Danya Kukafka, author of NOTES ON AN EXECUTION

Danya Kukafka is the author of the nationally bestselling novels Notes on an Execution and Girl in Snow. Her books have been reviewed favorably in outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and have been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide. Notes on an Execution recently won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and is currently in development as a feature film. Danya works as a literary agent with Trellis Literary Management.

Danya joined Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about using a time lock, keeping a process journal, point of view, how being an agent affects her own writing, genres and categories, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 26, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Cathleen Schine, author of “Künstlers in Paradise”

Cathleen Schine is the author of 13 novels, including The Love Letter, which was made into a movie starring Kate Capshaw, Rameau’s Niece, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, and The Grammarians. Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. Her essays have been included in Best American Essays 2005, an Anthology of New Yorker Humor, and elsewhere.

Cathleen joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest novel, Künstlers in Paradise. She talks about writing during the pandemic and how it influenced this novel, as well as whether humor can still be an appropriate tone, given world events. Cathleen shares insights about writing dialogue and dialect across cultures and generations, how addressing problematic things within the novel can help solve the problem, her research process, organizing her materials, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 28, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Anthony Chin-Quee, author of “I Can’t Save You"

Anthony Chin-Quee is a board certified Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, and Throat surgeon) with degrees from Harvard University and Emory University School of Medicine. He has done multiple performances for The Moth, where he’s won their local Story Slam, placed as a runner-up in the Detroit Grand Slam, and performed on their NYC mainstage. He was a medical consultant for ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and a member of the writing staff of FOX’s The Resident for two seasons, distilling complex medical and social issues into palatable and understandable mainstream storylines. His memoir, I Can’t Save You: A Memoir— a candid account of the ways in which medical residency training shattered the mind of an empathetic, well-intentioned doctor, and the arduous task of piecing it back together again through painful and overdue self-discovery—was released by Riverhead Books on April 4th, 2023 to critical acclaim. He has published opinions in Forbes and been interviewed by NPR on the topic of systemic racism in medical education. Anthony currently resides in England with his wife and daughter.

Tony talked with Barbara about the path to publishing his debut memoir, nailing the voice, finding an agent, dealing with rejection, honesty in memoir, writing with a reader in mind, and more

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 12, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Ann Napolitano, author of “Hello Beautiful”

Ann Napolitano’s latest novel, Hello Beautiful, was an instant New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s 100th Book Club pick. Her last novel, Dear Edward, was published by Dial Press in January 2020 and was also a New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna selection, and was released on February 3rd as an Apple TV+ series. You can find an interview with Ann about that novel in our archives.

Ann is also the author of A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach. She was the Associate Editor of One Story literary magazine from 2014-2020.

Ann joins Marrie Stone to talk about Hello Beautiful. In addition to the book’s backstory, they talk about the many months Ann forces herself to spend on a book before beginning to write, how to pay attention to your unique inner magnetic board as a writer, the advice about endings she follows from George Saunders, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 3, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Kenan Orhan, author of the collection “I Am My Country”

Kenan Orhan’s fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Common, Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories and The Best American Short Stories. His story collection, I Am My Country and Other Stories, is published by Random House. Kenan teaches literature and creative writing at the Kansas City Art Institute and lives in Kansas.

He joins Marrie Stone to talk about the collection, his relationship with Turkey, how his approach to the short story form has changed over time, how his stories exemplify and depart from the Joy Williams’ rules of short stories, and much more. Kenan also talks about finding his agent and his path to publication.

A reminder that April is the one-year anniversary of our Patreon page, and 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the show. We’re winding down the month, but still offering some additional perks and incentives through the end of April. To learn more, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 11, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Idra Novey, author of TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

Idra Novey’s new novel is Take What You Need, published by Viking. She is also the author of Those Who Knew, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her first novel Ways to Disappear, received the 2017 Sami Rohr Prize, the 2016 Brooklyn Eagles Prize, and was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Her poetry collections include Exit, Civilian, The Next Coun­try, and Clarice: The Visitor, a collaboration with the artist Erica Baum. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into a dozen languages and she’s written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, and The Paris Review. She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Poets & Writ­ers Mag­a­zine, the PEN Trans­la­tion Fund, and the Poetry Foundation. Her works as a translator include Clarice Lispector’s novel The Pas­sion Accord­ing to G.H. She teaches fiction at Princeton University.

