This week’s episode is a celebration of opinion, of boldly stating what you mean and what matters to you and why. Writing is an exercise in truth-telling, and when it’s your personal truth—no matter what your genre—it’s scary as hell. And while this week centers memoir, the episode is for anyone who’s trying to write what they think. It’s about why it matters that writers synthesize, interpret, make meaning, extrapolate, and also examines consequences—for you as a writer, and also for the world outside of you. If you’re wrestling with truth, with fallout, with consequences, with what’s at stake—Mychal Denzel Smith will provoke many questions and leave you inspired.

In her profound and moving new memoir, What My Bones Know, guest Stephanie Foo writes about trauma, and about a diagnosis of Complex PTSD that is lacking first-person narratives. In this week’s episode, the first of Write-minded’s fifth year, co-hosts Brooke and Grant talk about why trauma is a slippery subject to sell to publishers, and why Stephanie’s book is a breakthrough kind of memoir that paves the way for more of these kinds of narratives in the future. Stephanie is an insightful guest, offering valuable tips for how to write trauma and sharing how this was a book she had to write, and some of the considerations and fears she faced on the memoir journey.

In our final summer episode, we bring you two voices of advocacy in an episode that will both stoke your passions and remind you to be gentle with yourself at the same time. Guests Charlie Jane Anders and Azar Nafisi both speak to why we must write our truths, pay attention, bear witness, and remember the power of one person’s voice and words to save and change lives.

This week Write-minded revisits two powerful interviews in which guests Erica Jong and Lilly Dancyger shared with us about the power of emotion on the page. Erica Jong’s work has often centered fear and desire while Lilly Dancyger’s work has circled anger. Both women share the power of unlocking emotion on the page, and touch upon the ways in which women are expected to be more confined in their emotional expression. This is exactly why it’s so important to feel those emotions and express them on the page, and these two authors give the absolute permission to do so, and model how in their wonderful works of fiction and nonfiction.

This week’s episode is chock-full of craft tips and ideas for thinking about the subtle art of subtext and omission, featuring two of our favorite craft episodes from the past year. E.J. Koh and Charmaine Wilkerson will help you think about what to leave out, how to help your readers read between the lines, and why these craft techniques are an exercise in building trust with your readers. Two excellent writers on two important craft points that create more depth and sophistication when it comes to storytelling and scene-writing.

In this week’s remembrances of some of the best episodes of the past year, we’re highlighting fantasy’s importance as a genre with guests Kwame Mbalia and Namina Forna. There’s so much goodness packed in here—about process, about why we write, about inspirations, and some fabulous tips for staying the course even when you feel like you don’t have the time. This isn’t so much an episode about fantasy as it is about writing intentionally and infusing meaning into genre writing just as you would any writing you do.

All August we’re celebrating with our favorite guests of the past year—but with a fresh take on the topic at hand and a new book trend. This week’s episode basks in the smart, intimate, and insightful energy of Ashley C. Ford and Melissa Febos, two wonderful memoirists who share about writing intimate truths. Brooke gives her take on why memoir is a force that’s changing the culture, and we celebrate Grant’s latest side gig, the Reality TV project “America’s Next Great Author”—which we’re excited to share about on this week’s show.

Anthologies date all the way back to the Renaissance and earlier, when important works of various authors were collected and bound. This week, Brooke and Grant discuss the modern anthology—what kinds of works lend themselves to collections and what publishers are looking for. Guest Stephanie Raffelock joins the show to discuss her latest book, Art in the Time of Unbearable Crisis, a joint project with She Writes Press that collects the work of 80+ She Writes Press authors and which emerged from the premise Stephanie posed in her call for submissions—that art can and will carry us, even save us, during turbulent times.

Romance often gets the short-shrift for being not a serious genre, or for being a guilty pleasure—and yet, it’s the best-selling genre there is. Which is why Grant and Brooke chose to explore with Angelina Lopez, touching upon the sexiness of romance, yes, but also the fact that it’s so much more than that. Romance can be socially conscious, and importantly—there’s romance out there for every kind of reader. Listen in to open your horizons to new reading experiences, or if you’re already a big romance lover, to be nodding your head, knowing you’ve been on the money all along.