Episode 96: How to Hit Your Editors in the Heart

This episode is about secrets, a mom/daughter relationship, and donor-conception, a subject that hit both Andrea and Allison in the heart. When Amanda Serenyi’s friend gets pregnant using donor sperm, Amanda freaks out because she herself was donor-conceived and her mother kept this a secret until she was 33. 

When Amanda first submitted this essay, Allison loved it and Andrea was reluctant to publish it. You will hear why despite great writing and an interesting story, this story was almost rejected.

Amanda’s essays have been published by Fatherly, Severance Magazine, and AnonymousUs.org. Portions of her story have been featured in New York Magazine’s The Cut and World Magazine. She is currently querying her memoir, Family of Strangers, about her donor-conceived discovery. Along with her husband and dog, she splits her time between San Francisco and Mammoth Lakes, CA.

 

Episode 95: What Did it Take to Finally Get Published?

Are you writing like crazy but just can’t seem to push the send button on your submissions? Today on our show, Writing Class Radio student Margery Berger tells us what’s been holding her back.

Margery has been in class with us for 3, maybe 4, years. She has every ingredient to be a published writer, except one. 

She is perfectly self-conscious. She knows herself. She’s willing to get vulnerable. She does the work. She gives great feedback. She has endlessly interesting ideas, and a stockpile of really good stories. And she’s frickin’ talented. But, what she doesn’t have is the guts to send her stories out for publication. 

On this episode, Margery reads the essay she submitted (and got published) to Next Tribe, My Boyfriend Said My Hands Are Ugly and I Can’t Get Over It. You’ll also hear a conversation with Margery about what’s holding her back.

For more Margery Berger, listen to Episode 46: An Object is Not Just an Object. Margery told a stunner about her obsession with her scale. 

Episode 94: Crafting a Story is Like Solving a Puzzle

Today’s episode is about two things. 1. A great way to tell a relationship story is to choose a subject or activity that’s dear to the person you’re writing about. Then, describe that activity. 2. Stories are puzzles. There’s a false binary idea that writers are creative and therefore not good at math. We disagree. You have to tap into both sides of the brain to create good stories because there’s a mathematical equation in stories. Writing about a subject or activity or in today’s case, a puzzle, is also a great way to get published.

Kristen Paulson-Nguyen, one of our past students, wrote a story called All We Can Do Is Sudoku. The story is about her father-in-law’s love for the puzzle. Of course, the story is about so much more. What’s awesome is that Kristen’s story was published on June 24, 2020 in The New York Times in the Crosswords and Games section.

Kristen is the Writing Life Editor at Hippocampus Magazine. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, BREVITY, and Creative Nonfiction. She is at work on a memoir called: To Have and to Hoard: How I Found Treasure in My Husband’s Trash.

 

Episode 93: Brave Listener Gets Hard Edits

We asked you, our listeners, to send in your unfinished essays. We didn’t mean first drafts. We meant those essays you’ve been working on forever that you can’t get to the bottom of. Today on our show, we bring you an unfinished essay by listener Julie Schoelzel.

We hope to offer Julie insights into figuring out what she’s come to say and how to finish her essay. In every class, of every essay, we ask: What is the story about? After several drafts, we hope the narrator can answer this question because every scene and every detail must lead the reader/listener to that conclusion.

Julie Schoelzel left behind her fourteen year career at a tech startup to write. Her blog, Weekends Around, features personal essays and recommendations for travel throughout New England and occasionally beyond. She is currently working on a memoir about grieving her mother's death and seeing her widowed father through his hellish final months while simultaneously preparing to wed the love of her life. She's also a mom.

 

Episode 92: Taking the Long Road, Writing About Transformation

Today’s show is about transformation. How does the narrator change? How does the narrator grow? You’ll hear a story by Autumn Hudson, an elite body tattoo artist, who went from dropping out of school, to drug addiction, to fulfilling her dream of becoming a tattoo artist. Autumn’s story exemplifies a narrator’s transformation.

AutumnArt.jpeg
 

Episode 91: Bye Bye 2020

On today’s episode hosts Andrea + Allison say goodbye to a shit year. They each took the prompt: Bye Bye 2020. Andrea got nothing and explains that the story she kept coming to--about her daughter having a rough time--is a story she’s not yet prepared to tell. Nothing else felt honest. 

Allison writes about her last chemo treatment on January 9, 2020. She was ready to move on from cancer forever, when six months later her dad sat down in her office midday and gave her the news: he had cancer. Her story is about the lessons she needs to learn. Again. 

Allison's essay might be a microcosm of what the world is going through with coronavirus and the quarantine.

 

 Episode 90: Upside to a Downside

On today’s episode you’ll hear a story that takes a bad situation and finds the good. We don’t love sappy happy endings, but honest happy endings are the best, especially when they bring joy to the world. Jamie Katz got married on her balcony during lockdown and was greeted with some pleasant surprises. Her story also shows how much can be told with very few words. 

Jamie Katz lives in Miami, Florida