Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Two interviews from the archives - with our old music! -  with Vermont author and editor Angela Palm and Vermont poet Malisa Garlieb . Angela Palm's collection Riverine: A Memoir from Anywhere but Here  won the Graywolf nonfiction award, was an Oprah.com pick for "Powerful Memoirs by Powerful Women," an Indie Next List pick, and A Kirkus Best Book in 2016. Poet Malisa Garlieb's work has appeared i...

Vermont Poet Daniel Lusk , who's new collection is Every Slow Thing ( Kelsay Books ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider what Daniel calls his “farthings,” tiny Zen-like poems that share wit, irony, natural beauty, and wisdom. Here are a few of his, kindly shared with us: Sepals - As if priests were magpies and souls were shiny objects. As if brothels were little seminaries of corpo...

New York Times bestselling author Fiona Barton , whose new novel is Local Gone Missing ( Berkley ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about an altercation between someone who lives full time in a small town and a visitor, seasonal homeowner, or tourist. What sets them off and what preceded the incident for each of them? How does the full-time resident feel about outsiders before this e...

An interview from the archives (with our old music!) with Vermont poet and UVM Professor Stephen Cramer. We discussed his book From the Hip: A Concise History of Hip Hop (in sonnets). Since that time, Stephen has published a number of other books. His latest collection, The Disintegration Loops, "attempts to uncover the music within the world's dissolution and fragmentation, from Italian masters p...

A new interview with the author Mohsin Hamid , whose latest novel is The Last White Man ( Riverhead ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a drastic change in a character’s life - even something unlikely or impossible - that changes their world in some way, bringing both difficulty and relief.  Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt o...

Vermont poet Laura Budofsky Wisniewski, the author of Sanctuary, Vermont  ( Orison ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Laura Budofsky Wisniewski. Set a timer and start writing. Do not stop. Even if you have to occasionally write the same word over and over until the next word comes, keep it up. When the timer goes off at whatever point you designated - two m...

Vermont photographer and writer across genres Shanta Lee Gander , whose debut poetry collection, Ghettoclaustrophobia: Dreamin of Mama While Trying to Speak Woman in Woke Tongues (Diode Editions) , won the Vermont Book Award for Poetry in 2021.  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Shanta Lee Gander, who mentioned her own version of this during our conversation. ...

An interview from the archives with novelist and story writer J. Robert Lennon . We discussed his story collection, See You in Paradise, published by Graywolf Press . Last year he published two more books with Graywolf, a novel called Subdivision and a story collection, Let Me Think .  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write a paragraph about a moment that takes place in a park. Maybe a dog...

An interview from the archives with award winning writer, educator and translator Wendy Call .  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to choose one of the following sentences, and translate it into a language of your own design.  Tomorrow morning, as the sun shines up and over the eastern wall of your house, you will awaken to a gift of joy.  He ran through the woods and hopped the stones in a brig...

An interview with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Jennifer Egan about her new novel The Candy House  ( Scribner ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Jennifer Egan—an exercise she assigns her students that she says has been helpful. Imagine yourself in a physical place, such as a room that you know well from an earlier point of your life. Describe what is to your...

An interview with 2019 Quill Prose Prize winner, Carlos Allende ,  about his novel, Coffee, Shopping, Murder, Love ( Red Hen Press ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest Carlos Allende. Create a character that does something reprehensible or immoral. The person can be anyone: from a child who broke the rules to a serial killer. Make that character sympathetic by...

Author Jori Lewis , whose debut nonfiction book is Slaves for Peanuts ( The New Press) . This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Jori Lewis. If you’re working on something and it’s not moving along well, try changing the perspective. And in doing this, keep in mind  the way one focuses a camera: focus in, pull out. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tu...

An interview from the archives with bestselling author Meg Wolitzer , about her novel for young adults, Belzhar (Dutton Books for Young Readers). One of her latest projects is hosting Selected Shorts at New York's Symphony Space, hosted by Public Radio International . Seedlings, soil, compost, fertilizer. It’s gardening season. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a garden. Perhaps...

