Become a Writer Today

My guest this week is retired clinical psychologist Pam Munter. Pam's written four books and had more than 150 personal essays published over the years. Her latest book is Fading Fame: Women of a Certain Age in Hollywood , a collection of ten short stories and two plays about the troubled lives of strong and talented women who survived #MeToo. Pam also writes a lot of non-fiction and memoirs....

In this episode, I catch up with Brian Finney to understand how he transitioned from writing non-fiction to writing fiction and how he manages his day. Many writers work on the side while working a demanding day job. Brian has gone the other way. He’s now a professor emeritus at California State University, which means he doesn’t lecture at the university, so he has time to write his psychological...

Many writers like to work within one genre or niche. They write thriller books or police procedurals, or mystery books.  Other writers find working within one genre or niche confining, and they like to try different types of writing to see where it takes them.  In this episode, I recently had the chance to catch up with Jenn Ashton, and she’s done just that. She’s published poetry, children’s book...

This week, I got to catch up with somebody I've wanted to talk to for a long time. David Farland is the author of over 50 books, including The Runelords series. He's worked with top fantasy and science fiction authors like Brandon Sanderson and Stephenie Meyer, and he's also written Million Dollar Outlines. In this interview, we talk about Robert Heinlein's Rules for Writers. S...

In this episode, I chat with therapist Charley Wininger. He's the author of the new book, Listening to Ecstasy: The Transformative Power of MDMA . Writing about the therapeutic benefits of psychedelic substances is pretty controversial, depending on where you live in the world.  It's a topic that I'd like to write about, but I'm not quite there yet, so I was fascinated to hear...

Meredith Heller is the author of Write a Poem, Save Your Life: A Guide for Teens, Teachers, and Writers of All Ages . It's an instructional book for anybody who wants to write or teach writing poetry. If you want to learn more about writing poetry, it's a title I recommend.  In this episode, Meredith told me how she combines her career as a working poet with that of a massage therapist a...

Colin Dayan is the Robert Penn Warren Professor in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University. She’s written extensively about Haiti and Guantanamo Bay and has written not one but two memoirs.  Colin chatted to me about her memoirs and how, if you spend a lot of time engaged in one type of writing to pay the bills as Colin did with academic writing and research, you should still go ahead and try on a...

Terry McDougall is an executive and career coach and the author of the new book, Winning the Game of Work. In this episode of the podcast, I spoke to Terry about her fascinating idea of seeing work as a type of game. She considers her book as part of her calling card, and she had some fantastic insights into how the book is potentially helping her find more clients for her coaching practice. If yo...

Recently I caught up with podcaster, blogger, and author Amy Isaman. Amy taught creative writing for years until she finally answered her calling and wrote her first book in her 40's.   She's written both mystery books and historical fiction, and she believes that writers should try writing in different genres. After all, readers don't confine themselves to one genre. She puts a cas...

My guest in this episode is Roger Reuff.  He developed the concept of the story having a soul. He wrote a book about it and has a course of the same name at soulofyourstory.com.  Roger is multi-talented and has written several books and screenplays, one of which made into onto big screen, The Big Kahuna starring Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito. Roger starts our interview with an overview of who he i...

My guest this week is the author of the Sky Fall series of books, Joseph Bendoski. Joseph's background is in screenwriting which he eventually left behind as he found the conventions of that particular genre too restrictive. When he switched to writing novels, he found it a more freeing format. He was initially undecided whether to write fiction or non-fiction. He made his decision after look...

Writing can be a lonely business. Sitting alone for several hours, just you and your words. This is when a writing community or collaboration can be of real benefit. In this episode, I chat with Niki Hardy from Hope Writers and the author of Breathe Again. How to Live Well When Life Falls Apart. Niki talks to me about how she found the encouragement that she needed from Hope Writers. She believes...

Will building your personal brand help you to sell more books and courses or find you more clients as a writer?  Personal branding is something that content creators should consider. I learned the hard way that building a brand isn't about spending hundreds of dollars on a fancy logo but is more about associating yourself with a specific topic or creating a name for yourself within a niche. I...

Simon King is the author of over 30 books across five different series, including the Sam Rader series, the non-fiction Prison Days series, and the MAX series.  Before he became an author, Simon worked in a maximum-security prison in Australia, and he only published his first book in 2018. In this episode, Simon explains how he went from working a demanding day job, working nights and shifts, to p...

Could you write a memoir? I used to think that you couldn’t write a memoir until you were old and at the end of your life. Your memoir would be one big book that would describe everything that happened from when you were born until the present moment.  But, you can write a memoir about a particular theme, topic, or a single event in your life.  Marion Roach Smith is a memoir coach, and she runs a...

Cary Bergeron is the founder of the book promotion service Crave Books. In this episode, we get into what it takes to sell a book today and how a book promotion service can get you in front of more readers.  Cary talks about three fantastic insights  if you’re getting ready to publish your first book: Does it have a good cover?  Does it have reviews?  Does it have a good description?  It would hel...

If you're working as a freelance writer and want to earn a full-time wage, I recommend copywriting. Copywriting is essentially writing words that sell products and services.  It's a great discipline to help you figure out how to condense your ideas into articles, e-mails, and stories that you will publish online.  In this episode of the podcast, I chat with Aly Goulet. She specializes in...

This episode of the podcast has a very special guest. Bernard Huang is the co-founder of the popular content tool Clearscope.  In our conversation, Bernard explains how Clearscope works and how it can help you grow your website and help you find more readers for your non-fiction articles.  You'll also find some practical tips on building a niche website, learning about content optimization to...

In 2016, Dorit published the award-winning memoir, Accidental Soldier about her time in service with the Israeli Defense Forces. Here, Dorit talks about how she balances doing something with clear commercial intent with doing something creative, like writing memoirs about her time in active service. If you find time to do both every day, then you will advance your career, you’ll get paid, and you’...

Social media is an excellent way of finding readers and finding clients if you’re a freelance writer. And, if you create content for social media platforms like Quora, you can build up a library of content that you can use and refer to over time. But, how exactly should you spend time on social media, what tools should you use, and how can you do it? Neal Schaffer has the answer to these questions...

I recently read  Mind Management, Not Time Management by  David Kadvy. It made a big impact on me because David has thought a lot about popular productivity methods like Getting Things Done and considered how they can apply to writers and creatives.  He breaks down how creatives can organize their day so they’re at their best when it’s time to write or work on a project and how they can also find...

I've read a few books about productivity and work that have radically changed how I think about finding time to work and creative projects. One of those books is Getting Things Done by David Allen, and it made a significant impact on how I think about work.  In this week's interview, David discusses how your mind is for having ideas, not for holding onto them, and writers and creatives m...

In this episode, I catch up with TEDx speaker and author Dai Manuel. Dai brings to his work his personal story of the challenges he overcame to become a wellness coach and run a multimillion-dollar business. Dai explains how, when he started to bring more vulnerability into his writing, everything changed for him. His coaching clients increased, and he secured more public speaking gigs, including...

In this episode, we focus on email marketing, and my guest is email marketing expert Keith Monaghan. He knows his stuff as he previously worked as a market researcher and email marketer for companies like Nike, Specialized Bicycles, Trek, and NBC Television. He's the author of the new book, Easy Email Marketing: 10 Simple Steps for Creating and Sending Marketing E-Mail Your Customers Will Lov...

Was your first book a bit of a passion project? If you're going to commit to writing in the long term and want to earn a living wage from it, you need a plan. That's one of the topics I address in this week's interview with Orna Ross. She is the Alliance of Independent Authors director, and she also coaches students on creative planning. I wanted to know more about her creative plan...