Write The Book

Two interviews this week. First, Lorin Stein, Editor ofThe Paris Review. Their new collection is calledThe Unprofessionals: New American Writing from The Paris Review, published byPenguin. My second interview is withVanessa Blakeslee, author of the novel,Juventud, published byCurbside Splendor.This week’s Write The Book Prompt was inspired by my conversation with Lorin Stein, during which we discussed the repeated word, “there,” in the story “The Dark and Winding Road,” by Ottessa Moshfegh, inThe Unprofessionals: New American Writing from The Paris Review. Often, writers are told to steer clear of repeating words in close succession in their prose, and yet this story absolutely benefits from the author’s intentional repetition. To my mind, it’s intention that makes the difference. Words that are repeated by accident are unlikely to do much other than bump the reader out of the prose. But words that are chosen and placed carefully in succession to highlight something a writer wants to draw attention to--these can be useful and beautiful. Former WTB guest Priscilla Long writes in her book, The Writer’s Portable Mentor: “Good writers delight in repeating good words.” She later adds, “If you have trained yourself not to repeat, learning to do the opposite takes practice and it takes developing your ear.” The word “there” in Ottessa Moshfegh’s story becomes a good word--the right word--by the author’s intention. She uses it to highlight the importance of the setting, which lies at the end of a dark and winding road, but I think also to highlight the otherness--the “there”--of the narrator’s present state of mind. This week’s prompt, then, is to use word repetition in a way that will accentuate something intentionally. Practice reading the result out loud, to be sure the music is just right.Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

Interview withDaniel Lusk, whose new collection isThe Vermeer Suite(Wind Ridge Books of Vermont). The interview was recorded in front of an audienceat theSouth Burlington Community Libraryin South Burlington, Vermont. Listeners who want to look at the paintings along with the broadcast can look here:A Maid Asleep ("Wednesday's Child") The Astronomer ("The Astronomer") Woman Reading a Letter at the OpenWindow("Yellow") The Little Street ("Memoir") The Milkmaid ("Holland") Girl With the Red Hat ("White Fire") Girl With a Pearl Earring ("Girl")This week's Write the Book Prompt is to use one of these paintings as inspiration in your own work. Study one of these paintings, then write a poem, a story, a scene.Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

Kate Harding - Interview #373 (11/9/15)

Gary Lee Millerinterviews Vermont's new Poet Laureate

Vermont authorColeen Kearon, whose debut novel isFeminist on Fire(Fomite Press).This week's Write the Book Promptwas generously offered by my guest, Coleen Kearon. Open a favorite book to a random page. Write down the opening three words of any sentence. Close the book, and use those three words as a starting point for your own work.Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

National Book Critics Circle Award winner and author of “the most accomplished book of essays anyone has written or published so far in the twenty-first century” (Salon),Eula Biss, whose bookOn Immunity: An Inoculationhas come out in paperback (Graywolf Press).I have a new Write The Book Prompt for you, an exercise suggested by my guest, Eula Biss, who learned it long ago at an AWP panel. She doesn’t recall whose idea it was, and so can not credit the person, though she’d like to, because she uses it both as a writer and as a teacher:Write a scene or moment from a “bright spot” in your memory. It isn’t necessary to understand why you’re writing about it; you don’t have to know why it’s important or why you remember it, but write from this bright spot: this moment that rises quickly and easily to the surface. Then read over what you’ve written--a paragraph or a page, whatever you have written. Then, without looking it over again, write it again using a different tense. Eula has noticed that different verb tenses will draw out different material. Often she will compose in the present tense, because it draws out richer detail, and then--if it makes the most sense--revise into another tense, like the past, later.Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

Gary Lee Miller interviews author

Vermont authorStephen P. Kiernanwhose new novel isThe Hummingbird, published by William Morrow.So let’s say we wanted to put some pressure on that paragraph, above. What if we were to rewrite it, putting some pressure on the language, making it leaner, and getting that last word, “widow,” onto the previous line? I’m going to have a go.There! I took it from 13 lines to 10, and did remove that widow, which was, ironically, the word “widow.” Now you try it with your own prose.Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.

Interview from the archives with New York Times Bestselling Author Mary McGarry Morris. We discussed her 2011 novel, Light from a Distant Star.This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write about candlelight or firelight. Describe it in a new way, without using words you've read before about the appearance and movement of fire. Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

Critically acclaimed and bestselling author Julianna Baggott, whose new novel is Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders (

Daniel James Brown, whose award-winning and New York Times Bestselling Book, The Boys in the Boat, has been adapted for young readers.This week’s Write The Book Prompt involves considering history as you seek ideas for your work. Browse an antique store for artifacts of a period that interests you. As you look around, keep your mind open to the characters who might have once held this book, had dinner at this table, stitched this tablecloth. Choose two or three objects from a certain period in time, and incorporate them into a story, poem, or essay. Try not to know ahead of time what aspect of 1923 or 1968 you plan to focus on. Instead, let the objects that you find surprise you with the stories they tell and the characters they suggest.Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

Author 

Interview from the archives with Evan Fallenberg, writer, translator and director of fiction for the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. Author of the novels Light Fell and When We Danced on Water. This week's Write the Book prompt is to observe people in a public place - a restaurant, an airport, a library, a coffee shop - and make a list of people's gestures that you can later use in your work. Authentic, original gestures will enliven your work, so that your characters don't spend every scene fiddling with that same pair of reading glasses. Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).

Author and Goddard College Professor Laurie Foos, whose novel The Blue Girl came out in July from Coffee House Press. This week's Write the Book Prompt was generously offered to Gary Lee Miller by his guest, Laurie Foos. It’s based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's story, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings." Several pages into the story, there are several lines that are suggestive of whole stories (beyond that of the man with enormous wings). Write a story based on one of the following: a woman (or man) who since childhood has been counting his/her heartbeats and has run out of numbers; a man /women who can't sleep because the noise of the stars disturbs him/her; a sleepwalker who gets up at night to undo the things he/she has done while awake.Good luck with this exercise and please listen next week for another.Music credits: "I Could Write a Book," by the Boston-based band, Possum.

Writer and musicianTommy Wallach, whose debut YA novel,We All Looked Up, came out in March fromSimon Schuster.This week’s Write The Book Prompt was suggested by my guest, Tommy Wallach, who says that, although a lot of prompts focus on description and sentence-level writing, he feels that the hardest part about writing is actually story. Tommy suggests sitting down and, in half an hour, writing out three-act structure plot with no description or dialogue.The three-act structure has to do with creating the beginning, middle, and end of your story. Aristotle wrote of exposition, rising action, and resolution. In cinematic terms, the three acts are setup, confrontation and resolution. Here’s awebsitethat discusses three-act structure, in case you’d like to read up on it. It’s something I found on the Indiana University website, and it has a shark.Good luck with this prompt, and please listen next week for another.Music credits: 1) “Dreaming 1″ - John Fink; 2) “Filter” - Dorset Greens (a Vermont band featuring several former South Burlington High School students).