This week’s Write-minded is a thoughtful conversation about where writers’ values meet public persona and the writing life. Guest Maggie Tokuda-Hall treats us to her thinking about career, ambition, and why she writes what subjects and characters she writes, and why she doesn’t write for adults.

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Weekly Inspiration for Writers

Write-minded: Weekly Inspiration for Writers kicked off in September 2018 and airs every week. We are a podcast for writers craving a unique blend of inspiration and real talk about the ups and downs of the writing life. Hosted by Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner, two friends and colleagues who bring a community-minded sensibility to the writing journey, each theme-focused episode of Write-minded features an interview with a writer, author, or publishing industry professional. 

Write-minded features a segment called Substackin’ at the end of each episode to talk about topics, ideas, trends, and writerly inspirations that Brooke and Grant are tracking in their weekly Substacks (Writerly Things and Intimations), and sometimes the Substacks of people they admire, too. Brooke and Grant bring to this weekly podcast their deeply held belief that everyone is a writer, and everyone’s story matters.

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Latest Episodes

 

Writing as a Way to Champion People and Causes, featuring Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Writing as a Way to Champion People and Causes, featuring Maggie Tokuda-Hall

This week’s Write-minded is a thoughtful conversation about where writers’ values meet public persona and the writing life. Guest Maggie Tokuda-Hall treats us to her thinking about career, ambition, and why she writes what subjects and characters she writes, and why she doesn’t write for adults. We get into the important topic of what’s at stake when writers speak up and out—touching upon the tensions that exist between standing up for what you believe in and a literary world that doesn’t always make those choices easy. Substackin’ this week takes a look at Brooke’s post about genre and category, “Your Story Is More Important Than Your Category.”

Don’t Let Your Comfort Zone Become Your Doom Zone, featuring Joshua Mohr

Don’t Let Your Comfort Zone Become Your Doom Zone, featuring Joshua Mohr

A rocking ride through punk influence on prose and story, this interview with guest Joshua Mohr is, more than anything, about pushing your limits and getting out of your comfort zone. In his new book, Saint the Terrifying, Josh does a few things he’s never tried—and he walks us through why that’s been so invigorating, and how it’s pushed his limits as a writer. We delve into not outlining and the power of alternative histories, and get to hear about why Josh wrote this book wanting it to feel like it might fall apart at any moment.

How to Be Compulsively Readable, featuring Anne Lamott

How to Be Compulsively Readable, featuring Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott joins Write-minded this week to talk about so many things—what she writes about; how she kills her darlings; her process with her early readers and editors; and more. On the question of being compulsively readable, she shares with us some of the ideas from Bird by Bird that have stood the test of time, why to cut your darlings, and how she thinks about those early first shitty drafts. Write-minded and Anne Lamott also invite you to join us the last weekend in October for a special writing retreat in Los Angeles. Visit WritersRising.com and enter code writeminded10 to get 10% off. And this week’s Substackin’ is drawn from Brooke’s Substack, Why You Maybe Should Write a Memoir.

The Era of Banning Librarians, featuring Amanda Jones

The Era of Banning Librarians, featuring Amanda Jones

This week, to draw attention to Banned Books Week and to stand in solidarity with publishers, authors, and all industry professionals who fight to keep diverse voices on library shelves, Write-minded features guest Amanda Jones, an educator and librarian whose book, That Librarian, is necessary reading. Amanda shares her more than two-year journey of being bullied, harassed, and smeared because she dared to stand up for diverse books and diverse voices. The phenomenon of canceling librarians or get them fired is not singular, and Amanda Jones’s story serves as a stark reminder about what’s at stake in our country right now. She draws attention to efforts to defund libraries and shares why representation in literature matters so much. Listen and take action. And check out Grant’s Substack about another kind of banning—banning the story we want to tell—in this week’s Substackin’.

The Rejection Episode, featuring Grant Faulkner and Brooke Warner

The Rejection Episode, featuring Grant Faulkner and Brooke Warner

This week’s episode is inspired by Grant’s recent rejection journey. Yes, listeners, Grant’s book about rejection has been roundly rejected—so we’re taking an excursion into the world of rejection, how we deal with it, and what some options might be for a book that doesn’t get picked up by a publisher. Grant and Brooke explore their relationship with and to rejection—and unpack all the ways in which rejection is interconnected to the publishing journey—and not just for authors. This goes for publishers, agents, editors, and other publishing-adjacent folks too. This week’s Substackin’ gets into self-pity, which we might take straight up, or neat, or on the rocks with our rejection. Grant and Brooke are drawing from their own Substacks and others for these features, and we invite you to find us at https://grantfaulkner.substack.com and https://brookewarner.substack.com.

Unclassifiable and Uncontainable: In Celebration of Art That Can’t Be Pinned Down, featuring Brontez Purnell

Unclassifiable and Uncontainable: In Celebration of Art That Can’t Be Pinned Down, featuring Brontez Purnell

This week’s guest, Brontez Purnell, is the kind of writer who’s either hard to pin down, or just won’t be. As such, he’s inspired an episode about who gets to draw outside the lines and why in the realm of book publishing. Whether you love your lane, feel confined by your lane, or insist on busting out of your lane, we invite you to consider what it means to be classifiable and contained, and whether or not it suits you to be so—or to refuse the categories and labels publishing loves to put on authors. An existential episode inspired by an author who’s blowing up the boxes and having fun doing it. This week’s Substackin’ is based on Brooke’s post, “Why You Can’t Equate Your Substack Posts to a Book: On the Staying Power of the Book.” Grant and Brooke are drawing from their own Substacks and others for these features, and we invite you to find us at https://grantfaulkner.substack.com and https://brookewarner.substack.com.

Want to be a guest on the podcast?

We’d love to hear from you. Contact us at hello@writemindedpodcast.com.

Hang Out with the Hosts

Brooke and Grant interview writers, authors, and publishing industry folks, and bring to this weekly podcast their shared spirit of community, collaboration, and a deeply held belief that everyone is a writer, and everyone’s story matters.

Never miss an episode

Subscribe to Write-minded on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.