Write The Book: Conversations on Craft

Author Caitlin Hamilton Summie , whose new novel is Geographies of the Heart ( Fomite ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Caitlin Hamilton Summie. Consider the following prompt: “I didn’t want to steal it, but I did.” Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit:  Aaron Shapiro 714

Two shorter interviews from the archives: Jojo Moyes , about her book One Plus One ( Penguin ); and Heath Hardage Lee, about Winnie Davis: Daughter of the Lost Cause ( Potomac Books ).  Today’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider this sentence, and either start with it, or let it inform your work: “She’d only been a crossing guard for two days.” Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tu...

An interview from the archives with  Sue William Silverman about her memoir, The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo Saxon Jew ( University of Nebraska). This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a fantasized, imagined or real relationship with a star. From Pat Boone to David Cassidy, Britney Spears to Timothee Chalamet, heart throbs have always energized teens. You could write...

A conversation from the archives with Vermont children’s author Elizabeth Bluemle , about her picture book, TAP TAP, BOOM BOOM ( Candlewick Press ). My son and I once experienced a hurricane in Florida. Those of you who know storms might remember Charlie, in 2004. We stayed in a motel in Winter Park–a second-story room with an outside entry that looked out at the parking lot. The storm was fierce...

Interview from the archives with award-winning author Joshua Ferris on his novel, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour ( Little Brown and Company ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a visit to the dentist. Your scene, story or poem might involve the patient’s perspective, that of the dentist, the hygienist. Maybe you write about the waiting room, a moment in the parking lot, or the dr...

Vermont Author Joy Cohen , whose debut novel is 37 ( Guernica Editions ).  This week's Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest Joy Cohen during our conversation. She suggests making two lists: the first, a list of 10 characters. They can be actual people in your life, such as your mom or dad, your best friend, the pharmacist, the mail carrier, people that you know really well or d...

Poet A.E. Hines , whose debut collection is Any Dumb Animal ( Main Street Rag ). A new prompt for the week comes from A.E. Hines, and touches on something we discussed during the interview you just heard: Write a poem that explores duality, by comparing and contrasting two topics that are generally considered opposites. For example:  Where is the light in the darkness?  Or, pick one or multiple th...

A new interview with Swiss Author Peter Stamm , whose latest story collection is It's Getting Dark ( Other Press ). Peter Stamm generously suggested a  Write the Book Prompt for today’s show. Go to the cemetery and see what the stones tell you about the people who are buried there. You’ll learn from the stones themselves, but also from their names and dates, from details occasionally listed on the...

Wendy Sanford , author, editor, and a founding member of the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective . Her debut memoir is  These Walls Between Us: A Memoir of Friendship Across Race and Class ( SheWrites Press ).  On Wendy Sanford’s website you can go to a page titled Meet Mary Norman: Leading the way for women in New Jersey corrections work 1968-1993. On that page are a series of events that shape...

Author and Journalist Jonah Lehrer, whose new book is Mystery: A Seduction, A Strategy, A Solution ( Avid Reader Press ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Jonah Lehrer: Read a detective story and look for the false clues planted in the first five pages, or in Act I, depending on the work. In a Poe story or a Conan Doyle, there are so many missed leads, and you forget ab...

A conversation from the archives with the author Anne Lamott about her book Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son ( Riverhead ), which concerns being a grandparent. I myself became a Nana (again) last week, and so I've uploaded this interview without re-recording the intro and outro. Please excuse this lapse. I'm busy helping out.  This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write so...

Award-Winning Nigerian Author Uwem Akpan , whose debut novel is New York, My Village ( Norton ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about a time that your own success or advancement was stymied by bureaucracy, as visitors to America can be stymied by the process of trying to get a visa. Was your experience further complicated by some kind of prejudice or racism? If not, how might that...

Vermont Author Michael Freed-Thall , whose debut novel is Horodno Burning ( Rootstock ). Consider this Write the Book Prompt, inspired by my conversation with Michael: try using history as a frame from which to hang your characters in writing a story, poem, essay or longer piece. As you work, be sure you are accurately rendering the historical period, researching the industry, technology, customs,...

