Ink in Your Veins

Alana Quintana Albertson  has written thirty romance novels, rescued five-hundred death-row shelter dogs, and danced one thousand rumbas. She lives with her husband in sunny San Diego with her two sons and too many pets. Most days, she can be found writing her next heart book in a beachfront café while sipping an oat-milk Mexican mocha or gardening with her children in their backyard orchard...

Tara T. Green (she/her) is professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina where she teaches literature and gender studies courses. She is the author of Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson (Bloomsbury 2022), See Me Naked: Black Women Defining Pleasure During the Interwar Era (Rutgers UP, 2022), Reimagining the Middle Passag...

Please enjoy the very first chat that Rachael Herron and Sacha Black (of The Rebel Author Podcast) have together. Irreverent, cheeky, and always honest, you’re going to love this.  Get access to their chats a whole month early on Patreon! http://patreon.com/rachael  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah McCraw Crow i s the author of the novel  The Wrong Kind of Woman  (Mira/HarperCollins). Her short fiction has run in Calyx, Crab Orchard Review, Good Housekeeping, and Stanford Alumni Magazine, and she’s a regular book reviewer for BookPage. She is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Stanford University, and Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA), and she lives with her family on an old f...

In this episode, Rachael talks about setting boundaries in order to be a kinder writer to ourselves, and then she and Nigel talk about indie vs trad publishing, masterminds, and how to choose what to write next!  Nigel Bartlett is a freelance writer and editor who has worked for many of the best-known magazines in Australia. He lives in the inner-Sydney suburb of Redfern. Talking about King o...

Vanessa Hua  is a columnist for the  San Francisco Chronicle  and the author of the novel  A River of Stars  and a story collection,  Deceit and Other Possibilities . A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative...

Erin La Rosa  has written many highly engaging... tweets, as a social media manager. But on her way to writing romance, she's also published two humorous non-fiction books, Womanskills and The Big Redhead Book. Her most recent novel is For Butter or Worse. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three daughters (one human, two felines). Find her on Twitter and Instagram @erinlarosalit a...

Sascha Rothchild  is an Emmy-nominated screenwriter, who has written and produced lauded shows such as  GLOW ,  The Bold Type ,  The Baby-Sitters Club , and  The Carrie Diaries . In 2015, she was named one of  Variety 's “10 TV Writers to Watch.” Rothchild has written for  LA Weekly , the  Los Angeles Times ,  Elle , and the  Miami Herald , an...

In this bonus episode, Rachael Herron talks about staying enthralled with your work (even when you’re bored), how to approach a major revision, how to write a villain, and when you MIGHT want to send your book to agents, even if it’s not completely perfect yet.  How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write...

Maddie Dawson is the author of nine novels, including the bestselling Matchmaking for Beginners , and three non-fiction humor books about parenting, from when that used to be funny. She comes from a long line of Southern storytellers (also known as self-proclaimed bald-faced liars), but she's the only one who thought she'd try to make a living at it. She has three kids who grew up and now she...

Sarra Cannon is the indie author of more than twenty-five Young Adult contemporary fantasy novels, including her bestselling Shadow Demons Saga. Her novels often stem from her own experiences growing up in the small town of Hawkinsville, Georgia, where she learned that being popular always comes at a price and relationships are rarely as simple as they seem.   With over three-quarters of a mi...

In this bonus mini-episode, Rachael Herron talks about when you should or shouldn’t write outside your own lived experience, about how to read carefully to improve your craft, and about what to look for when hiring a cover designer! These questions are brought to her by her Patrons, and you, too, can ask her any question you like! Link below!  How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes o...

(Bonus: Bonus: Why to Be Wary of Hybrid Publishers!) Deonna Kelli Sayed is an author, TEDx speaker, and performer based in Greensboro, North Carolina. She is the author of  Paranormal Obsession: America’s Fascination with Ghosts & Hauntings, Spooks & Spirits . She is a contributor to the groundbreaking work, Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American-Muslim Women and...

A.K. Mulford is a bestselling fantasy author and former wildlife biologist who swapped rehabilitating monkeys for writing novels. She/they are inspired to create diverse stories that transport readers to new realms, making them fall in love with fantasy for the first time, or, all over again. She now lives in New Zealand with her husband and two young human primates, creating lovable fantasy chara...

What’s the difference between rewriting and revising? And what do you do when the existential monster of WHY AM I EVEN DOING THIS rears its ugly head? Join Rachael Herron as she talks about this and some other Big Things To Think About in your writing!  How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book...

Catherine Prendergast  is a Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Fulbright Scholar. Interviewed by NPR and  New York Magazine , she has written on battles over school desegregation, anxieties over the global spread of English, and recognition of disability rights. Dr. Prendergast's previous (scholarly) books include&...

Rachael talks to Josephine Smith about how to launch a career, fast, and answers some bonus questions about indie publishing!  Josephine Smith is a cozy mystery author with a love of hot cups of tea, tricky puzzles, and spending Sunday afternoons with a good book. She lives in Northern California with her husband, dog, and cat, and they all get along most of the time. The Hemlock Inn mysterie...

Rudy Ruiz i s a writer of literary fiction. A native of the U.S.-Mexico border, his earliest works were published at Harvard, where he studied literature, creative writing, government and public policy, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 2017, Rudy Ruiz was awarded the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction. In 2020, Ruiz was a finalist for both the Texas Institute of Letters’ Best Short Story...

Isabel Cañas is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, and Turkey, among other places, she has settled (for now) in New York City, where she works on her PhD dissertation in medieval Islamic literature and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage. The Hacienda, her debut novel, is billed as Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca set in M...

In this, the three-hundredth episode of How Do You Write, Rachael talks about how happy she is to be here, and shares how she turned her own writing around. Then she talks to Amy S. Peele RN, who is the award-winning, best-selling author of Cut and Match, medical mysteries with a mission and a side of humor.  Before becoming a writer Amy enjoyed a fascinating 35-year career in the organ trans...

In this bonus episode, Rachael talks about the difference between a premise and a hook, and also talks about the three legs of the stool that props up our writing! Thanks to her Patreon supporters for this episode!  How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you'll gain...

Seressia Glass  is an award-winning author of romance and urban fantasy. She lives south of Atlanta with her husband, son, two attack poodles, and a bulldozer of a Cane Corso. When not writing, she likes to collect purple things, jewelry, and spends way too much time watching K-dramas and anime. The Love Con is her most recent release and is a Library Journal pick.  How Do You Write Podc...

John R. Rickford is the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Linguistics, emeritus, at Stanford University. He received his BA with highest honors in Sociolinguistics from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) in 1971, and his Ph. D. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979.  He is an expert in the relation between language and ethnicity, social class and s...

In this episode, Ashanti Anderson talks about how as writers we’ll always be affected by our peers and how to use different genres to feed our own, unique voices. Ashanti Anderson (she/her) is a Black Queer Disabled poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Her debut short poetry collection,  Black Under , is the winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Pres...

In this bonus mini-episode brought to you by her patrons, Rachael answers questions about how to know when you’ve outgrown your editor, how do you know when your book is ready to publish, and what’s the bare minimum needed in social media!  How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to...