Catch up on the latest episodes...

  Best-selling author and fabulous writing teacher Ellen Sussman joins us to talk about conflict--why it matters, why it’s hard to go there on the page, and how to get there. Why do we resist creating conflict in our stories? What are we afraid of?...

In today’s show we discuss Curtis Sittenfeld’s short story, “The Prairie Wife,” which appeared in the New Yorker, January X&X issue. Spoiler alert! We reveal everything about the story. You can listen to or read it at the links below. Angie breaks...

In today’s episode, we grapple with confidence, the lack there of, and working toward it. We dip into the question of what makes a book sell, and we give you James Scott Bell’s definition of a short story. This leads to a conversation about the importance...

Today we tackle two topics: time management for writers, and which parts of a story should be told in scene. We discuss the process of identifying priorities and values, and touch on a cognitive behavior model Angie found inspirational. On the topic of...

Today, Angie and Elizabeth discuss arrogance as a necessary component to creating something from nothing--what does it take to create? What gives you permission? What gives you cojones? Ideas include: Focusing on creating a body of work Sitting with...

This conversation with Aya inspires me every time I hear it–it is a necessary look, for writers, at what we can do to effect political change, as well as a motivating look at structure, deadlines, and momentum.

Angie and Elizabeth discuss the pros and cons of the dictum to write everyday, the benefits and drawbacks of social media to the writer/ creative type, and whether art requires an audience.

Caille Millner is an award-winning writers across genres, writing memoir, fiction, and, for the San Francisco Chronicle, cultural columns and opinion pieces. When we met, just after the election, she was already collaborating on a list for Bay Area writers of ways to volunteer your writing skills to help people made especially vulnerable by the election.

In this week’s Quick Fix Q & A, Angie and Elizabeth discuss:

6 steps to creating a scene
4 tests for: is it an event?
Plot complexity and genre expectations
Your personal thematic
Decision fatigue
Automating your routine

FREE Craft Class

Friends’ week is coming up in the Book Writing World, November 15 & 17! Join us in-person in Berkeley OR Online from anywhere via Zoom’s video conferencing for a free 2-hour craft class on Backstory–when do you need it, how do you work it in, and what can and can’t it do for your story?

You and your friends can sign up here:

http://bookwritingworld.com/friends-week/

Spread the word: it is solely through word-of-mouth that BWW finds its exceptional, talented, warm, bright students. Thank you for being part of our community!

In this episode we sit down with author Micah Perks. Our conversation went all over the place, and we hit on a number topics. We discussed: Fetal narrators How long it can take to write a novel What happens when revisions don't work Finding the title How...

Join our far-ranging, fun and fascinating conversation with Lucy Jane Bledsoe on the occasion of her brand new historical novel, A THIN BRIGHT LINE, based on the true-life story of her aunt.

Kirsty Starkey works as a producer at BBC Radio 4’s acclaimed show Woman’s Hour, “the programme that offers a female perspective on the world.” She researches and develops stories, finds and interviews potential subjects, prepares the presenters for live on-air interviews, and more

This week’s three questions: Dialog, Dialog, and Writing More…

We were thrilled to sit down with Book Writing World alum Gretchen Atwood to discuss her newly released book, Lost Champions: Four Men, Two Teams, and the Breaking of Pro Football’s Color Line, and get some great tips about balancing research and writing, evaluating and choosing your sources, making use of research to create scene, and where the line between imagination and invention falls in nonfiction.

This week we started a new element in Story Makers Show. Interspersed with the in-depth interviews with authors, filmmakers and industry professionals, we are going to offer brief podcasts that answer your questions about writing

With a deep background in both deadline journalism and mindfulness meditation, Jennifer Mattson teaches classes in getting unstuck that emphasize an acceptance of the cycle of getting stuck and unstuck.

Jean Kawahara is a documentary editor as well as a writer, and she had great insights into the process of shaping real life events into a story.

Joyce has an amazing, important story to tell about an artist, Joyce’s twin sister Judy, who had so much against her–undiagnosed deafness, Down’s Syndrome in a time when differences were institutionalized, and years away from her family–only to find her artistic “voice” when in their middle age Joyce gained guardianship of Judy and brought her to California and to Creative Growth.