From debut authors to Pulitzer Prize winners, Writers on Writing tackles a little of everything — novels, short stories, memoir, poetry, and more, as well as interviews with agents and publishers.
Unlike other shows dedicated to discussing books, we focus on the art, craft, and business of writing. Writers appreciate the opportunity to talk about the artistic elements of their job — the thousands of decisions that must be made to produce a manuscript. There’s no aspect of craft, creativity, and publishing we don’t explore.
We’ve hosted well over 1,500 authors on the show including Elizabeth Strout, S.A. Cosby, Ann Patchett, Amor Towles, and George Saunders. Expert advice from some of the industry’s top writers allows us to offer a show that’s been called “your own personal MFA program” (with no financial strain).
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing by Travis Barrett
Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, Stitcher, Google, or your favorite podcast app.
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EPISODES
(2001 - present)
A.J. Jacobs on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written several New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self-help.
A.J. read the Encyclopedia Britannica in its entirety (The Know It All), spent a year following every last biblical commandment (The Year of Living Biblically), assembled the world’s largest family tree (It’s All Relative), and got himself into superhuman shape (Drop Dead Healthy). He joins Marrie Stone to talk about his latest gratitude challenge wherein he undertook thanking every person responsible for getting his morning cup of coffee (Thanks a Thousand).
A.J. talks about the genesis of his ideas, how he keeps himself organized, and how he pushes himself into successive George Plimpton-esque feats of psychological strength. He shares mounds of writing and journalistic wisdom, as well as lots of backstories and humorous insights.
(Broadcast date: May 12, 2021)
Jonathan Small on Writers on Writing
Ethan Rutherford on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Ethan Rutherford returns to talk with Marrie about his latest collection, Farthest South. He shares how his writing has changed since his last publication, letting projects go, following his instincts, and how different writers get their work done (Ethan writes about 47 words a day to his wife’s several thousand). He talks about the advantages of working with a small publishing house (A Strange Object), and how he was able to incorporate images into the stories. Their conversation covers craft concerns, the power of fairy tales, and the general state of our world.
(Broadcast date: April 28, 2021)
Willy Vlautin on Writers on Writing
Memoirist Joshua Mohr at the Pen on Fire Speaker Series & Salon
Martin J. Smith, author of "Going to Trinidad," on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
For forty years, Trinidad, Colorado was known amongst locals, and those in the transgender community, as the “sex-change capital of the world.” An estimated 6,000 gender reassignment surgeries took place in this remote ranch town between 1969 and 2010.
Veteran journalist and award-winning author Martin J. Smith joins Marrie Stone to talk about his latest, Going to Trinidad: A Doctor, a Colorado Town, and Stories from an Unlikely Gender Crossroads. He discusses finding the subjects of the book, and their willingness to open the most private aspects of their lives to him. He talks about researching Trinidad and Dr. Stanley Biber, a larger-than-life figure who perfected the surgery after serving as a trauma medic during the Korean War. And he discusses writing about this most vulnerable and misunderstood population from an outsider’s perspective, the challenges he faced, and how he overcame them. Smith also talks about how his own mindset shifted as a result of this project.
Throughout the conversation, there’s wonderful advice for aspiring journalists, nonfiction writers, and those committed to the art of storytelling.
(Broadcast date: April 14, 2021)
Robert Kolker, author of Hidden Valley Road, on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Robert Kolker joins Marrie Stone to talk about Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family. He talks about finding the Galvins, and their decision to open their lives—and their painful story—up to him. He shares how he tackled the complicated science and research behind this misunderstood mental illness. He also discusses how he managed an overwhelming cast of characters—and the immense tragedies they endured—while delivering a compelling, impossible-to-resist narrative. He provides great advice to aspiring journalists about how to launch their careers, what to look for in a story, and much more.
Record date: March 3, 2021
Broadcast date: March 31, 2021
Memoirist Russell Shorto on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Literary agent Betsy Amster
Julia Cooke, "Come Fly the World," on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Julia Cooke joins Marrie to talk about her latest narrative nonfiction book, Come Fly the World. She follows three primary, and two secondary, retired Pan-Am stewardesses who flew for the airline in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. At once a nostalgic romp through the heyday of glamorous air travel, the book is also a chronicle of mid-century America and the larger world. Crews ferried soldiers in and out of Vietnam, and hit the feminist and Civil Rights movements head on. They endured hijackings, attacks by the Vietnamese military, and a general air of sexism and racism.
Julia talks about finding her subjects, structuring their stories, and the renewed relevance of this book sixty years after it took place.
