Rachael Herron's Blog, page 3

Ep. 304: Catherine Prendergast on How Every Writer Lies (For Truth)

Catherine Prendergast is a Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Fulbright Scholar. Interviewed by NPR and New York Magazine, she has written on battles over school desegregation, anxieties over the global spread of English, and recognition of disability rights. Dr. Prendergast’s previous (scholarly) books include Buying Into English (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008) and Literary and Racial Justice (Southern Illinois University Press, 2003). The Gilded Edge is her first work of narrative nonfiction. Originally from New Jersey, she now lives in central Illinois with her husband and son.

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Ep, 303: Josephine Smith on How to Launch Your Writing Career Fast with Four Books in a Year

Rachael talks to Josephine Smith about how to launch a career, fast, and answers some bonus questions about indie publishing! 

Josephine Smith is a cozy mystery author with a love of hot cups of tea, tricky puzzles, and spending Sunday afternoons with a good book. She lives in Northern California with her husband, dog, and cat, and they all get along most of the time. The Hemlock Inn mysteries is her current series, featuring a charming inn, two senior citizen sidekicks, and an adorable beagle named Lola.

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Ep. 302: Rudy Ruiz on How to Open Yourself to Edits

Rudy Ruiz is a writer of literary fiction. A native of the U.S.-Mexico border, his earliest works were published at Harvard, where he studied literature, creative writing, government and public policy, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 2017, Rudy Ruiz was awarded the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction. In 2020, Ruiz was a finalist for both the Texas Institute of Letters’ Best Short Story Award as well as the Texas Observer’s annual Short Story Contest. In 2020, Blackstone Publishing released Ruiz’s novel, “The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez.” The novel received critical acclaim and multiple awards, and was named one of the “Top 10 Best First Novels of 2020″ by the American Library Association’s Booklist. 

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Ep. 301: Isabel Cañas on The Magic of a Reading Journal

Isabel Cañas is a Mexican-American speculative fiction writer. After having lived in Mexico, Scotland, Egypt, and Turkey, among other places, she has settled (for now) in New York City, where she works on her PhD dissertation in medieval Islamic literature and writes fiction inspired by her research and her heritage. The Hacienda, her debut novel, is billed as Mexican Gothic meets Rebecca set in Mexico after its War of Independence, featuring a haunted house behaving very badly, a hot priest, and witches where you least expect them. 

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Ep. 300: Amy S. Peele on How to Keep Your Writing Top of Mind

In this, the three-hundredth episode of How Do You Write, Rachael talks about how happy she is to be here, and shares how she turned her own writing around. Then she talks to Amy S. Peele RN, who is the award-winning, best-selling author of Cut and Match, medical mysteries with a mission and a side of humor. 

Before becoming a writer Amy enjoyed a fascinating 35-year career in the organ transplant field which provides an authentic backdrop to her books. She learned early on in her medical career that humor was an important survival skill and studied improvisation at the world premier school, Second City, in Chicago. Amy currently resides in San Francisco, close to the Golden Gate Bridge, where she loves to swim, teach chair yoga and meditate. She was recently elected to the Novato City Council where she’s discovering a new population of folks who may find their way into being her literary victims.

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Ep. 299: What’s the Difference Between a Premise and a Hook?

In this bonus episode, Rachael talks about the difference between a premise and a hook, and also talks about the three legs of the stool that props up our writing! Thanks to her Patreon supporters for this episode! 

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Ep. 298: Seressia Glass on Bringing Out the Inner Geek

Seressia Glass is an award-winning author of romance and urban fantasy. She lives south of Atlanta with her husband, son, two attack poodles, and a bulldozer of a Cane Corso. When not writing, she likes to collect purple things, jewelry, and spends way too much time watching K-dramas and anime. The Love Con is her most recent release and is a Library Journal pick. 

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Ep. 297: John R. Rickford on the Gift of a Stroke

John R. Rickford is the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Linguistics, emeritus, at Stanford University. He received his BA with highest honors in Sociolinguistics from the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) in 1971, and his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979.  He is an expert in the relation between language and ethnicity, social class and style, language variation and change, pidgin and creole languages, Caribbean and African American Vernacular English, and the application of linguistics to educational and social problems. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books, including his most recent book, Speaking My Soul: Race, Life and Language, which is the honest story of his life from his early years as the youngest of ten children in Guyana to his status as Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Stanford, of the transformation of his identity from colored or mixed race in Guyana to black in the USA, and of his lifetime of work championing Black Talk and its speakers.

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Ep. 296: Ashanti Anderson on Writing Multiple Genres

In this episode, Ashanti Anderson talks about how as writers we’ll always be affected by our peers and how to use different genres to feed our own, unique voices. Ashanti Anderson (she/her) is a Black Queer Disabled poet, screenwriter, and playwright. Her debut short poetry collection, Black Under, is the winner of the Spring 2020 Black River Chapbook Competition at Black Lawrence Press. Her poems have appeared in World Literature Today, POETRY magazine, and elsewhere in print and on the web. Learn more about Ashanti’s previous & latest shenanigans at ashanticreates.com.

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Ep. 295: How Do You Know When Your Book is Ready?

In this bonus mini-episode brought to you by her patrons, Rachael answers questions about how to know when you’ve outgrown your editor, how do you know when your book is ready to publish, and what’s the bare minimum needed in social media! 

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