Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

In part 2 of my interview with Chelsey Goodan, author of Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, we really break down the inner parts of writing, including how to be OK with the fact that people may misunderstand you. Other things we cover: The mistake most well-intentioned parents make How Chelsey deals with her biggest fear about her work–being misunderstood Dealing with a perfect...

This week I’m talking with Chelsey Goodan, author, keynote speaker, and screenwriter whose new book Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls is coming out any minute now! As the mom of a 16-year-old girl, I just didn’t even think twice about inviting Chelsey on to Finding the Throughline. I literally read the title of her book and was like YES. In this first part of our interview, we...

In this final installment of interview with memoirist, speaker, and screenwriter Sarah Montana, we dive into where’s she’s headed–who her role models are, what’s perking up her ears, and how she’s taking what she learned as an advocate on the front lines in the writer’s strike and applying it to her own career. Why Sarah no longer has role models, per se, and what she looks to for inspiration inst...

Heads up: In this second part of my interview with screenwriter Sarah Montana, we discuss trauma and suicide, so please take care while listening. Even without those discussions, in this episode Sarah goes deep into some major truths about life and you probably don’t want to be listening while you’re doing chores or around other people so you can let it all in. (I’m still processing it all! In the...

This week I'm talking with Sarah Montana, a screenwriter, speaker, writer, and–fun fact!--trained opera singer. Sarah has written multiple movies for the Hallmark Channel, including Rescuing Christmas, Love to the Rescue, and A New Year's Resolution. Her TEDx talk, “The real risk of forgiveness and why it's worth it” is one of my favorite TED talks of all time. If you’ve listened to Sarah’s TED ta...

In this final installment of my talk with author and essayist Minda Honey, we cover: The insights–on double consciousness, omniscience, and overlapping timelines–she got at a recent conference How Andre 3000’s new flute album is cracking open possibilities in her mind The concept of a braided essay, and how it’s like making a charcuterie board The book Minda could not put down (and that made her c...

In part 2 of my interview with essayist and author of the memoir The Heartbreak Years, Minda Honey, we really break down the inner parts of writing, including how to stay focused on the impact your work is having when all some people want to do is complain. Other things we cover: How an earlier school of personal essays bordered into too personal, or what Minda referred to as “self-exploitation”,...

Minda Honey is the author of The Heartbreak Years, a hilarious and intimate memoir of a Black woman finding who she is and who she wants to be, one bad date at a time. Minda's essays on politics and relationships have appeared in all kinds of amazing places, including Harper's Bazaar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Teen Vogue, and Longreads. She is also the edi...

In this final installment of my interview with Jodie Noel Vinson, she spills the deets on her favorite writers and books and how - Inspiring figures from history who were chronically ill, including Florence Nightengale and Charles Darwin–lightbulb moment! - I gush about the memoir Easy Beauty, by Chloe Cooper Jones–one of my top reads of 2022 (now available in paperback!) - The essayists Jodie can...

In part 2 of my interview with essayist Jodie Noel Vinson, we talk about the squishier side of doing creative work, including: - How no one wants to claim the term “writer”, and what Jodie has to say about that. - How turning 30 was a bigger deal for Jodie than turning 40 (which she recently did) - Why Jodie reads Proust over and and over, and it’s not snobby - A heartfelt rant on how we talk and...

Jodie Noel Vinson is an essayist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Review, Literary Hub, and Ploughshares. Her essays have received honorable mention in the annual Best American Essay anthologies, and she's won multiple awards and residencies, including the Susan Adefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction from Arts and Letters and the Maureen Egan Writers Exchange Award from Poets a...

In the final installment of my interview with Terri Trespicio, she shares the books, shows, and people she can’t get enough of who inspire her. Plus, she answers the fast five questions despite having a moment of panic that she wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say. - How she loves poking holes in the silly things we tell ourselves (like her friend who felt like she had to finish every libr...