Vermont Author Melissa Perley , whose 2019 book The Violin Family ( Rootstock ) was recently named a winner in the Children’s Category of the 2021 Indie Reader Discovery Awards. Here's a musical Write the Book Prompt: listen to a piece of music and try to describe it in your work. It's harder than it sounds!  Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or...

A conversation from the archives with Vermont author and former president of Vermont College of Fine Arts , Thomas Christopher Greene , about his novel The Headmaster's Wife ( Thomas Dunne ).  On Friday, at a football game in Burlington High School's stadium, community members were treated to a very special halftime show featuring many students and teachers appearing in drag. According to The Wash...

Award-winning author Donald Antrim , whose new memoir is One Friday in April: A Story of Suicide and Survival ( Norton ). In presenting his viewpoint that suicide is a disease, Donald Antrim experiments early in the book with a presentation of labels and names for mental illness. As you heard in the interview, this list begins, “Depression, hysteria, melancholia, nervousness, neurosis…” and goes o...

Award-winning director and playwright Lisa Peterson , who has penned a translation of Hamlet for the Play on Shakespeare project, a series published by ACMRS Press. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to choose a piece of your work and try to translate it for a different audience than it was originally intended. Change the language so that it might have made sense three hundred years ago. Or put...

Award-winning author Ruth Ozeki , whose latest novel is The Book of Form and Emptiness ( Viking ). In our conversation, Ruth mentioned that she has to dig really deep to find her characters and fully understand them. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider a character you are working on; perhaps someone you don’t fully understand yet. Ask yourself these questions about this character:  Wh...

Vermont Author and former WTB Co-Host Gary Miller , whose new nonfiction book for students and their teachers is There's No Way to Do It Wrong!: How to Get Young Learners to Take Risks, Tell Stories, Share Opinions, and Fall in Love with Writing .  Gary generously offered us one of his many writing prompts to use for a Write the Book Prompt today. And that prompt is to begin with the sentence, “Th...

Vermont Poet Ralph Culver , whose new collection is A Passable Man (Mad Hat Press). In his poem, "Tableau," Ralph Culver writes about one person sharing a space with two other versions of himself, presumably over time (though this is never stated overtly). For a Write the Book Prompt, try experimenting with a similar moment that captures multiple expressions of one person - perhaps three ages, thr...

Interview with the poet Maggie Smith , whose new collection of poems, is Goldenrod ( One Signal ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt, suggested by my guest, Maggie Smith, is based on the work of Joe Brainard, who wrote the book I Remember. The book is essentially prose poetry, and each line begins with the words “I remember.” Maggie says that the idea is that if you do that over a couple of pages...

An interview from the archives with the author Jessica Hendry Nelson , who has a new book out - co-authored with fellow former Write the Book Guest Sean Prentiss : Advanced Creative Nonfiction: A Writer's Guide and Anthology , just out from Bloomsbury . During this interview, we talked about her memoir, If Only You People Could Follow Directions ( Counterpoint ). This week’s Write the Book Prompt...

Vermont Author Nancy Hayes Kilgore , in a conversation about her new novel, Bitter Magic ( Sunbury Press ). As we mentioned during our interview, one character who Nancy Hayes Kilgore describes in Bitter Magic is the devil himself. He appears to Isobel Gowdie in a spot where a tree had stood only moments before. She depicts him as a blonde man wearing green, but during their encounter he changes....

An interview from the archives with consultant and teacher Carolyn Conger, PhD , about her book Through the Dark Forest: Transforming Your Life in the Face of Death ( Plume ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was inspired by the book, Through the Dark Forest: Transforming Your Life in the Face of Death. No matter where you are in life - age-wise, health-wise, or otherwise - this week consider wh...

Poet, editor, scholar, and musician Tony Trigilio , whose new collection is Proof Something Happened , winner of the 2020 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize . This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Tony Trigilio. This prompt is adapted from John Daido Loori's The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. Sit with an object/memory/experience until it begins to reveal...