The Book I HAD to Write

In today’s episode I talk with author and creativity coach Courtney Maum of Before and After the Book Deal about what it means to write and publish memoir in 2024. She describes her own unconventional route into publishing, highlighting the importance of hard work and persistence over connections. She also shares insights into the craft of memoir, including the benefits of using a " dual timeline...

In today’s episode I talk with author and cultural journalist Melissa Petro about her new book, Shame On: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification . The book explores how, in a patriarchal society, shame is often weaponized against women, keeping them small and lessening their impact. Petro weaves in her own personal story, which included an early stint with sex work and her brush with public...

Book coach Joelle Hann—aka “The Brooklyn Book Doctor”—joins me to discuss the journey from book idea to finished product. Joelle delves into common obstacles for first-time authors, the transformative nature of writing, and the importance of mindset and resilience. She also shares insights from her Book Proposal Academy and highlights trends happening in the publishing industry, especially post-pa...

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Joan Leegant to discuss her new short story collection, Displaced Persons . Joan shares insights into her writing process, including how she often begins stories with no preset idea and allows stories to emerge from a first sentence. Many of Joan’s stories are set among immigrants and Americans living in Israel. And while Joan’s collection was accepted for publica...

In this episode, I talk with author and novelist about his recent hybrid memoir and cultural exploration, Always Crashing in the Same Car . We discuss his fascination with figures who faced creative crises in Hollywood, from F. Scott Fitzgerald , filmmaker Hal Ashby or musician Warren Zevon to more overlooked but similarly brilliant figures like Carole Eastman , the screenwriter of the 1970s class...

Today’s guest is the writer and poet Evan Dalton Smith. His first book, part personal story and part cultural study, is called Looking for Andy Griffith: A Father’s Journey . We talk about the power of nostalgia, finding personal resilience, and pursuing meaningful storytelling. We also discuss the nearly decade-long journey of taking an 8,200-word essay (published in the Los Angeles Review of Boo...

Today’s episode features my interview with Jennifer Lang . Her memoir, Places We Left Behind , is a marvel of brevity and form. It’s the story of how one woman, a hybrid of American-French-Israeli identities, navigates cultural and religious differences with her husband over the course of three decades, as her family searches for what it means to find a sense of home. In our interview, Jennifer sh...

Last year, I came across an essay called “ Book Publishing is Broken ” by today’s podcast guest, Kathleen Schmidt . Using her decades of experience in book PR & strategy, Kathleen laid out several reasons why traditional publishing fails writers. (If you haven’t already read that post, you’ll get to hear Kathleen’s reasons in our interview). And the essay really stood out…not just because Kathleen...

In this converation with memoirist Abigail Thomas , we discuss the backstory of writing Safekeeping , and that now-classic memoir was initially turned down by all the editors the book was sent, except for one.  We talk about how crafting a memoir-in-fragments like Safekeeping allows a writer to depict memories in a way a more conventional structure doesn’t permit. She talks about why writing what...

In this episode, I talk with author, musician and audio producer Chérie Newman about her humorous experiences pet-sitting unruly critters during the pandemic. The need to turn this one-time side hustle into a fulltime gig coincided with a more sobering reality: the way that wealthy out-of-state residents reshaped her hometown of Bozeman, Montana. Newman merges both stories into her debut memoir, O...

In this episode, I talk with author, professor, journalist, and rabbi Jay Michaelson. After publishing nine other books of nonfiction and poetry, and hundreds of stories for publications like Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, and New York magazine, Michaelson has just come out with his first work of fiction, The Secret That's Not a Secret . We discuss the nearly 20-year journey behind the writing of...

Last fall, administrators at Gettysburg College announced the shuttering of the prestigious Gettysburg Review . This just seemed like the latest in a long string of magazines and journals that have closed the past few years. Curious about what’s going on, I called Travis Kurowski , a leading expert on literary magazines, to help me understand what was happening. Today’s podcast features the interv...

Why would anyone want to jumpstart their memoir? For one thing, you’re tasked with plumbing your memory for sometimes difficult material. Added to that is the burden of turning out writing that often feels underwhelming—so much less than we know we can do. For recovering perfectionists, the combination can be daunting. In today’s episode of The Book I Had to Write , UK-based author Amity Reed and...

