Episodios

  • Episode 53: You Don’t Have to Feel Creative to Create Good Writing with Tim Shenk

    Episode 53: You Don’t Have to Feel Creative to Create Good Writing with Tim Shenk
    Jun 30 2025
    We’re talking with historian and journalist Tim Shenk about creating a professional relationship with our writing. In addition to being an assistant professor of history at George Washington University, Tim is a senior editor at Dissent magazine, and has written for the New York Times, the Nation, the New Republic, and Jacobin, among other publications. He is also the author of three books, most recently, Left Adrift: What Happened to Liberal Politics. Tim talks with us about balancing academic and journalistic writing; a typical writing day; how academics come to write op-eds in publications such as the NYT; what it means to shift away from a grad student mentality about writing; why good writing begets more good writing; what an academic can expect from a trade press editor; why academic move back and forth between academic and trade presses for different kinds of projects; and why it’s a good idea for academic writers to sometimes curb our inner Norman Mailer. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    45 m
  • Episode 52: Letting the primary sources tell the story with Rachel Cockerell

    Episode 52: Letting the primary sources tell the story with Rachel Cockerell
    Jun 16 2025
    In this episode, we’re talking with writer and historian Rachel Cockerell, author of Melting Point: Family, Memory and the Search for a Promised Land, about the process of writing a family history that Zadie Smith, Simon Schama, and others have praised. Cockerell tells us about her research and writing process; deciding to take out the narrative voice and letting the primary sources tell the story on their own; and why fiction often serves as a model for the kind of reading experience she hopes to give readers. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    27 m
  • Episode 51: Heather Clark Part II: Maybe you don’t have to “stay in your lane”

    Episode 51: Heather Clark Part II: Maybe you don’t have to “stay in your lane”
    Jun 2 2025
    We speak with literary scholar Heather Clark about moving from biography to novel-writing, why it can be helpful to move back and forth between non-fiction and fiction, and why academic writers might want to rethink the “stay in your lane” approach. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    31 m
  • Episode 50: Heather Clark Part I: When the editor says, “We want a doorstopper!

    Episode 50: Heather Clark Part I: When the editor says, “We want a doorstopper!
    May 19 2025
    We speak with literary scholar and biographer, Heather Clark, author of Red Comet, which was selected for the New York Times Book Review's "10 Best Books of 2021" list and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography and a finalist for the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. It won the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2022. We talk about how Clark made the case for the eleventh biography of Sylvia Plath to her agent, and what it was like for her editor to tell her that she actually wanted a doorstopper of a book. Clark tells us about how she treated Plath’s fiction and poetry in the context of telling Plath’s life story, and how Clark organized her research notes. Clark also tells us about the group biography she wrote after Red Comet, and her next biography subject. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    28 m
  • Episode 49: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

    Episode 49: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
    May 8 2025
    We’re talking with Professor Blaufarb about writing graphic history. His Inhuman Traffick: The International Struggle against the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Graphic History is part of the Oxford University Press Graphic History Series. Blaufarb tells us about what kinds of histories he thinks work best for graphic history, and how and why you might want to have images tell a history. We also talk about how scholars become editors of book series (as well as the good and bad parts of being a book series editor), and Blaufarb’s method for getting to the pleasurable parts of writing. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    36 m
  • Episode 48: Four Decades of Writing Biography

    Episode 48: Four Decades of Writing Biography
    Apr 21 2025
    When Mary Dearborn finished her doctorate at Columbia University she knew she wanted to write biography. She went on to a forty-plus year career in writing biographies whose subjects including Peggy Guggenheim, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Anzia Yezierska, and most recently Carson McCullers. We talk about the challenges of writing biography for trade press publications; writing the trade press book proposal; changes in the publishing industry; reaching a broader readership; struggling with self-promotion and changing social media norms; and why it’s invigorating to remember that presses actually need good writers. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    47 m
  • Episode 47: Historian-turned-Playwright (With a little help from real estate good luck!)

    Episode 47: Historian-turned-Playwright (With a little help from real estate good luck!)
    Apr 7 2025
    We’re talking with historian-turned-playwright Andy Heinze about leaving academia to begin a different kind of writing career. We talk about how he made this decision, what other factors helped, and why this new path has led to the most fun kind of writing. We talk about how academia prepares writers for failure and the joys of becoming a beginner and a student again. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    34 m
  • Episode 46: Cold-calling works!

    Episode 46: Cold-calling works!
    Mar 24 2025
    In this episode, we’re talking with Amy Reading, author of The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker, about why a PhD is helpful background for writing literary non-fiction, and how that background helps us skillfully cold-call agents; the importance of understanding how your book fits in with comparable works; how and why she ended up writing a bigger book than she expected; finding a writing community; why a biography always takes longer than we think; and why it’s worthwhile to reach out to the writers we admire. Don't forget to rate and review our show and follow us on all social media platforms here: https://linktr.ee/writingitpodcast Contact us with questions, possible future topics/guests, or comments here: https://writingit.fireside.fm/contact
    Más Menos
    48 m