DIY MFA Radio – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Welcome to DIY MFA Radio, where I do a deep dive into the writing life as well as the craft and business of writing. Today’s episode continues our series: Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Podcasting. This is Lesson 3 – Embrace the Power of Iteration

Have you gotten the DIY MFA Starter Kit yet? This is a two week email series full of worksheets to help you DIY your MFA, so you can get the “knowledge without the college.” You’ll learn more about how to write with focus, read with purpose, and build your community. You’ll also receive Writer Fuel, our newsletter full of words of wisdom and resources to help you keep the momentum going in your writing. And you’ll be the first to hear about other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! You can sign up with your email at diymfa.com/join.

• Two competing philosophies on failure from Yoda and Samuel Beckett.

• How these two highly-quotable figures are actually not all that different from each other.

• What it really means to make a commitment to the work and to your writing.

• Why it’s so important to embrace imperfection and accept potential failure.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/478

Welcome to DIY MFA Radio, where I do a deep dive into the writing life as well as the craft and business of writing. Today’s episode continues our series: Ten Lessons from Ten Years of Podcasting. This is Lesson 2 – Act “As If”

Have you gotten the DIY MFA Starter Kit yet? This is a two week email series full of worksheets to help you DIY your MFA, so you can get the “knowledge without the college.” You’ll learn more about how to write with focus, read with purpose, and build your community. You’ll also receive Writer Fuel, our newsletter full of words of wisdom and resources to help you keep the momentum going in your writing. And you’ll be the first to hear about other fun goodies we only share via email. Best of all, it’s free to join! You can sign up with your email at diymfa.com/join

• How acting “as if” is not the same as “fake it ‘til you make it.”

• Ways in which acting “as if” helped me build DIY MFA and this podcast.

• Why it’s important to be completely truthful when you act “as if.”

• How when you step forward with confidence, eventually your mindset catches up.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/477

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing MT Anderson. We’ll be talking about his book, Elf Dog and Owl Head, and raising your story’s stakes.

M. T. Anderson has written stories for adults, picture books for children, adventure novels for young readers, graphic novel adaptations of ancient French tales, and several books for older readers (both teens and adults). His satirical book Feed was a Finalist for the National Book Award and was the winner of the L.A. Times Book Prize. Both Time Magazine and National Public Radio have included it on their lists of the best 100 YA novels of all time. Another satirical science fiction novel, Landscape with Invisible Hand, has been turned into a movie starring Tiffany Haddish and Asante Blackk. 

The first volume of Anderson’s Octavian Nothing saga, The Pox Party, won the National Book Award and the Boston Globe / Horn Book Prize. The second volume, The Kingdom on the Waves, was a New York Times best-seller. The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, a tragicomic spy story for young goblins written with Newbery-Honor winner Eugene Yelchin, was a Finalist for the National Book Award in 2018. 

Anderson’s nonfiction book Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad was long-listed for the National Book Award. 

He has published stories for adults in literary journals like The Northwest Review, The Colorado Review, and Conjunctions. Several of his stories have appeared in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror collections. His nonfiction articles and reviews have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Slate, and Salon. 

He has curated concerts that bring together text and classical music all over New England. 

You can find him on his website or follow him on Twitter.

• Weaving events from your real life into a fantastical story

• Why you need to have rules for the magic you create in order for it to be fun.

• How to reverse engineer and perfect the opening of your novel.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/468

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Kiffer Brown.

Kathryn (Kiffer) Brown is the CEO and co-founder of Chanticleer Reviews and Chanticleer Int’l Book Awards (The CIBAs) that Discover Today’s Best Books. The company differentiates itself with "under the hood" digital technology that increases the digital footprint of each book review and CIBA winner developed by her super-geek husband, Argus Brown. 

Kiffer has presented at events such as: Writer's Digest Conference in NYC, IBPA University, Women in Publishing Summit, Pacific Northwest Writers Conference, RWA National Conference, Historical Novel Society, BEA UpubU, ALLi, Left Coast Crime Conference, and many more. 

