The Writing University Podcast

Venise Berry offers advice on how to "bring the world into your writing." Berry advises writers to leave their own comfort zone of familiar communities and characters and purposely inject voices from a wide spectrum of experience. Berry asserts that a writer's job is to help the audience learn by making realistic, diverse characters "accountable to society."

Venise Berry offers advice on how to "bring the world into your writing." Berry advises writers to leave their own comfort zone of familiar communities and characters and purposely inject voices from a wide spectrum of experience. Berry asserts that a writer's job is to help the audience learn by making realistic, diverse characters "accountable to society."

Sands Hall imparts her unique perspective as novelist, playwright, director, and actor in this lecture on scene and character building. Hall discusses the differences between writing for print and the stage and shares techniques for making "the black marks on the paper jump off the page." Hall offers examples from her career of creating a theatrical or fictional world populated by recognizable and sympathetic characters.

Sands Hall imparts her unique perspective as novelist, playwright, director, and actor in this lecture on scene and character building. Hall discusses the differences between writing for print and the stage and shares techniques for making "the black marks on the paper jump off the page." Hall offers examples from her career of creating a theatrical or fictional world populated by recognizable and sympathetic characters.

Episode 3: Jim Heynan: “Same Content/Different Form”

In her presentation, "Yikes! Elysium: Writing About Happiness," Christine Hemp tackles what she describes as a necessary tension between "sunlight" and "the underworld" in fiction and nonfiction writing.

Although writing is a seemingly solitary and introspective act, this craft talk investigates the myriad ways in which the process of writing is, in fact, always a conversation. This communal take on the writing process can invigorate and sustain writers across genres and at all points in a life of writing, and this talk will provide both inspiration and practical insights. The hour will, of course, include literal conversation.