THIS WEEK: DECEMBER 2, 2024
Bringing Attention, Playfulness, and Surprise to Your Writing, featuring Jeannine Ouellette

This week guest Jeannine Ouellette returns to Write-minded to share some specific teachings and practical tips for writers who want to better curb their own impulses to tell and/or to overwrite. This episode is a little more craft-focused than we normally do, and there’s no better person than Jeannine to showcase actionable ideas and student case studies. If you don’t already subscribe to her Substack, Writing in the Dark, get on her list asap—and this week’s Substackin’ highlights a recent post we loved that’s on point for the themes of this week’s show: From Playful to Profound

This week’s Write-minded delves into our cultural and literary relationship with drugs, examining the role drugs play in creativity and among creatives. We also look at novels and memoirs that center drugs and alcohol, and talk to author Emily Witt about her own foray...

This week’s episode is a deep conversation that covers love, embracing contradiction, and guest Carvell Wallace’s journey to and through memoir. This is an enlightening interview for anyone who’s ever contemplated paradox, or how to tackle big, tangly ideas in your writing. Writing a memoir is an ambitious act of the heart, and we honor that journey this week in all its complexity and bigness. On Substackin’, we’re pleased to be sharing some of our favorite memoir writers’ Substacks, and hope you’ll take a look.

This week Write-minded is exploring listening—as a practice, as an experience, as something that interacts with our writing. Guest Elizabeth Rosner’s new book is Third Ear, a book that she describes as a hybrid memoir. Listen in to find out why, to consider your own relationship with listening, and to consider all the ways that listening drives and inspires our writing. On Substackin’ this week, we revisit Grant’s post about being patient with impatience, with themes resonant to the episode.

This week’s episode is inspired by guest Barbara Ridley’s new novel, Unswerving, whose central protagonist is gay and disabled. We explore the dearth of disabled characters in fiction, and hear from Barbara how choosing to write about a character who was doubly “othered” drew critiques that she was perhaps going a bridge too far. This episode examines sensitivities to consider when writing “the other” in fiction, and also why it’s important to write characters who don’t often get an opportunity to be centered—as it creates empathy and opens our eyes to the broad range of human experience.

It could be said of this week’s guest that she, like the title of this week’s show, is fascinating and daunting. And that this is a pull toward the things we’re interested in, that we want to dive more deeply into, is the subject of this week’s show. Edwidge Danticat is a powerhouse in the literary world who’s written about immigration and poverty, exile and political upheaval, and so much more. There’s much to learn from the wisdom of a writer like Danticat who has been well and widely published for three decades, and who offers up insights across form—from memoir, to fiction, to essay. Tune in to hear from a literary force of nature.