DIY MFA Radio

Hey there word nerds! Today I am excited to interview author and creative writing professor, Susan Perabo. Susan is the author of two short story collections and the novel, The Broken Places . Her fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories , Pushcart Prize Stories , and New Stories from the South , and has appeared in numerous magazines, including One Story , Glimmer Train , The...

Hey there word nerds! Today I'm absolutely thrilled to introduce you to Jessica Strawser, the editorial director of Writer's Digest magazine, and author of the stunning debut novel Almost Missed You . As editor of Writer's Digest magazine, she has interviewed luminaries like David Sedaris and Alice Walker and her debut novel—released yesterday from St. Martin's Press—has already garnered early acc...

Hey there word nerds! Today I am excited to interview Dan Blank, founder of WeGrowMedia and author of the new book Be The Gateway that just came out a few weeks ago. Dan helps writers and creative professionals share their stories and grow their audience. He has worked with hundreds of individuals and some amazing organizations who support creative people, such as Random House, Hachette Book Group...

Hey there word nerds! Today I'm delighted to interview journalist and statistician, Ben Blatt, about his new book Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve. Ben is a former staff writer for Slate and The Harvard Lampoon who has taken his fun approach to data journalism to topics such as Seinfeld, mapmaking, The Beatles, and Jeopardy! His previous book, co-written with Eric Brewster, is I Don't Care if We N...

Hey there word nerds! Today I am thrilled (pun intended) to have award-winning and bestselling author, Clare Mackintosh on the show. Clare spent twelve years in the Thames Valley Police Department, during which time she worked on criminal investigations. After leaving the police force in 2011, she worked as a freelance journalist and social media consultant before writing her bestselling debut nov...

Hey there word nerds! Today I'm interviewing Dale Wiley, author and Missouri attorney, who has some fascinating credits to his name. For starters, he has had a character named after him on CSI, owned a record label, been interviewed by Bob Edwards on NPR's Morning Edition and made alternative fuel motorcycles for Merle Haggard and John Paul DeJoria. He is also one of the few people to who have met...

Hey there word nerds! Today's interview features Brian Meehl, author of four novels that have garnered several awards and starred book reviews: Out of Patience , Suck It Up , Suck It Up and Die , and You Don't Know About Me . His latest genre-bending novel, Blowback '07 , transports readers back to 19077, a time when legendary coach Pop Warner, future Olympian Jim Thorpe, and the Carlisle Indian I...

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Sally Parry, the Executive Director of the Sinclair Lewis Society. She earned her PhD in American Literature (as well as 19th Century British Fiction and Medieval Literature) from Fordham University in NYC and wrote her dissertation on Sinclair Lewis ( Sinclair Lewis: The Darkening Vision of His Later Novels ). She is currently t...

  Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of interview award-winning author Sebastian Barry, about his latest book Days Without End . Sebastian Barry is the author of seven novels, including A Long Long Way and The Secret Scripture (now a major motion picture starring Rooney Mara and Vanessa Redgrave). He has won the Costa Book of the Year Award, the Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year...

  Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of interviewing Shanthi Sekaran, author of the new novel Lucky Boy , a book that has been getting a lot of pre-publication buzz and is an Indie Next Great Read pick for January 2017.   In this episode Shanthi and I discuss: The importance of fiction in humanizing different groups of people by bringing them and their experiences to life on the page....

  Hey there word nerds! Today, I'll be sharing a recap of all the exciting things I discovered at Digital Book World (or DBW) last week. 2017 marks the eighth year of this industry-focused event, with a shift toward solution-focused strategies paired with insightful in-depth programming. This year was also the the first time DBW has run a segment of the conference exclusively for indie authors. Wh...

  Hey there word nerds! Today's DIY MFA Radio guest has a fantastic double life. Author Frédérique Molay began her career in politics and administration as chief of staff for a commission of the French National Assembly. She then worked for local government in Burgundy, ran in the European elections, and was elected in Saône-et-Loire. She also writes crime novels and won France's prestigious crime...

