Catch up on the latest episodes...
Episode 143:The Intersection of Premise and Limiting Belief
Angie is learning about teaching math and either making connections to learning and writing...or developing a unified theory of everything. Elizabeth is in diffuse, “what if” mode, exploring her real values. As they delve into conversation about...
Episode 142:A Non-Fiction Scene from Danzy Senna
Today’s episode brings the study of scene to a conclusion with a third scene, this one from Danzy Senna’s non-fiction Where Did You Sleep Last Night? A Personal History. Angie and Elizabeth look at the work an opening scene does in establishing vital...
Episode 141:Establishing Scenes: Setting Up Desires, Character, Theme in Action in Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys
Continuing the series examining the art of the scene, Angie and Elizabeth delve into an early scene from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Nickel Boys. A deft scene by a highly skilled author. Elizabeth and Angie discuss how what a...
Episode 140:The Final Scene: Elizabeth Strout
After kicking off a series about scene in the last episode, Angie and Elizabeth introduce a specific scene, the final scene in Elizabeth Strout’s short story “The Sign” in her book Anything is Possible. The discussion reviews the criteria established in...
139:Scene It All? What Makes Scene Work
Today’s episode informally kicks off a series where Angie and Elizabeth will be discussing scene, that key unit of storytelling across many formats and genres. As an overview, they present a number of elements of scene, including purpose, new information...
Episode 138: Change in Story and in the World!
On today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth talk about what changes between the ordinary world that starts a story, and the new ordinary world where the characters end up, their limiting beliefs having been utterly challenged, and either changed or tragically...
Episode 137: Necessary Skills: Empathy and Reading #BlackLivesMatter
After a two-week hiatus, Angie and Elizabeth are back asking, how can a story-making show co-hosted by two white queer women serve this moment? They look at balancing forward movement with the state of the world, and then deep dive into the urgency of...
Episode 136: Suspects, Motives, and Red Herrings: A Conversation with Author Angie Kim
It was a blast to have Angie Kim on the show talking about her now-in-paperback legal mystery MIRACLE CREEK, and rich and compelling, Edgar-award winning book that touches on themes of motherhood, special needs kids, and immigration, as well as a sweeping...
Episode 135: A Jumping Off Point: Getting and Processing Notes on Your Manuscript
Recorded on Mother’s Day, this episode is about revision and getting notes. After a brief look at the revision process of Angie’s feature screenplay for Lost in the Middle, including a horizontal notebook, other tangible tools, haptic feedback, and table...
Episode 134: Salting the Soup: Getting Metaphor Right
Angie and Elizabeth fumble toward answering a listener’s question about metaphor, at first blaming the heat in their pandemic garage studio, but later, if you will, warming to the topic. They consider whether everyone thinks metaphorically, discuss common...
Episode 133: Back to the Basics: Survival, Sleep, Gardening, and Yes, Writing in a Time of Trauma.
Angie and Elizabeth dig into some forms, frameworks and rules that can sustain a creative practice in trouble times, including the practice of freewriting, the three rules that run Elizabeth’s craft classes, and opening and closing rituals. An exercise...
Episode 132: Happy Earth Day: A Conversation about Conflict, Crisis, History, and Story
On today’s episode, Angie and Elizabeth delve into conflict in crisis, and what we can learn about story--and history--from the moment we are muddling through. They acknowledge that growth can be uncomfortable, and examine what turns conflict into growth....
Episode 131:The Baby and the Bath Water: What to Throw Out
In this episode, Angie and Elizabeth consider strategies for staying connected to your creativity in this extreme moment. What’s changed and what hasn’t, and what needs to change? Tools considered include the social urge, countering boredom, writing...
Episode 132: Rule Britannia: the Queen’s Speech
Live from our garage, a day late and a dollar short, in the middle of a global pandemic, Angie and Elizabeth have the following, just for you: An update on middle school math and distance learning; the asymptotic process of editing and how to cooperate...
Episode 131:She’s Got Help: Sheltering in Place
Today’s episode asks, how do you find your writing passion while you’re hiding out at home. Routines? Extreme measures? What is called for? Angie and Elizabeth answer a listener’s question. Some of the answers include: doing the part of writing you think...
Episode 130:Robotic Dogs, Epistolary Novels, Compassion: What Gets Us Through
Today’s shelter-in-place episode delves into what survival strategies teach you about your writing lifestyle and offers a plug for reading and a metaphor, advice from Northern Italy, a couple of writing prompts, a discussion of opportunity cost in...
Episode 129: Giving Notes: What You Need to Know
This week, Angie is cognitively processing while Elizabeth is rereading her manuscript on hardcopy yet one more time. In this episode, Angie and Elizabeth explore whether their newly cleared yard is a metaphor for anything relevant to writing, and...
Episode 128: Arresting and Amusing to the Drunk: a discussion of politics, persuasion, and story
In today's episode, Angie and Elizabeth discuss the use of narrative in the art of persuasion. Coming back to Lindsay Doran’s rules of story, they check them against various politicians' appeals. This leads to an examination of competing stories,...