On the show Barbara talked with Idra about being a genre misfit, the lack of quotation marks, subtext, the crossover from poetry and translation, welding, and much more.

A reminder that April is the one-year anniversary of our Patreon page, and 2023 is the 25th anniversary of the show. To celebrate, we’re offering some additional perks and incentives all month long. To learn more, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 15, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Book Coach Jennie Nash, author of “Blueprint for a Book”

Jennie Nash is the founder of Author Accelerator, a book coaching service that has helped hundreds of writers complete their book projects. Her clients have landed top New York agents; snagged 5- and 6-figure deals from publishers such as Scribner, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Norton, and Hachette; hit the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller list; been chosen for the Reese Witherspoon Book Club; and won dozens of national indie book awards.

Jennie has spent 30 years on all sides of the publishing industry and is the author of four novels, three memoirs, and four self-help books for writers including The Writer’s Guide to Agony and Defeat: The 43 Worst Moments in the Writing Life and How to Get over Them; Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel From the Inside Out; Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book: Plan and Pitch Your Big Idea; and Read Books All Day & Get Paid For It.

Jennie joins Marrie to talk about the art and business of book coaching, what coaches can (and cannot) do for you, how to know when you need one, when in the process to hire one, and how they differ from having an editor or MFA advisor. She also walks through some of the strategies in her Blueprint manuals and how they can be combined with other writing methods (such as Save the Cat , Robert McKee’s Story, John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story, etc.). She says spending a few weeks asking yourself some foundational questions about your book at the beginning might save you hundreds of pages and years of work.

A reminder that April is the one-year anniversary of our Patreon page, and 2023 is the 25th anniversary of the show. To celebrate, we’re offering some additional perks and incentives all month long. To learn more, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 5, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Richard Bausch, author of PLAYHOUSE

Richard Bausch is the author of 13 novels and 8 collections of short stories. He’s been published everywhere: The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and Narrative, to name a few. He’s been awarded a Guggenheim, and has won too many awards to mention. He’s currently a professor at Chapman University in Orange, California. Visit his website to learn more.

On the show Barbara DeMarco-Barrett talked with Richard Bausch about his current novel, Playhouse, writing multiple POV characters, not staying in your lane, what he does when he hits a wall, what’s most useful to writers who want to get better, and so much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on March 31, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Sadeqa Johnson, author of "The House of Eve"

Sadeqa Johnson’s latest novel, The House of Eve, hit the New York Times bestseller list as soon as it was published. It was also a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick for the month of February. But Sadeqa fought for her success. The House of Eve was her fifth published novel and her second historical fiction novel. Getting off the ground took perseverance and ingenuity.

Sadeqa shares her unconventional path to success, her move from contemporary domestic fiction to historical fiction and how she approaches the two genres, how her background in acting serves her fiction, her approach to research, revision, dialogue and more, and how she’s learned to speak — and listen — to her characters.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on March 20, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Margot Douaihy, author of SCORCHED GRACE

Margot Douaihy earned a BA in Writing from the University of Pittsburgh Writing Program, an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Douaihy is the author of the true-crime poetry project Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr; Scranton Lace; the Lambda Literary Finalist Girls Like You (Clemson University Press); and I Would Ruby If I Could (Factory Hollow Press). Douaihy’s sleuth fiction inhabits and reconstructs hardboiled PI tropes through a queer lens. Douaihy’s work has been featured in PBS NewsHour, Colorado Review, Madison Review, Tahoma Literary Review, North American Review, among others. Honors include the Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award, Finalist (2020), Red Hen Press Quill Prose Award, Finalist (2019), C&R Press Best Novel Award, Longlist (2018), Lambda Literary Award Poetry, Finalist (2015), and River Styx Micro-Fiction Contest Finalist (2015).

