Subtext is the art of the implicit, and this week’s guest, E.J. Koh, has written a gorgeous memoir, The Magical Language of Others, in which the subtext nearly drips from the page—to gorgeous and astounding results. This week’s show, therefore, explores what subtext is, how to use it, how to watch out for it, and how to practice it. We want all of you writers out there to make your readers hungry for your stories, and this is one way you can entice, delight, and tantalize.

Write-minded Podcast

The Art of Subtext, featuring EJ Koh

How can we practice self-care, stay open and vulnerable, and have enough discernment to know how much to keep pushing ourselves creatively when we feel depleted? This episode is a show for our times, as we tackle with guest Charlie Jane Anders all the ways that global and personal crises challenge our creative and writing lives. We recommend you check out Charlie Jane’s talk on YouTube, Never Say You Can’t Survive, which inspired the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ItTO9DDhCI.

The Difficult Balance of Writing and Self-Care, featuring Charlie Jane Anders

This week we’re talking about the mother-daughter story, which is equally powerfully conveyed in both fiction and memoir. This week’s guest, Laura Davis, has a gripping new memoir about her relationship with her mother, structured as a countdown to her mother’s death. Laura explores in the book and on the show topics including estrangement and caregiving someone who’s betrayed you. We also talk about writing about other people, and Laura shares a bit about her past, having co-authored the best-selling book, The Courage to Heal, and bringing her writing chops to a new genre.

The Staying Power of the Mother-Daughter Story, featuring Laura Davis

In honor of Banned Books Week, this week’s show dives into books that help start conversations with kids, even and especially when they’re touching upon tough topics. Anastasia’s Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness struck a chord last year as parents looked for books to help kids understand our national racial reckoning, and her entire series, Ordinary Terrible Things, is a conversation-starter for kids and parents alike about topics that are hard, sometimes taboo, and always important.

Books That Help Start Conversations with Kids, featuring Anastasia Higginbotham

This week’s episode features Kaitlyn Greenidge being interviewed by Brooke as part of the San Diego Writers Festival. Her recent novel, Libertie, is a tour de force and examination of Reconstruction-era America through the story of Libertie, born black and free during a time when America’s attempts to right the wrongs of slavery were being met with great promise and great resistance. How storytelling informs and educates shines through in this conversation, and we thank the San Diego Writers Festival for this collaboration.

Using Storytelling to Inform and Educate, featuring Kaitlyn Greenidge

An episode for our times, today’s show features Matthew Salesses in conversation with Grant and Brooke about his newest book, Craft in the Real World. Listen in as he unpacks the inherent biases of how the dominant culture teaches and writes and thinks about craft. Matthew’s book addresses how and why craft inextricable from identity and lived experience—bringing some explosive new energy to our thinking about craft that’s both empowering and long overdue.

Craft Is Never Neutral, featuring Matthew Salesses

It’s a brand-new season and Year 4 of Write-minded, and we’re diving headfirst into shame, a feeling that often attacks on the sly, and that seems to show up even in the most innocuous of places. Guest Firoozeh Dumas talks us through shame as a writer, through the lens of culture, and through the lens of humor, too. Plus, we touch upon her story of being an Iranian immigrant writer, and what’s changed—and hasn’t—in the publishing industry since Firoozeh published Funny in Farsi in the early 2000s.

Confronting Shame, featuring Firoozeh Dumas

It’s our final A+ August episode—and we’re ending the summer with YA superstars Laurie Halse Anderson and Marie Lu, who treated us earlier this year with deep insights about the genre, and about mining your memories and your stories regardless of genre. They speak about inspirations and starts and what moved them along in their journeys. Which is a perfect segue to our new season—Year 4—which starts next week. Happy end of summer.

Best of YA, featuring Laurie Halse Anderson and Marie Lu

As summer slips away, what better interviews to revisit than two that feature writing about sex in all its myriad forms—desire, confession, and as thinking pieces that speak to who we are, what we crave, and also how we’re controlled and boxed in and limited. Two of our favorites from this past year, Deesha Philyaw and Kim Addonizio, give writers a lot to think about on the subject of sex writing, and so much more.

Best of Sex Writing, featuring Deesha Philyaw and Kim Addonizio

Our next A+ August mash-up features two of Brooke’s absolute favorites—Mary Karr and Elizabeth Gilbert. Mary’s episode, In Defense of Memoir, is a deep dive into memoir writing, while Liz’s, Following the Thread of Your Inspiration. Both guests have been so influential to this genre, and this wide-ranging conversation will leave any aspiring writer motivated to get writing—and don’t forget to go back and listen to the full interviews in our archives.

Best of Memoir, featuring Mary Karr and Elizabeth Gilbert

This best of features two guests whose debut novels focus in on racial issues in the workplace with Askaripour’s novel, Black Buck, set in the sales industry and Pandya’s Members Only homing in on academia. Both guests speak to their inspirations, drawing from life experience, and the nuance and complexities (and also the importance) of tackling racial issues in fiction.

Best of Debut Fiction, featuring Mateo Askaripour and Sameer Pandya

In this first of our A+ August mash-up we’re revisiting interviews with two of the most popular fantasy authors we know—Hugh Howey and Victoria “V.E.” Schwab. There’s so much good stuff here to inspire any kind of author. We talk about process, confidence, why we write, and then yes, there’s some magic talk in here, too, since fantasy allows you to rewrite the rules and build your own worlds . . . something a lot of us might be doing this summer as we think about escaping into other realities.

Best of Fantasy, featuring Hugh Howey and Victoria “V.E.” Schwab

In the final show of Year 3 of Write-minded, Brooke interviews Grant about his newest book, a collection of stories called All the Comfort Sins Can Provide. In the interviewee chair, Grant shares the highs and the lows of publishing a new book—the fear and the angst and the joys and the expectations. Having doled out excellent advice over these past three years, Grant realizes during this week’s show that it’s not so easy to follow all our great advice.

The Joy and Angst of a Newly Released Book, featuring Grant Faulkner

This week’s show is a great episode for any writer who’s ever thought about plotting—how much they love it or hate it, whether they’re even doing it, and why plotting matters anyway. Our guest is Jean Hanff Korelitz, who’s most recent book, The Plot, has one of the best plots ever—and even she says sometimes you have to forget about the plot. We touch upon literary vs. commercial fiction, whether Jean agrees with Stephen King’s advice about plotting, and what some of her favorite books are that center writers as the primary protagonist. This is a writer’s episode—and yes, that means you. Enjoy!

To Plot or Not? featuring Jean Hanff Korelitz

This week’s episode is an intense, powerful, and frank interview with author Gina Frangello as part of WomenLit, a Bay Area program dedicated to elevating women’s voices. Gina’s latest book, Blow Your House Down, is a tour de force and a memoir that’s had everyone talking—because she really goes there: into her shame, into her fear, into abuse, into sex and body, and into what it’s like to live a double life since the book is about having a clandestine affair for three-plus years. This is a brave book that’s making some people uncomfortable and has many reevaluating how truthful and brave they want to be on the page.

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Write-minded Podcast

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