The annual Chanticleer Authors Conference held in Bellingham, WA features international best-selling authors such as Cathy Ace, Robert Dugoni, J.D. Barker, Ann Charles (and more!). The event focuses on marketing and book promotion, advanced writing craft, and Book-to-Film sessions.

• Why there has never been a better time to be an author than NOW.
• What makes something a review as opposed to a write-up and the four types of reviews.
• How advanced reviews help in promoting your book and when you should start getting them.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/378

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Philip Lopate.

Phillip is the author of over a dozen books: 

• 4 personal essay collections (Bachelorhood, Against Joie de Vivre, Portrait of My Body, and Portrait Inside my Head), as well as Being with Children, Waterfront, and Notes on Sontag
• 3 works of fiction (Confessions of Summer, The Rug Merchant, and Two Marriages)
• 3 poetry collections (The Eyes Don’t Always Want to Stay Open, The Daily Round, and At the End of the Day).  

He has also edited several anthologies, including one of my personal favorites—Art of the Personal Essay—and he’s the author of To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction. 

He is a professor in Columbia University's MFA Writing Program, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

• Why you need to have some things you haven’t worked out when you begin to write an essay.
• The ground rules, selection process, and organizational structure for his three volume anthology.
• What qualities make for a great essay, what can kill a piece, and the role the past plays.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/377

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Elizabeth Gonzalez James.

Elizabeth’s stories and essays have appeared in The Idaho Review, The Rumpus, PANK, and elsewhere, and have received numerous Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She is also a regular contributor to Ploughshares Blog. Her debut novel Mona at Sea was a finalist in the 2019 SFWP Literary Awards judged by Carmen Maria Machado, and is out now. We’ll be discussing her book and her writing process in today’s interview.

• How she wrote about an unemployed character in an interesting and refreshing way.
• The importance of assembling a good critique group and reading good craft books.
• Why persistence and patience are major parts of the publishing journey.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/376

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Traci Sorell and Carole Boston Weatherford.

Traci is the author of the critically acclaimed book We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga. She is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and lives in northeastern Oklahoma, where her tribe is located. Today we’re talking about her picture book Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer (Illustrated by Natasha Donovan).

Carole is the author of numerous award-winning books including the Newbery Honor book Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom (illustrated by Michele Wood), and R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul (illustrated by Frank Morrison). Today we’re discussing her picture book Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre (Illustrated by Floyd Cooper).

When she's not traveling or visiting museums, Carole is mining the past for family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles. She lives in North Carolina.

• Why they each decided to tell these forgotten stories as middle grade picture books.
• The deliberate and unique choices they made in structuring their narratives.
• How they created a distinct sense of time and place to ground their books.

Plus, their #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/375

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Finola Austin.

Finola Austin, also known as the Secret Victorianist on her award-winning blog, is an England-born, Northern Ireland-raised, Brooklyn-based historical novelist and lover of the 19th century. Her first novel, Bronte's Mistress, was published in 2020. When she’s not writing novels or her blog, she works in digital advertising.

• How household and gender roles have and have not changed since the 19th century.
• The difference between being “accomplished” and being “clever” and why it’s problematic.
• Why she created a timeline to help fill in gaps in knowledge as she drafted her novel.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/374

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Marissa Levien.

Marissa is a writer and artist who hails from Washington State and now lives in New York with a kindly journalist and their two cats. The World Gives Way is her first novel.

• How current and recent events influenced the dystopian future of her novel.
• The unique point of view shifts she writes at the beginning of The World Gives Way.
• Why empathy, human connection, and hope get readers to follow the journey.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/373

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Rajani LaRocca.

Rajani was born in India, raised in Kentucky, and now lives in the Boston area, where she practices medicine and writes award-winning novels and picture books. 

She has always been an omnivorous reader, and now she is an omnivorous writer of fiction and nonfiction, novels, picture books, prose and poetry. 

She finds inspiration in her family, her childhood, the natural world, math, science, and just about everywhere she looks.

• The importance of showing different approaches to problem solving and thinking.
• How she represented sibling dynamics in her picture book, Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers.
• Why she starts with a story and her unique approach to character building.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/372