Margot joins Barbara to talk about Scorched Grace, the first imprint of Gillian Flynn/Zando. They talk about the irreverent nun protagonist, Sister Holiday in the mystery novel, naming characters, writing dialogue, backstory, and so much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

Recorded in March, 2023.

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Kelly Link on her latest collection, “White Cat, Black Dog”

Kelly Link is the author of four previous story collections including Get in Trouble, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (a link to her interview with Marrie about that book can be found here). Her short stories have been widely published in literary magazines including The Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She’s also the co-founder of Small Beer Press and co-edits the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Kelly joins Marrie to talk about her latest collection, White Cat, Black Dog, out later this month and published by Random House. They talk about the role of fairy tales, Scottish ballads, and 17th century French lore in her work. Kelly walks through the evolution of several stories, the ways some of them surprised her, and how her illustrator was able to communicate something about one story that Kelly was not willing to include. Kelly talks about the Joy Williams’ list of 8 essential things every story needs and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on March 2, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Jordan Harper, author of EVERYBODY KNOWS

Jordan Harper, the Edgar-Award winning author of She Rides Shotgun and Love and Other Wounds, has been an ad man, a rock critic, and a writer/producer for television. He was born and raised in Missouri and now lives in Los Angeles. His new novel is Everybody Knows. On the show Jordan talked about his path to crime fiction, the Los Angeles setting, beginning and ending the novel, renting a room at the famed Chateau Marmont to write the first chapter, and so much more.

This interview was done on Zoom on Sunday, Feb 26, 2023 for Sisters in Crime Orange County. If you prefer watching the interview, visit Barbara’s YouTube channel (Barbara DeMarco-Barrett) or the YouTube channel for Sisters in Crime Orange County. On both channels, there are a number of interviews.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit the show’s Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on February 26, 2023, for Sisters in Crime Orange County.) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Dani Shapiro, author of “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life”

In 2013, novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro published her craft/memoir Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life. This year, the book celebrates its 10th anniversary with a re-release and new foreword.

Dani joined Marrie Stone in 2013 to talk about it (that interview can be found here), and now joins her again to revisit it. They talk about that intervening decade and what’s happened in Dani’s life and career since the book’s first publication. Dani discusses what aspects of Still Writing are truer today than before, how her thinking has evolved around issues such as dealing with distractions, self-sabotage, writerly authority, memoirs versus novels, and much more. (In the interview, she recommends an essay by Alexander Chee that can be found here.)

Dani uses her own experiences across her many novels and memoirs to shed light on the writing process, its many hardships, and great gratifications.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on February 23, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Rebecca Makkai, author of I Have Some Questions For You

Rebecca Makkai’s novel, The Great Believers, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; it was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal, the Stonewall Book Award, and the LA Times Book Prize; and it was one of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of 2018. Her other books are the novels The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House, and the story collection, Music for Wartime. Her new novel is I Have Some Questions For You, released Feb 21, 2023.

On the show, Rebecca spoke with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about pantsing vs plotting, titles, categorization, what she does when she hits a wall, and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on February 3, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Tiffany McDaniel, author of “On the Savage Side”

In 2015, several women from the small town of Chillicothe, Ohio began disappearing. Some were found dead in a nearby river and others were never found at all. The victims were drug addicted and supported their addiction with prostitution. They became known as the “Chillicothe Six,” although the body count kept rising. The case caught the attention of novelist Tiffany McDaniel, who grew up near the town and went to school with one of the victims.

On the Savage Side reimagines the lives of women like these. Set in the 1990s, before iPhones and social media, McDaniel brings backstories, faces, names and humanity to women society often forgets.

