page-turner-y multi POV summer saga with everything you could ask for: a beach, a body, rich people behaving badly but also sometimes not behaving badly, parties, drama and just enough gender-swapped Gatsby to think hard about the meaning of the American Dream. I loved it (KJ here) and I also loved this conversation with Meg, who apparently thi...

Greetings writers! Sarina here. Earlier in May I was surfing social media, as one does, when I came across a story about children’s author Erica Perl and an ill-fated school visit. Her scheduled visit to a school was abruptly canceled. After asking a few questions, it was determined that a single parent had objected to… Well, it’s hard to say. We’ll let Erica tell her story. But you should know th...

Hi all, Jess here. This episode was Sarina’s idea, and when you listen you will understand why. It can be hard to focus on the work, whether it’s editing, world building, conjuring meet cutes, or translating research-based hope for the next generation. That said, it’s important that we keep creating and putting our words out into the world. We hope you are able to keep working while navigating the...

Joan Fernandez is a former senior marketing executive and general partner of the financial powerhouse Edward Jones. In 2018, she retired from a 30+ year career to be a full-time writer. Since leaving the corporate world, she’s become a member of the Historical Novel Society, the Author’s Guild, and the Women’s Fiction Writers Association (WFWA). In April 2020, she founded a Historical Fiction affi...

Jess here with Sarina Bowen to help simplify and demystify author contracts. Let’s start off with a wonderful resource called The Authors Guild . They have sample contracts on their website The Authors Guild Sample Contract Sarina made a lovely outline to prepare for the episode (because of course she did) so I’m dropping that here. * You’re not “selling” your book. You’re licensing it. * Grant of...

When a former NYT journo who now writes novels (that would be me, hi) gets together with a current NYT journo now writing novels, they—we!—cannot stop talking about the challenges, advantages, schedules, pros and cons of book leave and what it is about fiction that lights some journalists up, and turns some off. It’s the good, the bad and the overcome-able, and a class in how people who know they...

Hi #AmWriting listeners, Jennie here! Today, I'm talking to Jane Friedman, who is one of the most trusted voices in the world of publishing. She has advised and served organizations such as Writers Digest , The Chicago Manual of Style , The Editorial Freelancers Association , the Alliance of Independent Authors , and the National Endowment for the Arts , among others. She writes two must-read news...

Hey listeners: This week, everyone gets a taste of what paid supporters will get more regularly—a special Booklab: First Pages episode. Each month (and sometimes more often), we’ll choose two “first pages” to review. A first page, for our purposes, is the first 350 words of your book—fiction, non-fiction or memoir. We will read the page aloud on the podcast and discuss with a single thought in min...

Social media is all aflutter over an article by Alex Reisner in The Atlantic: The Unbelievable Scale of A.I.’s Pirated Books Problem . In this episode, Jess and Sarina cover the news and its ramifications for authors. You won’t want to miss this discussion about the lawsuits against Meta and OpenAI . We discuss problems and remedies, and the formation of legal markets for A.I. training. Like the w...

Michael Dante DiMartino graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Film and Animation. His directing credits include the primetime animated series King of the Hill, Family Guy, and Mission Hill . DiMartino is the co-creator of the award-winning animated Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel, The Legend of Korra . From 2002 to 2014, he served as executive...

Let me start with this: if you have any interest at all in literary magazines or small presses, you want this book: How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses . It’s a wonderful book and a great guide, and will lead you into this world and help you feel good about your journey without your getting lost in the universe of scattered information that’s ava...

There are many misconceptions about what a hybrid publisher does or doesn’t do, and why it may or may not be a good choice for a writer. I thought hearing from a hybrid publisher directly would be educational for our audience, so I’m pleased to be speaking in this episode to Dr. Nick Courtright, CEO of Atmosphere Press . Check out Atmosphere Press here or submit a manuscript here . This is a publi...

Hey ho, Jess here. This week, all four of us discuss some of the happenings out there in the publishing world. First up: Super Bowl Sunday is apparently a great reading day. Sarina sent us a screenshot of her sales (she was tipped off by another author) and found out what many people are reading during the game: So that’s fun. Next up, Sean Manning of Simon & Schuster announced no more blurbs (yay...

Hi listeners! Sarina here, with a topic that has been on my mind for years. When I began my career, everyone told me I had to develop a “thick skin” to do this job. But it turns out that a “thick skin” is one of the only things you can’t buy on Amazon. Today I invite my friend Lauren Blakely onto the podcast for a frank discussion of all that we’ve learned about resilience, one-star ratings and fe...

“If the language isn’t there, I have difficulty showing up for the idea” - Jenny Anderson Jess here. Rebecca Winthrop, Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution , and Jenny Anderson , award-winning journalist, paired up to write one of my favorite education and parenting books in recent memory: The Disengaged Teen . While I adore the book and could go on for ages...

Do you have a Doubt Monster? (Doesn’t everyone?) Amy Bernstein is an Author Accelerator certified writing coach, an #AmWriting Blueprint Challenge coach, a writer, a creative coach and many other things—but for our purposes, the author of Wrangling the Doubt Monster —a delightful book that you can open on any page for help wrangling your own doubts into something that you can live with, in the vei...

One of the things I think we do well with on this podcast is addressing the long game of writing. It’s not just about writing a good book or pitching one or selling one, but about the work of doing it over and over again, of succeeding and failing, of PERSISTING. That’s why I love this conversation with Tiffany Yates Martin , who is an author herself under the penname, Phoebe Fox, but who also for...

“I put my effort into building trust, showing up, and being present for people who have opted into my universe.” A slight paraphrase of Jennie Nash On the day we recorded this episode, no one really knew what was going to happen to TikTok (Jess thinks it’s going away, everyone else doubts her) and Sarina was attempting to manage all the emails from people asking her why she was promoting businesse...

I’m Sarina, and I’m a business nerd. Hi, my name is Sarina, and I’m a business nerd. I was born this way. I can’t help it. I realize that not everyone gets excited about spreadsheets, but if you have any writerly income at all, I’m begging you to make 2025 the year you treat your writing as a business. There are actually two reasons to do this: * First of all it’s centering. Treating your writing...

Hi #AmWriters, Jess here. I’ve been wanting to do an episode on workbooks forever - on any form of companion text that pairs with nonfiction books, really. How do you propose them, write them, format them? You know me, I like the granular details. Fortunately, Ned Johnson and Dr. William Stixrud are publishing The Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child in March, and Ned was willing to co...

Essay collections—readers love them, but publishers and editors are often unconvinced. Jennie and KJ talk to Amy Wilson about getting that contract, finding the through line and writing a book about pleasing people while also remembering to please yourself. Links from the pod Mary Karr The Art of Memoir Wendi Aarons Listen to Your Mother (Essay performances for Mother’s Day) Amy’s first book: When...

Hi #AmWriters and subscribers to Jess’ content, Jess here, looking out my office window over a beautiful, snowy Vermont Sunday and thinking of you. We do these things called “Lahey Cafe” days in the Lahey household and we have one coming up this afternoon. Back when my husband and I were in graduate school and never got to spend time together away from the books, we would go to cafes (Caribou Coff...

This episode is about a #amwriting win! Meghan P. Browne wrote to us a while ago to share her happy news: her debut middle-grade novel that she revised in the Blueprint Challenge of 2022 and that we reviewed in one of our First pages episodes had just gone under contract! Welcome to Heaven was acquired by Liz Szabla at Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan), and publication is scheduled for Spring 2026. Meg...