Sensual details, it’s said, make scenes come alive on the page. Today’s guest Leesa Cross-Smith is a master of the sensual, and you’ll see why when you listen to her interview. A listmaker, a word handler, a Janeite who owns 25 copies of Pride and Prejudice, Cross-Smith helps us think about the sensual and how to bring it to your awareness and to your writing. We touch upon form, too, short and long, and why sensual detail matters so much, no matter what you’re writing.

Imagining the life you might have had. Assessing mistakes you undoubtedly made. Voicing the truth about your true feelings and desires. All terrifying, and all fodder for good storytelling. This week’s episode goes right to the heart of all that with guest Ashley Woodfolk, whose most recent book, Nothing Burns As Bright As You, is an exploration in verse of what might have been had she realized at an earlier age that she was gay. An interesting thought experiment for any writer to consider—whatever your what-if, Sliding Doors (you can catch it on Netflix) moment might have been.

If you’ve been listening to Write-minded for a while, you might know we have indie fever, and we hope our show is catching that way because “indie” is key to a thriving book ecosystem—which is exactly at the center of this week’s show. We’re joined by Bookshop.org founder and CEO Andy Hunter to talk about book culture, what “literary” means, and why we can’t trust Amazon when it comes to books—and what we as individuals can do to ensure books remain a vital part of our culture.

In this week’s episode, Grant and Brooke probe at questions of moral ambiguity with guest Quentin Lee, whose new book, The Secret Diary of Edward Ng, is a sexual coming of age story set in the 1990s. Centering queerness and the Asian and Asian American experience, this work of short fiction is a meditation on otherness, and raises lots of good conversation about auto-fiction, what and how we explore with our fiction, and why staying true to the stories you want to tell is always better than writing to the market.

This week’s show is a love letter to book festivals—and a conversation about why they matter, how authors can pitch themselves and get involved in local festivals, and what the considerations entail for those people who are behind the scenes organizing such festivals. This week’s guest, Cherilyn Parsons, is the founder and executive director of the Bay Area Book Festival based in Berkeley, California, and she’s interviewed by Brooke while Grant is away, who’s been a longtime board member and is the current Chairperson of the festival. Enjoy!

This week’s episode features the editor and a contributor to the new anthology, The Sentences That Create Us: Crafting A Writer’s Life in Prison. This book is at the heart of today’s interview as we explore the power of writing—and how it can set us free, literally and metaphorically. Editor Caits Meissner shares with us PEN America’s mission and vision, and why there’s a Prison and Justice Writing program there in the first place, while T Kira Mahealani Madden shares about how her life has been shaped by prison and what kinds of advocacy work is out there and why it matters.

The idea that creativity and “madness” are connected has been around since humanity’s earliest days. As such, this notion of “suffering artists” often gets idealized, even romanticized. Psychotherapist and author Lee Kravetz shares his take on the correlation between mental illness and creativity in this week’s episode, in the context of his new book, The Last Confessions of Sylvia P., that explores the life of Sylvia Plath. Listen in to hear about the inspiration behind the novel, how he thought about mental illness in the book given the strides we’ve made since the 1950s in this arena, and much more. Also, today’s book trends include some upcoming PitchFests to check out online: APR 01 #CookiePitch; APR 14 #LGBTNPit; MAY 05 #APIPit; MAY #PitDark; JUN 23 #PitchDis; AUG #DVpit

No author or aspiring author will want to miss this week’s episode with marketing guru M.J. Rose, who doles out some tough love about the realities of publicity and marketing. Though she calls herself the Voice of Doom, her message is surprisingly inspiring and reassuring, because the realities of this industry are twofold: it’s hard to sell books, and writing books is one of the most rewarding experiences there is. Rose is a wealth of information and advice, so you’ll want to bookmark this one and listen to it again and again.

Rarely are writers encouraged to be angry on the page, and this is especially true for women writers of personal narratives. In this week’s episode, we’re exploring anger’s purpose in writing with guest Lilly Dancyger, who gives permission to lean into anger, and whose memoir, Negative Space, has, by Lilly’s own estimation, an angry central protagonist (her younger self) and an angry narrator (her older self). An important conversation for anyone who’s been told they’re too angry, or not to be angry, in their writing.