Rachael Herron's Blog, page 4

Ep. 294: Eliza Nellums on Adding Ticking Clocks to Up Your Tension

Eliza and Rachael talk about birds, maybe a bit too much, in both their writing and this podcast! Listen as they talk about upping the tension in their writing by realizing this sooner, rather than later.

Raised in the Detroit suburbs, Eliza Nellums now lives with her cat outside Washington DC. Her first novel ALL THAT’S BRIGHT AND GONE was named as an Amazon Editor’s Pick for December, and was praised in the Washington Post and RealSimple Magazine. Her second novel THE BONE CAY was released in December. She is a member of the Metro Wriders, a weekly critique group that meets in Dupont Circle. An amateur botanist and avid gardener, she divides her time between plants, books, and cats.

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Ep. 293: Sacha Black on Finding Your Book’s G-Spot

Sacha Black is an author, rebel podcaster, and speaker. She has five obsessions: words, expensive shoes, conspiracy theories, self-improvement, and breaking the rules.  Sacha writes books for teens and other books about the art of writing. When she’s not writing, she can be found laughing inappropriately loud, sniffing musty old books, fangirling film and TV soundtracks, or thinking up new ways to break the rules. She lives in Cambridgeshire, England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son.

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Ep. 292: What if My Agent Can’t Sell My Book? Bonus Episode

Join Rachael as she reports from the battle lines of Revisionlandia – fresh from getting her OWN revision letter, she talks about how to handle the emotions that come with someone else helping you with your work (real talk). Also, she answers Patrons’ questions: how to believe in yourself to keep writing, what to do when you’re querying a book but not sure if you should go back to editing it, and finally, what if my agent can’t sell my book? 

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Ep. 291: Kerri Maher on How to Find Your Own Community

On this fabulous episode, Kerri Maher talks about the way we all need community (and how to find it). She is the author of The Girl in White Gloves, The Kennedy Debutante, and, under the name Kerri Majors, This Is Not a Writing Manual: Notes for the Young Writer in the Real World. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and was a writing professor for many years. She now writes full-time and lives with her daughter and dog in a leafy suburb west of Boston, Massachusetts. The Paris Bookseller is her most recent novel. 

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Ep. 290: Farah Jasmine Griffin on How to Write Your Full Self Into Your Work

Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department. In her most recent book, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, published September 14 by W.W. Norton, Griffin pays homage to family and community through generations of Black geniuses.

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Ep. 289: Kit Mayquist on How to Work Backward from the Dark Moment

Kit Mayquist uses a technique not often talked about: working backward, not from the end, but from the dark moment, and it’s everything. A fan of everything spooky and indulgent, Kit Mayquist is a bisexual, trans masculine writer who can be found in the historic shadows of Boston, Massachusetts, hunched over his desk with a sullen Persian cat in his lap and surrounded by antiques. He has an MA in Medieval History from the University of Iceland, and a BA from Portland State University (and if you ask him, yes, Stumptown will always have the best coffee). Tripping Arcadia is his debut novel. 

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Ep. 288: Sabrina Benaim on Telling the Fearless Truth

Sabrina Benaim is a poet, storyteller, and workshop facilitator. She is one of the most-viewed spoken word poets of all time: her videos have reached more than one hundred million people. In 2017, her debut collection, Depression & Other Magic Tricks, was a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist, finishing just behind Rupi Kaur’s The Sun and Her Flowers. In 2020, she took part in the Heavy Hitters Festival alongside Ani DiFranco, Amber Tamblyn, and Mary Lambert. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

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Ep. 286: Lana Harper On Hitting the NYT with a Queer Romcom!

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The L Word in this fresh, sizzling New York Times bestselling rom-com by Lana Harper. Lana is the author of four YA novels about modern-day witches and historical murderesses written as Lana Papović. Born in Serbia, she grew up in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria before moving to the US, where she studied psychology and literature at Yale University, law at Boston University, and publishing at Emerson College. She recently moved to Chicago with her family. Payback’s a Witch is her most recent release. 

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Ep. 290: Farah Jasmine Griffin on How to Write Your Full Self Into Your Work

Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department. In her most recent book, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, published September 14 by W.W. Norton, Griffin pays homage to family and community through generations of Black geniuses.

The post Ep. 290: Farah Jasmine Griffin on How to Write Your Full Self Into Your Work appeared first on R. H. HERRON.

Ep. 289: Kit Mayquist on How to Work Backward from the Dark Moment

Kit Mayquist uses a technique not often talked about: working backward, not from the end, but from the dark moment, and it’s everything. A fan of everything spooky and indulgent, Kit Mayquist is a bisexual, trans masculine writer who can be found in the historic shadows of Boston, Massachusetts, hunched over his desk with a sullen Persian cat in his lap and surrounded by antiques. He has an MA in Medieval History from the University of Iceland, and a BA from Portland State University (and if you ask him, yes, Stumptown will always have the best coffee). Tripping Arcadia is his debut novel. 

The post Ep. 289: Kit Mayquist on How to Work Backward from the Dark Moment appeared first on R. H. HERRON.