In part 2 of interview with author of Unfollow Your Passion, TedX speaker, and standup comedian Terri Trespicio, we break down: - The difference between easy and ease - How Terri’s Catholic upbringing contributed to her recurring critical thoughts, and also what it taught her about how to get past them - A ninja trick for where to place your focus when your inner critic is chiming in - In praise o...

Terri Trespicio is the author of the fabulously helpful and hopeful book, Unfollow Your Passion: How to Create a Life That Matters to You, which was named one of the best feel-good reads of the year by the Washington Post. Her book is based on her TEDx talk, which is called Stop Searching for Your Passion and has been viewed 8 million times. Terri opens that talk recounting the day she got fired f...

In the final installment of my interview with Leigh Medeiros, we talk about her most delightful visions of the future, who inspires her, and exactly what happens in her cacao ceremonies. Why Leigh finds many social media videos incredibly inspirational The importance of expanding your capacity Why she loves learning from drag queens Which social media videos are giving her hope–and getting her to...

Why it’s crucial that you share your work without disclaiming it The screenplay she almost gave up on because her inner critic was going bananas—a hilarious and so relatable story Why it matters that you pursue your art (prepare to shed a tear or two) For detailed show notes, with links to everything we discuss--plus bonus photos!-- visit katehanley.substack.com. Learn more about your ad choices....

Lee Medeiros is an award-winning screenwriter, author, and all-around creative who, when she isn't making her own work, is helping others make theirs. Leigh is the author of the One Minute Writer, 396 Micro Prompts to Spark Creativity and Recharge Your Writing. She also writes a column for Script Magazine called The Climate Screenwriter, is the co-producer of the Writing Climate Pitch Fest, and fo...

In the final installment of my interview with Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggets, we talk about her most delightful visions of the future, who inspires her, and what she's staying up too late reading (or in this case, listening to). My biggest takeaway was how Tracey focuses on one primary topic--joy--but then spins it in to a lot of different directions, and how that helps her a) create a meaningful l...

In part two of my interview with Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggets, award-winning author of 21 books, including "Black Joy" and "Then They Came for Mine," we plumb the depths of her mind, including: - What's it like to be writing for a larger audience--the good and the bad parts - The things her inner critic loves to tell her - What's it like to be writing for a larger audience--the good and the bad p...

Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggets is the author of 21 BOOKS, Y'ALL--more than one of them have won awards, including her two most recent: "Black Joy" and "Then They Came for Mine." In this episode, Tracey shares a ton of particulars, or what she called before we started recording her "cheat codes": - How considering herself a storyteller instead of a memoirist or novelist helps her find her way along...

In the final installment of my interview with generous and prolific writing goddess Sari Botton (she publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in Journalism on Substack, authored And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen X Weirdo, Goodbye to All That, and Never Can Say Goodbye, and was the essays editor at Longreads), we talk about what's coming up next for her, a...

In part two of my interview with Sari Botton, founder of Oldster Magazine and author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Gen X Weirdo, we dive deep into the inner stuff, including: - Her favorite part of sharing her work with the world - How she navigates the ethics of including other people in her personal writing - How her inner critic loves to tell her she doesn’t haven’t permission...

[Sari Botton, Practical Matters]: The power of curiosity, offhand comments, and writing stuff you've already done on your to-do list This seed of the idea for Finding the Throughline: Conversations about the Creative Process, was first dropped by Sari Botton in her Substack publication Oldster Magazine—specifically, it was her Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, in which she asks creatives of all ages...

You may have noticed, I have been rebroadcasting old episodes of How to Be a Better Person since May. I want to tell you a little bit about what’s been going on. Here's the Cliffs Notes version: I'm ending How to Be a Better Person. And starting a new show--which will appear here, in this same feed, starting January 15th--called Finding the Throughline. Why? Well, a mid-life crisis had something t...

That might seem like a mixed message, coming from a podcast called How to Be a Better Person. Just to be clear, I don’t want you to be a different person. Just to help you be that version of yourself that you know is in there, and that can get overlooked when we’re busy, or stressed, or distracted. It’s not fixing we’re after here. It’s remembering. And growing. And neither of those things are pos...