(Record date: February 10, 2021)
Russell Banks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Russell Banks returns to the show to talk about his latest novel, Foregone. He shares how his childhood upbringing and young adulthood have fed his fiction, and why this novel feels more autobiographical than most. He also talks about a wild week spent with Jack Kerouac in the 1960s, and experiencing the fall of a literary hero. He discusses how this novel couldn't have been written at any other point in his life, why his characters differ from his readers (and the importance of that difference), a tennis showdown with Chang-rae Lee, and so much more.
There's a lot of advice for writers, including how to surprise your readers, why focusing on contradictions in your characters is more important than consistency, the necessity of learning how to read, and his insights into point of view.
(Record date: February 25, 2021)
Chang-rae Lee & Karen Russell on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Karen Russell talks about her prescient novel, Sleep Donation. Written in 2014, the book that was intended to be whimsical satire on an insomnia pandemic has become a dark commentary on the times we're living through. Russell talks about the strange ways the book has taken on new meaning, serendipitous experiences she encountered while publishing it, and so much more.
Download audio of Chang-rae Lee's Interview.
(Broadcast date: February 24, 2021)
(Record date: February 8, 2021)
Download audio of Karen Russell's Interview.
(Broadcast date: February 24, 2021)
(Record date: January 26, 2021)
Katherine Seligman, At the Edge of the Haight, on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Katherine Seligman is a journalist and author in San Francisco. As a reporter, she’s focused on social issues, from homelessness, mental health and end of life issues to the city’s boom and bust cycles. But she’s also written about everything else, from self-appointed graffiti curators, urban coyotes and embryonic sex selection to what her kids learned growing up in Haight Ashbury.
Katherine joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about her novel, At the Edge of the Haight, as well as writing, craft, and process.
(Broadcast date: February 17, 2021)
Rebecca Sacks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Before receiving her Masters from the Program in Writing at UCI, Rebecca Sacks moved to Israel, spending time understanding Israeli and Palestinian culture, learning Hebrew and Arabic, and immersing herself in the cultures, their people, and their conflicts. Her debut novel, City of a Thousand Gates, tackles these tensions from a variety of points of view.
Sacks joins Marrie Stone to talk about her writing process, accessing her characters, keeping 29 points of view balanced and organized, rendering sex and violence on the page, and so much more. She brings all her MFA wisdom and experience to the interview, as well as her personal experience living abroad, getting lost, and finding herself again.
Record date: January 29, 2021
Broadcast date: February 10, 2021
Poet Tommye Blount on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Tommye Blount, finalist of the National Book Award in poetry last year, joins Marrie Stone to talk about his collection, Fantasia for the Man in Blue. They are daring poems about race, power, desire, sex, and a redefinition of beauty. Blount's work captures the experience of being black and queer in Michigan, about an encounter with the Michigan police, his role as a son, and his observations as a poet.
He talks about his journey into poetry, finding his voice, using media and art in his work, and all the poets who influenced him along the way.
(Disclaimer: Some topics in this interview are intended for mature audiences. There are references to sex and pornography. Listener discretion is advised.)
(Record date: January 16, 2021)
Lynell George, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler
George Saunders on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
For twenty years, George Saunders has taught a select group of graduate students in Syracuse’s MFA program. Relying on 19th century Russian masters, Saunders breaks down the prose—sentence by sentence, line by line—to show students how it’s done. Now he’s broadened his audience. George acts as literary tour guide through seven short stories by four Russian authors in his latest, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.
George joins Marrie Stone for their third interview, imparting his gentle wisdom to writers about the art and craft of storytelling. He also teaches us how to read deeper and closer. And, through it all, how reading (and writing) often inspires us to lead more empathetic, intentional, and meaningful lives by inhabiting other viewpoints. Conversations with George leave one feeling not only smarter, but better. You can check out their other interviews in the blog’s archives (Tenth of December, 2013 and Lincoln in the Bardo, 2017).
Record date: January 18, 2021
Broadcast date: January 27, 2021
Noir author Vicki Hendricks on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Mariana Enriquez on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Argentinian author Mariana Enriquez knows horror first hand. Born in 1973, three years before the U.S.-backed Dirty War that rained state-sponsored terror down on its citizens for seven years, Enriquez grew up in a world where death squads were common and neighbors disappeared.
Enriquez joins Marrie Stone to talk about her second collection of short stories, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, published in 2009 in Argentina, but translated and released in the U.S. this month. One of the stories in that collection, “Our Lady of the Quarry,” appeared in the New Yorker last month. She shares her complicated childhood, her obsessions with the horror genre, and how American literature influenced her writing. She also talks about working with her translator, America's interest in South American literature, and more.
(Broadcast date: January 13, 2021)