This month, the words of celebrated Vermont poet David Budbill  take center stage in Sutras for a Suffering World , a concert featuring Vermont and New York artists and music by composers William Parker, Erik Nielsen, and Evan Premo. I spoke with Vermont artists Lois Eby and Nadine Budbill , wife and daughter of the late David Budbill, about these concerts.  As literary executor of David Budbill's...

Vermont Author Jennifer McMahon , whose new novel is The Children on the Hill ( Simon & Schuster ).  Jennifer's recent reads include: The Fervor, by Alma Katsu My Heart Is a Chainsaw, by Stephen Graham Jones This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Jennifer McMahon, who sent me this note: At its heart, The Children on the Hill is an exploration of monsters and monstr...

Melanie Finn , winner of the Vermont Book Award in Fiction 2021, and author of The Hare ( Two Dollar Radio ).  Melanie's favorite recent reads include: Empireland, by Sathnam Sanghera On The Black Hill, by Bruce Chatwin Orlando, by Virginia Woolf   This week's Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Melanie Finn, who recommends starting "outside the box" when it comes to buildi...

Kurt Johnson and his daughter, Ellie Johnson , who have collaborated on a new novel titled The Barrens: A Novel of Love and Death in the Canadian Arctic ( Arcade ).  This week I have two Write the Book Prompts to offer, thanks to the generosity of my guests. Kurt Johnson suggests writing a paragraph the beginning and end of which you know ahead of time. Allow the middle to be more stream of consci...

Maya Rodale , best-selling and award-winning author of funny feminist historical fiction and romance. Her latest novel is Mad Girls of New York ( Berkley ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Maya Rodale, who said it was inspired by our conversation. Take this scenario and write it forward:  She was in a rush to get downtown–the sooner the better and definitely before it...

Michelle Huneven 's latest is Search , a funny novel about a congregational search committee, told as a memoir with recipes ( Penguin ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt comes from Michelle Huneven’s book, Search. It’s one that the search committee is offered when they begin working with the consultant named Helen: IMAGINE YOUR LIFE AS A MOVIE THAT YOU’VE STEPPED OUT OF TO BE HERE TODAY. WHAT’S T...

An interview from the archives - complete with the old music! - with Robert Boswell,  award-winning author of seven novels, including  Tumbledown ( Graywolf Press) . Robert Boswell published a book on craft in 2008, The Half-Known World. In this book, he details how important it is for writers to give themselves over to what he calls the "half-known world" of fiction, where surprise and meaning co...

An interview from the archives with Jacqueline Woodson , about her National Book Award winning memoir-in-verse, Brown Girl Dreaming ( Nancy Paulsen Books ). Have you ever tried to write a story in verse? Not necessarily a long story. Maybe an anecdote you would share with a friend about something that happened to you on a random Monday afternoon. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider a...

Mark Wish and Elizabeth Coffey , editors of a new anthology: Coolest American Stories 2022 (Coolest Stories Press). This year marked the inaugural publication of the book, which will come out each January.  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is actually a publishing prompt (because we all know how hard it is to send out work once we've written it). Polish up your coolest, most twisty-turny story, m...

A conversation from the archives with the author Vikram Chandra about his nonfiction book, Geek Sublime: The Beauty of Code, the Code of Beauty  ( Graywolf Press ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to include a few (let's say three) of the following items together in a story, scene, poem, or essay:  a dock fender for a boat  the bow of a violin a leaky pen a basketball hoop an Apple II Comput...

An interview from the archives with local author and Queen City Ghostwalk Guide Thea Lewis about her book Haunted Inns and Ghostly Getaways of Vermont , published by The History Press. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to imagine a creepy scenario that has always frightened you. Maybe it has to do with going down into a basement, or up into an attic. Maybe it centers on a certain person who lea...

An interview with Rachel Foster , co-founder and executive council co-chair of World Without Exploitation , who recently wrote an opinion piece in Vermont Digger : "Burlington controversy part of effort to decriminalize sex trade," and Mary Speta , Chief Impact Officer for Amirah , an organization offering help to survivors of sexual exploitation. This week's interview is not about a specific book...