QWERTY: A Podcast for Writers on How to Live the Writing Life

Suzette Mullen is the author of the new memoir, The Only Way Through is Out , just out from the University of Wisconsin Press. She is the founder of Your Story Finder, where she provides nonfiction book coaching. In 2021, she published a Tiny Love Story in The New York Times that was the seed that became her new book. Listen as she and host Marion Roach Smith discuss how to go from a short piece o...

Author, historian, essayist, bestselling novelist and commentator Kevin Baker has just published part one of his long-awaited two-part look into baseball and the city that formed it and was formed by it. Called The New York Game: Baseball and The Rise of a New City (Knopf, 2024), this was a labor of love from a super fan of both the city and the game. In our interview on the Qwerty podcast, we dis...

Author, essayist, poet and activist Ani Gjika is an Albanian-born poet, literary translator, writer, and author of Bread on Running Waters (Fenway Press, 2013). A finalist for the 2011 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize and 2011 May Sarton New Hampshire Book Prize, she moved to the US at age 18 and earned an MA in English at Simmons College and an MFA in poetry at Boston University. Her honors include awa...

Writer and author Meg Kissinger spent more than two decades traveling across the country to report on America’s mental health system for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. A Pulitzer Prize finalist, she has won two George Polk Awards, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, awards from Investigative Reporters and Editors, and two National Journalism Awards. Kissinger teaches investigative reporting at Columbia...

Writer, essayist, speaker and activist Taylor Brorby is the author of Boys and Oil, Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land, a NYT Editors’ Choice published in 2022 by Liveright, a division of W.W. Norton. He is also the author of Crude: Poems , Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience , and he is the co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. His work has appeared in...

Known nationally and internationally as the woman who lived in one of the world’s smallest apartments, Felice Cohen is the award-winning author of the bestselling books Half In: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden Love , 9 0 Lessons for Living Large in 90 Square Feet (...or More) (inspired by the YouTube video of her tiny NYC studio with over 25 million views) and What Papa Told Me , about her gra...

Washington Post contributing columnist and author Kate Cohen writes about American culture. Her new book, We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should Too) , is just out. Listen in as we discuss her book, writing about faith and the loss of it, and so much more. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text...

Mega-bestselling author Joanna Penn, whose 40 books span several genres, has now written a memoir after making three separate solo pilgrimage walks. The walks and this new book, Pilgrimage: Lessons Learned from Solo Walking Three Ancient Ways, allowed her to define for herself her personal definition of being a seeker. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thorough...

When writer, author and advocate Kristin Jarvis Adams pitched a potential publisher on her book, she began with a sentence so startling that it made the publisher ask her to breakfast. The book that followed was full of such sentences. This is a conversation about an unlikely book on an nearly impossible topic to sell that worked. Be inspired by her tale. Listen in and learn how to live this writi...

Writer, author and advocate Virginia Sole-Smith knows how to write into other's biases, and she writes right into them, giving us new language while she explores diet culture, anti-fat bias, feminism and health. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life.  The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Rea...

Allison K. Williams utilized her years as what she calls an "unkind editor" to write and publish her fine book, Seven Drafts: Self-Edit like a Pro from Page to Book, which she discusses here on the Qwerty podcast. This skillfully constructed book breaks down the process of writing and self-editing into seven definitive drafts – the vomit draft, the story draft, the Character draft, the tec...

Kerri Maher knows how to choose topics to write about. The author of the USA Today bestseller, The Paris Bookseller , is back with one of the most compelling topics of our time. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writ...

Matt Mendez is the author of Barely Missing Everything, his debut novel, and the short story collection Twitching Heart. He writes from places that have been traiditonally ignored and brings his perspective to his work. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life ....

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Alice Carriere has written a dynamic debut memoir from her unconventional, big downtown New York life. Raised in the art scene, she is practically burdened with great, vivid material, including a supporting cast of celebrity artists, actors and infuencers. How to write a memoir from a vivid, troubled upbringing? Like this. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is br...

How to write memoir from the middle of the mess? Perhaps the expert on this is author Michele Cushatt, whose books from Zondervan, provide readers with the guidance to read and live through life's complications. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read...

Dave Pelzer, bestselling author of A Child Called It and Qwerty podcast host Marion Roach Smith talk about writing from a place of helping others. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life . Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know.

How to write an anonymous memoir with Lamya H, author of Hijab Butch Blues. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know.

How to write a braided memoir? Author Robin Schepper and host Marion Roach Smith take on the topic of the braided memoir in this episode of The Qwerty podcast. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know.

Journalist and essaying Elizabeth Rau speaks with host Marion Roach Smith about the power of the personal essay, how to write from everyday life, and how to publish an essay collection in this episode of The Qwerty Podcast. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Lif...

On this episode of The Qwerty podcast, the award-winning Young Adult writer, Jennifer De Leon, discusses how to make a writing career by writing what you know Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know.

How to write dog memoir. Writer and author Rona Maynard talks with Qwerty podcast host Marion Roach Smith about her new book, Starter Dog . Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life . Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know.

Naturalist, writer, author, illustrator and wildlife rehabilitator, Julie Zickefoose, speaks with Qwerty podcast host Marion Roach Smith about writing from nature. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you k...

Memoirist Rebecca Fogg speaks with Qwerty opdcast host Marion Roach Smith about writing a first memoir and the lessons learned when writing from trauma. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know.

Author, translator and professor Heinz Insu Fenkl and host Marion Roach Smith talk about writing from one's own life story and the writing tools available from being an outsider. Listen in and learn how to live this writing life. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to...