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Episódios Disponíveis

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Joan Silber, author of MERCY
Joan Silber is the author of ten books of fiction, as well as The Art of Time in Fiction which looks at how fiction is shaped and determined by time, with examples from world writers. She’s been on the show three times in the past to talk about Fools, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; Secrets of Happiness, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction of the Year; and Improvement, which won The National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her latest is Mercy. It’s told in six chapters, or six stories, each from a different character’s point of view (POV). It takes place over the course of 50 years and comes in at a lean 240 pages. Joan joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, using it as a craft lesson to discuss managing time in fiction and POV choices, how to write about drug use and sex, and how to treat characters with generosity. One chapter appeared as a standalone piece in the New Yorker (“Evolution”), and Joan discusses that chapter in detail (she also talked about it with the New Yorker). Along the way, they also discuss how she’s been influenced by Alice Munro, Anton Chekov, and Grace Paley. Paley was one of Joan’s undergrad instructors and Joan shares one of Paley’s writing prompts. She also discusses the writers she teaches with respect to character generosity (including Chekov and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie). For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on October 30, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie Stone Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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REPLAY: fiction writer Melissa Bank
Melissa Bank, who passed away in 2022, was a fabulous writer and an incredible person. We met a few times in person, out here in Southern California when we were both speakers at the Literary Guild, and in NYC when I traveled there for conferences. She came on the show a couple of times, for Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Wonder Spot. Her output was modest though her books became bestsellers. She received an MFA from Cornell University and won the Nelson Algren Award for short fiction from the Chicago Tribune. I’ll always remember when 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. If you’ve never read these two books, check them out. My guess is you will become a fan. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on October 7, 2007) Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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Gish Jen, author of BAD, BAD GIRL
Gish Jen describes her childhood as “a master class in perseverance.” The daughters of withholding mothers learn to reject rejection, she writes. And that’s proven great training for a writer. Jen’s 10th book — Bad, Bad Girl — is part novel, part memoir, part autofiction. When her mother passed in 2020, Jen began keeping a journal, and writing notes to her mother in an attempt to understand her. She also wanted to create a record of her life for her children and grandchildren. Not believing she could bridge the gap from family story to publishable book, Jen took a leap of faith and created a novel that everyone can relate to, or at least sympathize with. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about it. Jen shares what fiction gave her that strict memoir did not, and how she overcame her own doubts. She talks about the distinction between fine art and therapy, and what the creative process can give to writers. So much wisdom in this conversation for readers, writers, mothers and daughters. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on October 17, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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REPLAY: Literary agent MATTHEW CARNICELLI
Matthew Carnicelli is the president of Carnicelli Literary Management, located in New York City and the Hudson Valley. He represents bestselling and award-winning authors publishing books in the areas of history, current events, sports, business, memoir, biography, health, literary fiction, and graphic novels. Since becoming an agent in 2004, he has focused on helping leading thinkers, journalists, academics, and others with exceptional stories or messages develop clear and original book ideas and partnering them with the best editors and publishers for their books. Matthew is a graduate of Washington University, with a B.A. in English literature and political science, and received an M.A. from the University of Toronto in English literature. He has taught college-level nonfiction writing and is a frequent guest on various writing and publishing-industry panels. I’ve known Matthew for a long time, he’s articulate and funny, and I simply like him. I’d recommend him in a minute to anyone who writes the kind of nonfiction he handles. On the show we talked about what he’s looking for, comps, the author bio, ageism, interpreting rejection, referrals. and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on December 1, 2023) Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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Janelle Brown, author of WHAT KIND OF PARADISE
Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels I’ll Be You, Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and This Is Where We Live. Pretty Things—named a Best Book of 2020 by Amazon—is currently being adapted for television. Before becoming a novelist, Janelle worked as a senior writer at Salon, and began her career as a staff writer at Wired, working on seminal Web sites like HotWired and Wired News. In the 1990s, she was also the editor and co-founder of Maxi, an irreverent (and now, long-gone) women’s pop culture Webzine. All that information becomes very relevant when you read her latest, What Kind of Paradise. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about it. What Kind of Paradise draws on that tech reporter past and subtly asks the question: What if Ted Kazinsky had a kid? They discuss how fiction, and our bestselling authors, are grappling with this technological moment. They also discuss writing in the first person and how to use other textures and devices to gain access to other major characters, capturing bygone time periods, conveying cultural messages without preaching to your readers, and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on September 24, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie Stone Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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