#AmWriting

When a former NYT journo who now writes novels (that would be me, hi) gets together with a current NYT journo now writing novels, they—we!—cannot stop talking about the challenges, advantages, schedules, pros and cons of book leave and what it is about fiction that lights some journalists up, and turns some off. It’s the good, the bad and the overcome-able, and a class in how people who know they...

Hi #AmWriting listeners, Jennie here! Today, I'm talking to Jane Friedman, who is one of the most trusted voices in the world of publishing. She has advised and served organizations such as Writers Digest , The Chicago Manual of Style , The Editorial Freelancers Association , the Alliance of Independent Authors , and the National Endowment for the Arts , among others. She writes two must-read news...

Hey listeners: This week, everyone gets a taste of what paid supporters will get more regularly—a special Booklab: First Pages episode. Each month (and sometimes more often), we’ll choose two “first pages” to review. A first page, for our purposes, is the first 350 words of your book—fiction, non-fiction or memoir. We will read the page aloud on the podcast and discuss with a single thought in min...

Social media is all aflutter over an article by Alex Reisner in The Atlantic: The Unbelievable Scale of A.I.’s Pirated Books Problem . In this episode, Jess and Sarina cover the news and its ramifications for authors. You won’t want to miss this discussion about the lawsuits against Meta and OpenAI . We discuss problems and remedies, and the formation of legal markets for A.I. training. Like the w...

Michael Dante DiMartino graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Film and Animation. His directing credits include the primetime animated series King of the Hill, Family Guy, and Mission Hill . DiMartino is the co-creator of the award-winning animated Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel, The Legend of Korra . From 2002 to 2014, he served as executive...

Let me start with this: if you have any interest at all in literary magazines or small presses, you want this book: How to Submit: Getting Your Writing Published with Literary Magazines and Small Presses . It’s a wonderful book and a great guide, and will lead you into this world and help you feel good about your journey without your getting lost in the universe of scattered information that’s ava...

There are many misconceptions about what a hybrid publisher does or doesn’t do, and why it may or may not be a good choice for a writer. I thought hearing from a hybrid publisher directly would be educational for our audience, so I’m pleased to be speaking in this episode to Dr. Nick Courtright, CEO of Atmosphere Press . Check out Atmosphere Press here or submit a manuscript here . This is a publi...

Hey ho, Jess here. This week, all four of us discuss some of the happenings out there in the publishing world. First up: Super Bowl Sunday is apparently a great reading day. Sarina sent us a screenshot of her sales (she was tipped off by another author) and found out what many people are reading during the game: So that’s fun. Next up, Sean Manning of Simon & Schuster announced no more blurbs (yay...

Hi listeners! Sarina here, with a topic that has been on my mind for years. When I began my career, everyone told me I had to develop a “thick skin” to do this job. But it turns out that a “thick skin” is one of the only things you can’t buy on Amazon. Today I invite my friend Lauren Blakely onto the podcast for a frank discussion of all that we’ve learned about resilience, one-star ratings and fe...

“If the language isn’t there, I have difficulty showing up for the idea” - Jenny Anderson Jess here. Rebecca Winthrop, Director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution , and Jenny Anderson , award-winning journalist, paired up to write one of my favorite education and parenting books in recent memory: The Disengaged Teen . While I adore the book and could go on for ages...

Do you have a Doubt Monster? (Doesn’t everyone?) Amy Bernstein is an Author Accelerator certified writing coach, an #AmWriting Blueprint Challenge coach, a writer, a creative coach and many other things—but for our purposes, the author of Wrangling the Doubt Monster —a delightful book that you can open on any page for help wrangling your own doubts into something that you can live with, in the vei...

One of the things I think we do well with on this podcast is addressing the long game of writing. It’s not just about writing a good book or pitching one or selling one, but about the work of doing it over and over again, of succeeding and failing, of PERSISTING. That’s why I love this conversation with Tiffany Yates Martin , who is an author herself under the penname, Phoebe Fox, but who also for...

“I put my effort into building trust, showing up, and being present for people who have opted into my universe.” A slight paraphrase of Jennie Nash On the day we recorded this episode, no one really knew what was going to happen to TikTok (Jess thinks it’s going away, everyone else doubts her) and Sarina was attempting to manage all the emails from people asking her why she was promoting businesse...

