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Colum McCann, author of TWIST
Colum McCann first came on the podcast in 2010 to talk about his National Book Award winning novel, Let the Great World Spin. He most recently returned in 2020 with his New York Times bestseller Apeirogon. He’s back this month with a stunning new novel, Twist. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book and his inspiration. They also discuss the need for stories in this current historical moment, why Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a book for our times, the things currently giving him hope, and how he manages to make profound statements about the world without sounding pedological. Colum also shares some of his writerly moves distinct to his style, including his weave of arcane and interesting information into his novels, his effective use of lists, his emphasis on the sound of language and sentence structure, and 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’ll 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. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on March 28, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie Stone Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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Scott Turow, author of PRESUMED GUILTY
Scott Turow is a writer and former practicing lawyer and the author of 13 bestselling works of fiction, including Presumed Innocent. Scott has also published two nonfiction books, including One L, about his experience as a law student. His books have been translated into more than 40 languages, sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, and have been adapted into movies and television projects. He frequently contributes essays and op-ed pieces to publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, New Yorker, and the Atlantic. His most recent novel is Presumed Guilty. Scott joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about his path to writing fiction, loving literary fiction and also loving plot, writing in the first person present tense, writing outside your culture and race, the importance of setting, and his revision process. 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’ll 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. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on March 18, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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Charlotte McConaghy, author of WILD DARK SHORE
Charlotte McConaghy is an Australian author living in Sydney with her partner and two children. She has a Masters Degree in Screenwriting from the Australian Film Television and Radio School, and a number of published SFF works in Australia. Her novel Migrations was her first foray into adult literary fiction, published in North America by Flatiron Books, and by Penguin Random House in Australia and the UK. It is being translated into over 25 languages and adapted to film. Once There Were Wolves, the New York Times Bestseller, is a romantic mystery about a biologist charged with reintroducing wolves to the Scottish Highlands in order to rewild the landscape and bring a forest back to life. Wild Dark Shore, the focus of today’s show, continues her love of romantic thrillers set in beautiful, remote places, and explores not only what it takes to raise children in a collapsing world, but the impossible choices we make to protect those we love. Charlotte joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about whether she comes up with the story first or the setting, what her research entails, why she chose multiple point of view narrators for Wild Dark Shore, how she knows when a novel is finished, revision, and 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’ll 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. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on February 14, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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Eowyn Ivey, author of BLACK WOODS, BLUE SKY
Eowyn Ivey was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for her debut novel, The Snow Child. Her latest, Black Woods, Blue Sky, offers a dark fairytale, a love story of a different kind, and depicts a mother-daughter relationship like none we’ve read before. Ivey joins Marrie Stone to talk about the backstories behind the novel. They also chat about writing different points of view, including writing from a 6-year-old perspective, setting up the rules of magical realism, and making landscape a character in your novel. They explore how time and linearity aren’t the same thing as structure in a novel, and writing a novel that exists outside of time. 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. 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 to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on March 4, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie Stone Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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Adam Ross, author of PLAYWORLD
Adam Ross is the author of Mr. Peanut, selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He’s been a fellow in fiction at the American Academy in Berlin and a Hodder Fellow for Fiction at Princeton University. He is editor of The Sewanee Review. Born and raised in New York City, he now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his two daughters. His new novel is PLAYWORLD. On the show, Adam joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about how the idea for PLAYWORLD became a book, why it took ten years to write, how being an actor influenced his writing, why he named his protagoinist Griffin Hurt, writing voiceover scenes, bringing his experiences as a kid into the story, his revision process, journaling, and so 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. 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 to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners! (Recorded on February 21, 2025) Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
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