In this week’s episode of The Book I Had to Write , I talk with Margo Steines , the author of Brutalities: A Love Story . This memoir-in-essays documents her journey through a series of extreme experiences including her time as a pro dom, a welder on a high-rise crew, her addictions to exercise, her interest in MMA fighting, and more. We talk about her journey to discovering the power of the braid...

In the Season 3 launch, Jeannine Ouellette, author of the memoir The Part That Burns and creator of the Writing in the Dark newsletter, shares insights into her writing process, her extraordinary year on Substack, and the unique blend of craft, wisdom, and kindness that makes her a beloved teacher of creative writing. Key Takeaways * Writing around a difficult topic can hinder the writing process,...

For this final post of 2023, here’s one from the archives — perhaps the most popular episode of The Book I Had to Write podcast. In this segment, I talk with Sari Botton, the author of the memoir/essay collection …And You May Find Yourself , and the founder of Oldster magazine. Back around 2010, Sari started an interview series at The Rumpus called “ Conversations with Writers Braver Than Me .” By...

I’ve just wrapped up season 2 of The Book I Had to Write, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the show. I’ll be back in the fall with a new season that I hope you’ll love. But before I do that, I have a big favor to ask... I’ve created a short survey and would love for you to fill it out . In a world of many podcasts, including many books podcasts, I want to be sure I’m doing all I can to reach the kind of...

About this Episode   Back in the 1990s,  Leah Eichler , then a young reporter, interviewed her grandmother extensively about her experiences as an Auschwitz survivor. In this episode, Leah discusses her book-development journey working with coach & TBIHTW host Paul Zakrzewski. If you’ve been overwhelmed by a book you want to write – but aren’t sure where to start – this is the episode for you. Dis...

"There's a big gap between the dream and the published book--what's happening there?" asks book coach Joelle Hann (aka the Brooklyn Book Doctor ). Joelle joins host Paul Zakrzewski to talk about why writers face resistance when they start their books, the sense of power that happens when you finish, & the big shifts happening in Big 5 publishing right now. Looking to season 3, we're going on a jou...

Paul interviews writer, scholar, and archival expert Julija Šukys, author of Siberian Exile: Blood, War, and a Granddaughter’s Reckoning . Part way through this project, Šukys received documents that pointed to her grandfather’s possible complicity in Holocaust-era war crimes. Their conversation traces this major discovery and how it changed her work-in-progress. They also discuss the need to find...

Paul interviews author and cultural critic Stephen Marche about his new book  On Writing and Failure . We delve into the challenges faced by writers in the digital age, and the evolving landscape of publishing, and discuss the inherent failures that are part of writing process, and the struggle to bridge the gap between intention and reception.  Discussed on this Episode “The End of the English Ma...

About this Episode In Canada, essayist Susan Olding is well-known as the author of smart, beautifully crafted essays on topics like parenting, illness, our changing relationship to reading & more. In this episode, Susan discusses her journey as an essayist, and her newest essay collection  Big Reader. She also discusses the power of writing essays, the challenges of writer's block, the power of re...

Overview In this episode of "The Book I Had to Write" podcast, Paul interviews Josh Lambert, author of The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature .  Josh shares the story of how the term 'Jewish literary mafia' came about in the 1950s and 1960s. They delve into the problems of gatekeeping and publishing's lack of diversity, and ask whether a 'literary mafia' could point...

Paul is back with a new season of The Book I Had to Write !   This time around, the show explores nonfiction writers and stories from Canada.   Upcoming interviews will be published every other Tuesday starting on May 9, 2023 .   Highlights include:   Josh Lambert ( The Literary Mafia: Jews, Publishing, and Postwar American Literature) on the story of Jewish editors and writers who helped to shape...

In this episode, I talk with writer and editor Sari Botton. Back around 2010, Sari started an interview series at The Rumpus called “Conversations with Writers Braver Than Me.” At the time, as a writer of first-person nonfiction, she felt paralyzed by the fear of hurting those closest to her.  By definition, memoir and essays inevitably include stories about the people in our lives. But figuring o...