writing class radio

In this episode we’re talking about writing about death. We have a story by Leslie Gray Streeter , a columnist for the Palm Beach Post who also contributes to Modern Loss,    the online magazine dedicated to normalizing the way we talk about loss. Leslie’s story is called, What I did with My Husband’s Life Insurance Money . Leslie uses humor and a conversational style when writing a...

In this episode we air the winner of our fall writing contest-- Jen Antill . The prompt: A Time I Had an Unpopular Opinion reaped a story about a woman who is pregnant at 24, but doesn’t want to be. It turns out, she never wanted to be a mother. Starting with a prompt like a time you had an unpopular opinion can lead to a story with tension, conflict, and high stakes, all of which make for a great...

This is the final episode of the Andrea Show. For the last seven weeks, we brought you a story written and read by Writing Class Radio co-host, Andrea Askowitz, with commentary by her editor, co-host, Allison Langer. Andrea took a weekly essay challenge on her 50th birthday in May 2018, which was inspired by a quote by the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. He said, “Write a short story every...

For the next two weeks, we will bring you a story written and read by Writing Class Radio co-host, Andrea Askowitz, with commentary by her editor, co-host, Allison Langer. Andrea took a weekly essay challenge, which was inspired by a quote by the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. He said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.” This week Andrea t...

For the next three weeks, we will bring you a story written and read by Writing Class Radio co-host, Andrea Askowitz, with commentary by her editor, co-host, Allison Langer. Andrea took a weekly essay challenge, which was inspired by a quote by the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. He said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.” On this episode,...

This week, Andrea uses the epistolary form--story written as a letter--to get her point across. The letter form is very intimate because the narrator is speaking directing to you. We hope this process will help writers get published or at least get inspire to write. For the next four weeks, we will bring you a story written and read by Writing Class Radio co-host, Andrea Askowitz, with commentary...

For the next five weeks, we'll bring you a story written and read by Writing Class Radio co-host, Andrea Askowitz, with commentary by her editor, co-host, Allison Langer. Andrea took a weekly essay challenge, which was inspired by a quote by the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. He said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.” This week, somethin...

This is week three of an eight-week experiment. We’re bringing you a story a week by Writing Class Radio co-host, Andrea Askowitz , with commentary by her editor, co-host, Allison Langer . Andrea took a weekly essay challenge, which was inspired by a quote by the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. He said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.” O...

For the next seven weeks, we will bring you a story written and read by Writing Class Radio co-host, Andrea Askowitz , with commentary by her editor, co-host, Allison Langer . Andrea took a weekly essay challenge, which was inspired by a quote by the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. He said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad stories in a row.” This week, And...

Welcome to Season 6. For the next eight weeks, we will bring you a story a week written and read by co-host, Andrea Askowitz, with commentary by her editor, co-host, Allison Langer . This week, Andrea tells us why she took a weekly essay challenge, which was inspired by a quote by the author of Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury. He said, “Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 ba...

This is our 50th episode and our last episode of Season 5. Today we’re talking about omitting needless words because who has time for excessive blah, blah, blah. You will hear a great example of a story that got chopped in half. Allison Langer’s story called Why I decided to ignore the judgy snobs (like me) and have my babies on my own was published in the Washington Post, August 31, 2018. After A...

Writing about hard topics like money is awkward. No one wants to admit that they have money. And no one wants to admit that they don’t have money. Money is one of those topics that embarrasses people or divides people. This episode talks about MONEY. In this episode, we are also asking our listeners to join the movement of people who believe in the power of storytelling. We’re asking YOU to donate...

Today on our show we’re talking about compassion, families, and the legacy they leave. We’re also talking about how to write about those people in our lives who have fucked us up. And who hasn’t been fucked up by a parent? However, nobody wants to hear a rant. We must get to know the characters from all sides, which means, all the good things and all the ugly things. Nobody is all good or all bad....

In this episode, we examine the popular writing tenet, show DON’T tell. We believe just showing is not only impossible, but detrimental to your story. Telling gives insight into what the narrator is thinking and feeling. To test this theory, we asked our students to just SHOW. We gave the prompt: A Fight and instructed them to go directly to scene without explaining. After ten minutes, the student...

Today on our show, we're talking about objects. Things like a pen, trash cans, reading glasses, and a scale. We can build stories around these things because these objects affect our lives. They can stand in for an emotion. The phrase for this is object correlative. T.S. Eliot used this phrase to describe “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particul...

Today we are talking about identity; how sometimes what we show on the outside is not what we feel on the inside. As a storyteller, you have to know who you are. Or try to figure out who you are through the writing. Three of our students address identity. First Aaron Curtis, who is a blogger and bookseller writes about being mistaken for a Republican. Second, Tobi Ash, who is a philanthropist and...

The way a story is told out loud adds another layer to a story. On this episode, we’re talking about how our physical voices can carry a story with inflection, pace, volume, tone, and pitch. Voice can even make us love a story we might otherwise not like, or understand. Meet Asia Sampson renown poet and founder of The Asia Project (spoken word, poetry and storytelling)as he performs his new poem D...

Writing is a gift of yourself. It should give the reader or listener a glimpse inside. It should be something true and new and vulnerable. In a story, we reveal ourselves through voice. What we mean by voice in a story is the tone, the mood, and the personality of the narrator. Voice can be created by word choice, sentence structure, and even punctuation. The way someone tells a story out loud pla...

On this episode, we’re talking about secret pleasures, with a twist. We’re bringing you the winner of our writing contest. We gave the prompt: Secret Pleasure and we got some good ones. Our winner, Erika Flynn from New York City is a professional mistress. She tells us how SHE is the secret pleasure. Lia Seirotti, a student in our class, tells a story called Ball and Chain, about her own secret pl...

We’re in season 5! We decided, after 40 episodes, to follow a schedule. So please look out for us on the first Wednesday of every month. On this episode, we’re talking about moments. Going to a moment is a storytelling technique that requires the narrator to first remember something dramatic or important and then paint a scene. This technique works in memoir writing, fiction writing, in college es...

On this episode, we’re talking about creating a likable narrator. The narrator is the I in the story. It’s YOU. We see this a lot with beginner writers and we probably did this too, and that is tell a story about a time we were the hero. Sad truth: no one wants to hear how great you are. This is true in life too. What people connect to in stories and in life are times when you’re vulnerable. This...

On today’s episode we’re talking about getting out of our own way when writing a story. The writing process starts with getting the truth on paper. We write about situations or problems we’re dealing with or have dealt with, things we’re still trying to understand or resolve. The goal is getting to the reason we’re writing the story and what the story is really about. Andrea is a huge believer in...

On today’s episode we’re talking about mimicking the masters the way you’d imagine a painting class in Paris that goes to the Louvre to practice painting like Leonardo de Vinci. We think it’s worth copying a method that works because we know it worked in the past. Learn the rules before breaking the rules. In this episode, you'll hear stories that mimic the style of Boys, a story by Rick Moody. An...

November is # NaNoWriMo (https://nanowrimo.org/), and we have executive director, Grant Faulkner (http://www.grantfaulkner.com/), on our show. Today we’re talking about novels because we go both ways. And also because storytelling principles are the same when writing fiction or nonfiction. Get inspired and join millions of people around the world who are racing to finish a book this month. Allison...

On this episode of Writing Class Radio we ask for your support, because producing ain’t free. Please go to writingclassradio.com and hit the donate button. This podcast is equal parts heart (the truth) and art (the craft). This episode was conceived after Hurricane Irma blew through South Florida. The entire state seemed to be preoccupied if not scared to death, leading up to the moment Irma made...