Shelf Life Podcast

This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article No True Scotsman , which originally published on December 15, 2020. The "No True Scotsman" fallacy happens when you start with a faulty generalization—"real writers write every day"—and then reject any counterexample by declaring it doesn't count. This essay walks through the lies writers tell themselves: that real writers don't have day jobs, do...

This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article Unforgettable Villainy , which originally published on September 22, 2020. What makes a villain unforgettable? Not that we fear them, hate them, or sympathize with them. Dolores Umbridge infuriates us. Hannibal Lecter charms us. The T-1000 is just a machine. But they all share one trait: every great villain is the hero of their own story. This es...

This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article Defensive Line , which originally published on February 4, 2021. In Defensive Line, I use an extended football metaphor (bear with me—I only know roller derby) to talk about the difference between criticism and attack. Most writers feel defensive when someone critiques their work—that’s normal. The problem isn’t the feeling; it’s what you do with...

This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article The Four-Maggie Problem , which originally published on October 20, 2020. In The Four-Maggie Problem , I tell a true story from my early freelance editing days about a romance manuscript I was hired to copyedit. As I worked through the book, I kept encountering a character named Maggie—first as a bartender, then as a sibling, then as an emergency...

This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article Beauty and Marketability , which originally published on September 14, 2020. In Beauty and Marketability, I adapt Ross McCammon's "Two Beers and a Puppy" test to writing, sorting books into four categories based on whether they're intrinsically good and whether the market wants them. I look at examples from One Hundred Years of Solitude (a Yes-Ye...

This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article The Blind Mind , which originally published on December 29, 2020. In The Blind Mind , I explore what it’s like to read and write with aphantasia—the inability to visualize images in my mind. I share how I didn’t even realize my brain worked differently until my thirties, when a coworker mentioned how strange it would be not to see mental pictures...

This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article To Do Something Well , which originally published on September 17, 2020. Catherine Forrest argues that the first step to doing something well is accepting that you will be terrible at it first. Using her own experience of working furiously at roller derby only to remain painfully mediocre, she explains that persevering at something you're bad at...

This is the podcast episode of the Shelf Life article Voice Lessons , published June 1, 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit catherineforrest.substack.com