DIY MFA Radio

Hey there word nerds! Our show notes are at DIYMFA.com/316 because it's episode 316! Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please subscribe on iTunes, GooglePlay (you know, all the usual places) and please leave us a review. This will help other word nerds discover the show as well. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Lauren J. Sharkey. Lauren is a writer, teacher, and transracial adoptee. After...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Miriam Feldman. Miriam is a painter, writer, and mother originally from Los Angeles, California. After her son, Nick's, diagnosis with Schizophrenia more than ten years ago, she began writing to document and explore the ways this new reality affected her relationship with her children, her husband, and herself. Her blog, https://www....

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Django Wexler. Django graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh with degrees in creative writing and computer science, and worked for the university in artificial intelligence research. Eventually he migrated to Microsoft in Seattle, where he now lives with two cats and a teetering mountain of books. When not writing, h...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Natalie Jenner. Natalie Jenner was born in England, raised in Canada, and graduated from the University of Toronto with degrees in English Literature and Law. She worked for decades in the legal industry and also founded an independent bookstore in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs. The Jane Auste...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Laura Hankin. Laura has written for McSweeney's and HuffPost, among other publications. The viral videos that she creates and stars in with her comedy duo, Feminarchy, have been featured in Now This, The New York Times, and Funny or Die. She has performed off-Broadway, acted on screen, and has sung to far too many babies. Today we're...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Henry Clark. Henry is the author of What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World as well as The Book That Proves Time Travel Happens . He has contributed articles to MAD magazine and published fiction in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine in addition to acting at Old Bethpage Village Restoration, a living-history museum....

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Pamela Taylor. Pamela brings her love of history to the art of storytelling. An avid reader of historical fact and fiction, she finds the past offers rich sources for character, ambiance, and plot that allow readers to escape into a world totally unlike their daily lives. A history major in college, with minors in French and Spanish,...

Hey there word nerds!  Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Susann Cokal. Susann is a moody historical novelist, a pop-culture essayist, book critic, magazine editor, and sometime professor of creative writing and modern literature. She lives in a creepy old farmhouse in Richmond, Virginia, with seven cats, a big dog, a spouse, and some peacocks that supposedly belong to a neighbor. Susann's...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Abbigail Rosewood. Abbigail was born in Vietnam, where she lived until the age of twelve. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. An excerpt from her first novel won first place in the Writers Workshop of Asheville Literary Fiction Contest. Today we'll be discussing her debut novel: If I Had Two Lives In this e...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Mag Dimond. Mag Dimond has been a world traveler since the age of eleven, when her mother took her to live in Italy. She has traveled extensively in Europe and Central America, and ventured to such exotic landscapes as India, Cambodia, Bhutan, Japan, Kenya, China, Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cuba. In her seventies now, she continue...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Marilyn Singer. Winner of the National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry, 2015, Marilyn Singer has written more than 100 books in many genres. She created a poetry form, the "reverso," featured in three of her award-winning collections:  Mirror Mirror , Follow Follow , and Echo Echo . She co-hosts the Poet...

Hey there word nerds! Joe is a bestselling writer, novelist, and a dad. He leads The Write Practice community, an award-winning community of creative writers. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife Talia and three kids and enjoys coffee and corpse reviver no. 2s. In this episode Joe and I discuss: The inspiration behind Crowdsourcing Paris A small, but powerful trick to overcoming writer's blo...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Helen J. Darling. Helen is the author of two humorous women's fiction novels: Terms and Conditions and I'll Know Me When I Find Me . She is also the resident self-publishing expert and columnist at DIY MFA. Helen worked in publishing for twenty years before acknowledging she'd like to write something herself. When she's not writing o...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Sonja K. Solter. Sonja graduated from Stanford University and earned an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University, with a critical thesis on writing trauma in middle grade and young adult realistic fiction. She is currently a creative writing mentor to youth with the Society of Young Inklings and enjoys wri...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Jade Dee and Wilnona Marie, the "And I Thought" Ladies! Jade is the 2019 Poet of the Year, and Wilnona is Advocate Awarded. Both ladies recently accepted the job as US correspondents for UK TV show Chrissy B on Sky TV. They recently made the list of 20 Iconic Authors according to Every Writers Resource Magazine. This dynamic duo has...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Garvin. Jeff is an author, musician, and podcaster and his debut novel, Symptoms of Being Human has received a ton of accolades. It is an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection, Lambda Literary Award Finalist, and has garnered starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly.  Before becoming a novelist, Jeff acted on TV...

Hey there word nerds!  Welcome to the three hundredth episode of DIY MFA Radio! The original plan for this episode was to unveil our first-ever DIY MFA live event—Writer Igniter LIVE—which we were planning for October. In light of current events, we've put the planning  for that on hold. That said, we still wanted to honor this special milestone episode by doing something a little bit different. T...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Chris Banks! Chris Banks is the CEO and Founder of ProWritingAid. In his varied career, he has built neural networks to model language learning, worked on the BBC's scriptwriting product, written books, been a ski guide, and given talks on creativity, artificial intelligence, and language technologies. He started ProWritingAid to hel...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Brandy Colbert, the critically acclaimed author of several YA and Middle Grade novels. Her books include Pointe , Stonewall Award winner Little & Lion , Finding Yvonne , The Revolution of Birdie Randolph , and her 2020 releases, The Only Black Girls in Town , and The Voting Booth . Her short fiction and essays have also been publishe...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing E.J. Wenstrom J. Wenstrom believes in complicated heroes, horrifying monsters, purple hair dye and standing to the right on escalators so the left side can walk. Her award-winning fantasy series Chronicles of the Third Realm War (City Owl Press) features a peculiar mashup of Greek mythology, Judeo-Christian folklore, and an extra das...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Curdella Forbes. Curdella is a Jamaican writer who lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, and teaches at Howard University. Her latest novel, A Tall History of Sugar , has been praised by BuzzFeed, Essence, Bookish, The Rumpus, Electric Lit, Kirkus Reviews, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, SyFy, and many others. Writing for the New York Times B...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Claire Waller. Claire is a secondary school teacher who works with teenagers with mental health issues. She has had two adult horror novels (Predator X, Nine Eyes) published by Australian indie publisher, Severed Press. FUGLY is her first YA novel. Claire lives with her husband, two daughters, a cat called Hiccup, and various dinosau...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing H.R. Hobbs. H.R. Hobbs (or Heather Hobbs, as I know her) is the Amazon-bestselling author of a series of compassionate and empowering stories for middle-grade readers. Set in a typical middle school, her books address the topics of belonging, friendship, and bullying. A lifelong learner and teacher, Heather started writing in 2015 as...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Abel. Cartoonist and coach Jessica is the founder of the Creative Focus Workshop, and author of Growing Gills: How to Find Creative Focus When You're Drowning in Your Daily Life , the graphic novel La Perdida , and two textbooks about making comics, Drawing Words & Writing Pictures and Mastering Comics . Her book Out on the W...

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing K.S. Villoso who writes speculative fiction with a focus on deeply personal themes and character-driven narratives. Much of her work is inspired by her childhood in the slums of Taguig, Philippines. She now lives amidst the forest and mountains of Vancouver, Canada with her husband, children, and dogs. Her novel, The Wolf of Oren-Yar...