THIS WEEK: MARCH 20, 2023
The Self-improvement Memoir, featuring Peggy Orenstein

Peggy Orenstein joins Brooke and Grant this week to talk about a number of ideas at the center of her newest memoir, Unraveling. We cover sheep shearing, the fast fashion industry, the crafts(wo)manship that came out of Covid, and taking the time to learn new things. This episode covers how books are often an adventure, and how writing leads to exploration and discovery. And we just happen to have a guest who’s a master at this style of storytelling, so listeners are in for a treat!

Building tension in stories is part of writing good fiction writing, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to do—and it also requires writers to be conscious of the tensions they’re trying to mine. In this week’s show, tension is at the forefront, as Brooke and Grant explore with storytelling master Gish Jen how she thinks about tension, what life experiences she brings to her fiction as a member of the Chinese diaspora and daughter of immigrants, and so much more. We’re talking about short stories and celebrating Jen’s latest collection, Thank you, Mr. Nixon, and thinking more broadly about the way tension raises the stakes when it comes to good story.

If you write fiction, you already know you’re the master of the world you create on the page. That comes with great responsibility, but it also can mean reclaiming the narrative and elevating the stories that didn’t get to be told. It’s often said that history is written by the victors, but in modern times, history is often revisited, increasingly so in fiction, to include the voices of those left for too long in the shadows. This week’s show explores all this and more with guest Cheryl A. Head, who’s written a new novel, Time’s Undoing, that explores what happened to her grandfather, who was killed in 1929 by Birmingham police, and the ripple effect that had on future generations. Nearly 100 years later, Cheryl unearths this story through a fictional lens.

What are some of the memoirs you’ve read and loved that share unspeakable truths? This question is at the center of this week’s show—and we welcome guest Eden Boudreau to share about what we risk—and gain—when we dare to write those truths. Eden’s memoir centers a story of sexual assault, so listeners please know that coming in. She shares about how writing her story was healing, but beyond that how it helped her to carry on through some of her darkest hours. This is a heartfelt conversation—and an episode that celebrates how memoirs really do save lives.

Write-minded celebrates and honors Grant Faulkner this week as he releases his newest book, The Art of Brevity. Grant’s interest and obsession with the short form is the subject of this week’s episode, a conversation about flash fiction, discipline, and what’s so appealing about the short short form. Grant shares a story as a means to show how plot exists in a 100-word piece, and considers the rising popularity of flash fiction against the backdrop of our modern world where there’s more content—and ways of sharing our content—than ever before. An inspiring and inspired conversation!

At the heart of all good fiction are psychologically complex drives, character motives, and the layered paradoxes of human experience. And while we’re focusing on Ana Reyes and her recently released thriller, The House in the Pines, this week’s episode is an honoring of the depths of the human mind, how much our curiosity about what drives others lends itself to good storytelling. Enter the many layers of this conversation with us with your analyzing mind fully attuned!