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)
Lionel Shriver on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
Her novels have tackled tricky American issues such as school shootings, an ongoing healthcare crisis, morbid obesity, and the widening wealth gap. Her latest novel, Should We Stay or Should We Go, confronts aging and western civilization’s obsession with immortality. Kay and Cyril, a couple not keen on facing the indignities of growing old, made a middle-aged suicide pact to occur on Kay’s 80th birthday, which happens in March of 2020. What will they decide when the day arrives? Shriver explores every last possibility.
She joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, writing contemporaneously with the pandemic, and constructing a novel with several diverse outcomes. They have a candid discussion about aging, death, suicide, and the ethics of behind every decision along the road to the bitter end.
Broadcast date: June 9, 2021
Lisa Scottoline, author of Eternal, on Writers on Writing
Jo Ann Beard on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM
When essayist Jo Ann Beard came on the show in 2018, she swore she was done publishing books. While some writers knock out novels every year, Beard takes decades to assemble a small collection. But she realized these past 23 years had produced nine pieces and, together, they worked.
The consequence of taking this much time at craft are essays so distilled, the reader feels like an ant under Beard’s sun-pierced glass. Not all the pieces are pure nonfiction. Beard blends factual events with imagined inner lives to create experiences so searing, it’s difficult not to flinch. As a writer, Beard never flinches. She takes us all the way into a young woman’s final moments with Dr. Kevorkian. She forces us to jump from a burning building. We endure the agony of a beloved dog’s last hours.
Beard joins Marrie Stone to talk about Festival Days, a book the NYT calls "ferocious" by an author they call a "towering talent." She is as compassionate an interview subject as she is a writer. She takes us inside her mind, her creative decisions, and her private obsessions. Enjoy the ride.
(Broadcast date: May 26, 2021)
Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Plot
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)