I’m Sarina, and I’m a business nerd. Hi, my name is Sarina, and I’m a business nerd. I was born this way. I can’t help it. I realize that not everyone gets excited about spreadsheets, but if you have any writerly income at all, I’m begging you to make 2025 the year you treat your writing as a business. There are actually two reasons to do this: * First of all it’s centering. Treating your writing...

Hi #AmWriters, Jess here. I’ve been wanting to do an episode on workbooks forever - on any form of companion text that pairs with nonfiction books, really. How do you propose them, write them, format them? You know me, I like the granular details. Fortunately, Ned Johnson and Dr. William Stixrud are publishing The Seven Principles for Raising a Self-Driven Child in March, and Ned was willing to co...

Essay collections—readers love them, but publishers and editors are often unconvinced. Jennie and KJ talk to Amy Wilson about getting that contract, finding the through line and writing a book about pleasing people while also remembering to please yourself. Links from the pod Mary Karr The Art of Memoir Wendi Aarons Listen to Your Mother (Essay performances for Mother’s Day) Amy’s first book: When...

Hi #AmWriters and subscribers to Jess’ content, Jess here, looking out my office window over a beautiful, snowy Vermont Sunday and thinking of you. We do these things called “Lahey Cafe” days in the Lahey household and we have one coming up this afternoon. Back when my husband and I were in graduate school and never got to spend time together away from the books, we would go to cafes (Caribou Coff...

This episode is about a #amwriting win! Meghan P. Browne wrote to us a while ago to share her happy news: her debut middle-grade novel that she revised in the Blueprint Challenge of 2022 and that we reviewed in one of our First pages episodes had just gone under contract! Welcome to Heaven was acquired by Liz Szabla at Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan), and publication is scheduled for Spring 2026. Meg...

We cover last years’ goals, and which of us feel great and which feel… less great. (And the audio is also less great, because 3 of us gathered in our local library and the acoustics/HVAC system noise were less than ideal.) We end up talking about the ways we feel we need to be as women (supported by some great men) in the coming year and years, the somewhat surprising bro-commentary some of us get...

Today, I'm so excited to talk to my friend, Rosa Kwon Easton , about her debut novel, White Mulberry . Rosa holds a very special place in my heart and my history because she was at the first ever workshop where I taught my Blueprint framework, which is a method of inquiry for getting a book out of your head and onto the page before you start to write. At that time, Rosa thought that she was writin...

Do The Blueprint With Us This Winter! Starting January 5, we’ll be walking you through the 14 steps of the Blueprint over 10 weeks. Some of the steps are very short and we combined them into one episode. Every episode speaks to fiction writers, memoir writers, and nonfiction writers. There are workbooks, and you will get a link to the digital download of the Blueprint book of your choice. We’ll al...

Regular listeners will recognize the Blueprint for a Book—a method of inquiry Jennie Nash developed to lay a strong foundation for books in any genre that’s not about the craft of writing or building an author platform or any of the steps that come later in the writing life. It’s about understanding what you are doing and why you are doing it so that you can have clarity and confidence. Writer All...

Jess here, hosting my entire extended family for the holiday weekend and sending love to you and yours. Enjoy this #WriterGift flashback! It’s the gifts episode! Here are the links you’re looking for: KJ: Redbubble ❄️ Stamp blocks ❄️ Stamp blanks and stencils ❄️ Frixion Pens ❄️ Leuchterm planner Jess: Sarina’s Socks ❄️ Half Broke by Ginger Gaffney (for K J, but Jess loved it, too!) ❄️ Fillion plan...

It is of course the inimitable, the unconquerable, the inexhaustible Jo Piazza, all of whose adjectives require me to use spell check. I am a long time fan of Jo, and she’s been on the pod before—see also Episode 393, I Want to Sell Books, But I’m Also Writing What I Want to Write . She is the author of, most recently, The Sicilian Inheritance and coming soon, Everyone Is Lying to You , which star...

The Anxiety is Real You can’t swing a Blackwing pencil without hearing another creator worrying about generative A.I. And we get it—the ubiquity of generative A.I. tools has soared over the last two years. In this episode we aim to take a deep breath and discuss the topic from a candid but calm position: why authors are worried, why we should be worried and what to do about it (besides anxious pos...