Author of the international bestselling novel Betty (2020) and the award-winning novel The Summer That Melted Everything (2016), McDaniel is of Cherokee heritage and brings those myths and legends to her novels. As a self-taught author with no formal education, McDaniel wrote over 20 unpublished novels before her first publication in 2016. McDaniel joins Marrie Stone to talk about On the Savage Side, as well as working without an agent, selling a novel 20 years after it was written, how social and cultural changes allowed her to publish previously rejected work, and more. She also shares some craft insights regarding structure, character development, incorporating visual arts into her novels, and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on February 9, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Rerun…Melissa Bank, author of The Wonder Spot

A more personal author description than usual: I recently learned that fiction writer Melissa Bank passed away last August. (When I recorded the intro to this rerun, I thought it had been longer. My apologies.) I loved Melissa Bank’s fiction, her light touch. Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing was wonderful, as was The Wonder Spot. When I was in NYC, Melissa and I would meet for coffee or lunch. I loved her writing and her entire vibe.

Melissa Bank won the 1993 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and taught at Stony Brook University. When The Wonder Spot came out, I asked her to talk about how to write a novel. She said, “I don’t know how to write a novel.” What she knew how to do, she was, was write stories. Stories became chapters and chapters become a book, she said.

Melissa died from lung cancer on August 2, 2022. She was 61 years old.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on January 25, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Jessamine Chan, author of “The School for Good Mothers”

Barack Obama called Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers one of his favorite reads of 2022. The NYT bestseller comes out in paperback on February 7.

Every year, thousands of children are removed from their parents’ custody by the state, often for good reasons, but not always. Set in a dystopian future not so far from now, The School for Good Mothers follows Frieda’s tortured journey after losing her daughter following “a very bad day.” Chan calls the book “1984 for mothers.”

Jessamine joins Marrie Stone to talk about the 20 years she spent writing before the book was published, and how one inspiring day of writing changed everything (spoiler alert: don’t try this at home). She talks about writing in longhand, over-writing and learning to cut, how visiting her setting changed the feel of the book, naming her characters and other craft insights. She also discusses MFAs and writing residencies, finding an agent, the long editing process after the book was sold and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on January 25, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Matt Bell, author of Refuse to be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts

Matt Bell is the author most recently of the novel Appleseed (a New York Times Notable Book) and the craft book Refuse to Be Done, a guide to novel writing, rewriting, and revision.

He is also the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, as well as the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur's Gate II, and several other titles. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Tin House, Fairy Tale Review, American Short Fiction, Orion, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

Matt joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about—what else—revision, and his new book, Refuse to be Done.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on January 12, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of “Brotherless Night”

Writers use language with intention. So when V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night uses the word “terrorist” six times on the first page of a novel about the Sri Lankan civil war, and incorporates the second person, the reader understands they’re as much active participant as passive observer in the book.

Sugi joins Marrie Stone to talk about the novel’s origin and why she initially didn’t have the “chops” to write it. She talks about her own relationship with Sri Lanka and the research that went into rendering this period of history to life.

Writers may find interest in Sugi’s decision to write in the first (and second) person; the power of writing in the subjunctive; how to describe a foreign time and place (with its particular dishes and unfamiliar names) without being overly explanatory; how Sugi deals with difficult writing challenges the same way she deals with going to the dentist; finding trusted readers; and more.

Sugi is the author of Love Marriage, which was longlisted for the Women's Prize and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, among other publications. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota and co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub, which is about the intersection of literature and the news.

Read more about Brotherless Night in the January 15, 2023 NYT Book Review.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on January 12, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Ed Humes, author of The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder

Ed Humes is a  Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, including Mississippi Mud, Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation and Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash, and Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime that Wasn’t. Ed received his Pulitzer for his newspaper coverage of the military, and a PEN Award for nonfiction for No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court. He has taught writing, journalism, and literary nonfiction at graduate and undergraduate levels, and has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Sierra Magazine, and Los Angeles Magazine.

Ed joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about his new book, The Forever Witness: How DNA and Geneology solved a cold case double murder.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded in December 2022) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett