Mary Norris and Christie Watson

Mary Norris, author of Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, talks to Nicole Nelson about how being so focused on the details because of her copy-editing job made her appreciate the work of her editor for this book in helping her craft chapters with a beginning, middle and end; what it's like to be in charge of the "comma shaker" at The New Yorker; and how knowing the grammar behind the use of "me" in some contexts can, between her and us, help writers make the correct choice. Then Christie Watson, author of Where Women are Kings, joins the show to talk about how she discovered the voice of her main character, Elijah, how the novel changed as she worked through nearly a dozen drafts, and how important it is for writers to silence their inner critic and keep on writing.

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(Broadcast date: May 6, 2015)