Hey there word nerds! Today I'm thrilled to welcome Manjula Martin on the show. Manjula is editor of Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living from Simon & Schuster. She's the creator of the blog Who Pays Writers? And was the founder and editor of Scratch magazine, an online periodical focused on the business of being a writer. Her work has appeared in various publications like the V...

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to someone who has been instrumental in helping me up my speaking game. Whether you've been hearing me speak on this podcast or have seen me speak on stage, this person has had a tremendous impact in helping me become the speaker that I am. This person is Alexia Vernon. Alexia has been branded a "Moxie Maven" by the White House Off...

  Hey there word nerds! Thanks for being here with me today. I'm so excited to share this interview with you. It's a little bit different from what I usually do. Instead of being the one hosting the interview, in this episode I'm sharing an interview that I gave for my friend Joanna Penn on The Creative Penn Podcast . You might remember Joanna from  episode 106 when she came on DIY MFA Radio and I...

Hey there word nerds! Thanks for joining me for DIY MFA Radio! I'm especially excited for this episode because today I get to interview agent Mitch Hoffman. I first met Mitch at ThrillerFest earlier this year, where I heard him speak on a panel and later got a chance to talk further at one of those conference mix-and-mingle shindigs. Right away, I knew Mitch was someone I wanted to bring on the sh...

  Hey there word nerds! Today I'm speaking with Elisabeth Barrett, a romance author living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Elisabeth spends her days teaching, editing, writing sexy contemporary romance, and enjoying time with her sometimes-bearded husband and three spirited kids. She is constantly perfecting that juggling act between home/work/writing, but in her free time she loves to hike open sp...

Hey there word nerds! If you subscribe to the DIY MFA newsletter, then you know I've had a lot to say lately. In this episode, I reflect on some of the recent themes I've been considering, themes like service, responsibility, gratitude and love. I also talk about some of the obstacles I've faced when building my author platform. These aren't just external roadblocks that got in my way, but also in...

Hey there word nerds! Today I'm delighted to have Britt Alan on the show, talking about self-publishing his debut novel: Tiananmen Ascending . But before we dig into the nuts and bolts of writing and self-publishing, let me share a short anecdote that I think captures Britt's longtime passion for that intersection between world politics and writing. When he was eight years old, he wrote the a lett...

Hey there word nerds! Domestic suspense has been getting a lot of buzz lately, but crafting a great book in this sub-genre is much more challenging than it seems. Today I have the pleasure of interviewing author Cate Holahan about her latest book The Widower's Wife . In this episode, Cate gives us a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into crafting a story of suspense and intrigue set in in everyd...

Hey there word nerds! Boy are you going to love this episode. It's a bit of an adventure for me, because I have not one, not two, but three wonderful guests joining me on the show. Today, I'm speaking with Anne Trager, founder of Le French Book, and two members of her team: Amy Richards and Sally Pane. Together, these three ladies have adapted the Winemaker Detective Series, authored in France ori...

Hey there word nerds! I am so excited to share this new episode with you. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with author John Sandford. This, of course, is the pseudonym of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp and he is the author of 45 books and counting! In case you're curious, his writing credits include twenty-six Prey novels; four Kidd novels; nine Virgil Flowers novels; three Y...

Hello hello word nerds! Welcome to another episode of DIY MFA Radio. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with author Diane Saxton. As a journalist, Diane has written for Vanity Fair , The Huffington Post, Holiday Magazine and Greenwich Review and she has covered everything from torture victims to physics, animal rights activists, exotic travel, and movie producers. She brings this same passion a...

Hey there word nerds! Today I'm delighted to welcome Todd Harra to the show. It seemed fitting to have Todd as our guest for our Halloween episode, since he is the author of Mortuary Confidential: Undertakers Spill the Dirt and Over Our Dead Bodies: Undertakers Lift the Lid . As writers' we're often advised not to quit our "day jobs," usually because people think having a sensible, reliable profes...

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so pleased to have Teddy Wayne on the show. Teddy  is the author of several books, most recently his novel Loner , which is out now. Teddy has won numerous writing awards, is regular contributor to several prestigious publications, and has taught at Columbia University in NYC and Washington University in St. Louis. In this interview, we talk about Teddy's newest bo...