Writers' League of Texas Podcast

For this Third Thursday, we thought we'd take a moment - in the middle of the month, in the middle of the year - to talk about the dreaded middle. As writers, we spend lots of creative energy thinking about the beginning of a project. We agonize over and draft and redraft our endings. But it's the middle, more often than not, where we find ourselves stuck. Join us for a conversation with Charlotte Gullick, Donna Johnson, and ire'ne lara silva as we ponder how best to tackle the highs and lows of a writing project's hump. The conversation was be moderated by WLT ED Becka Oliver. Charlotte Gullick is Chair of the Creative Writing Department at Austin Community College. She holds BA in Literature/Creative Writing from UC Santa Cruz and a MA in English/Creative Writing from UC Davis as well as a MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts. Her awards include a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship for Fiction, a Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship for Poetry, and residencies at MacDowell and Ragdale. She is the author of the novel By Way of Water. Donna M. Johnson is the author of Holy Ghost Girl, a critically acclaimed memoir deemed “enthralling” by the New York Times and “compulsively readable” by Texas Monthly. Oprah named the book to her Memoirs We Love list. Holy Ghost Girl won the Mayborn Creative Nonfiction Prize and took top honors at the Books for a Better Life Awards in Manhattan. Donna has written for Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Shambhala Sun, Psychology Today, and other publications. Donna is a Ragdale Fellow and was recently awarded a fellowship at the Lucas Artist’s Residency. She is currently at work on a memoir that combines investigative reporting with person narrative. ire’ne lara silva is the author of three poetry collections, furia (Mouthfeel Press, 2010) Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, 2016), and CUICACALLI/House of Song (Saddle Road Press, 2019), an e-chapbook, Enduring Azucares, (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015), as well as a short story collection, flesh to bone (Aunt Lute Books, 2013) which won the Premio Aztlán. She and poet Dan Vera are also the co-editors of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands, (Aunt Lute Books, 2017), a collection of poetry and essays. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final recipient of the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. ire'ne is currently working on her first novel, Naci, and a second collection of short stories titled, the light of your body. Website: irenelarasilva.wordpress.com.

Join us for an informative and lively discussion with two publishing professionals: a former literary agent and a current publishing sales executive. They'll go over the ABCs (really, the 4Cs) of pitching, including some time for audience participation that will put our two presenters in the hot seat. Lance Fitzgerald heads the Penguin Random House Audio editorial team as Vice President, Content and Business Development. Under his leadership, the team has acquired audio rights for the much anticipated new novel from Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults, the international sensation How Contagion Works by Paulo Giordano, soccer legend Hristo Stoichkov’s memoir, and more. He was previously Subsidiary Rights Director for over two decades, is a member of the Frankfurt Book Fair Foreign Rights Advisory Board, and has been a featured speaker at the Writer’s League of Texas, Authors and Artists Representatives, the Columbia and NYU Summer Publishing courses, the Young-to-Publishing Group, and at the Slice Writers Conference. Becka Oliver joined the Writers' League in September 2013 as Executive Director after more than sixteen years of experience working in book publishing. She spent much of her publishing career inside two of the “big six” publishing leaders – Macmillan and Hachette Book Group -- licensing domestic and foreign rights on behalf of countless notable authors, including Sandra Brown, Brad Meltzer, Nicholas Sparks, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, and more. In 2007, she made the leap from Associate Director of Subsidiary Rights at Grand Central Publishing to Literary Agent, first at Endeavor and then at William Morris Endeavor (WME) after the two powerhouse talent agencies merged in 2009. As a literary agent, Becka represented clients working in both fiction and non-fiction, including Brunonia Barry, Sheryl Crow, Kamran Pasha, Joanna Philbin, Susan Rebecca White, and the popular blog Awkward Family Photos.

Join WLT Executive Director Becka Oliver in conversation with a publishing insider (Michelle Howry, Executive Editor at Penguin Random House) and a published author (Carolyn Cohagan, author of the novel The Lost Children as well as the Time Zero trilogy) as they consider this much-debated and often bewildering fork in the publishing road. Follow WLT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay updated on what we're up to! https://www.facebook.com/WritersLeagueOfTexas https://twitter.com/WritersLeague https://www.instagram.com/writersleagueoftexas/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl5WUV7MRD8xgJb1psP_3yQ/

In this panel discussion, we'll discuss poetry and its many forms. Our panelists will share poems and poets they've been reading of late, as well as sharing some of their own work with us and discussing their approach to writing right now, whether revisiting works in progress or starting something new. Usha Akella has authored four books of poetry, one chapbook, and scripted/produced one musical drama. She recently earned an MSt. in Creative Writing from Cambridge University, UK. Her latest poetry book, The Waiting was published by Sahitya Akademi, India’s highest Literary authority in 2019 followed by the Mantis Editores, Mexico edition in Spanish translated by Elsa Cross. She was selected as a Creative Ambassador for the City of Austin for 2019 & 2015. She read with a group of eminent South Asian Diaspora poets at the House of Lords in June 2016. Her work has been included in the Harper Collins, India Anthology of English Poets. She is the founder of ‘Matwaala’ the first South Asian Diaspora Poets Festival in the US (www.matwaala.com), and co-directs the festival with Pramila Venkateswaran. The festival is seriously dedicated to increasing the visibility of South Asian poets in the mainstream. She is also the founder of the Poetry Caravan in New York and Austin which takes poetry readings to the disadvantaged in women’s shelters, senior homes, and hospitals. Several hundreds of readings have reached these venues via this medium. The City of Austin proclaimed January 7th as Poetry Caravan Day. She has won literary prizes (Nazim Hikmet award, Open Road Review Prize and Egan Memorial Prize and earned finalist status in a few US based contests), and enjoys interviewing artists, scholars and poets for reputed magazines. She has been invited as a keynote speaker to TLAN’s Power of Words conference 2019 and the Turkish Center in Austin. She has written a few quixotic nonfiction prose pieces published in The Statesman and India Currents. Her work ranges from feminist/activist to Spiritual and all things in-between. Carlotta Eike Stankiewicz is a poet, photographer and punster who landed in Austin 25 years ago by way of Michigan, Colorado, Virginia and Washington, D.C. During her tenure as an award-winning creative director at GSD&M Advertising, she led national campaigns for brands such as Zales, John Deere, Texas Tourism and Hallmark. She is now the Director of Marketing and Communications for the Blanton Museum of Art. In 2016, she published Haiku Austin, a book of poetry and photography that pays tribute to the Texas capital through witty, 17-syllable poems and vivid pictures. She's currently working on two new titles in her haiku series, Hill Country Haiku and Haiku 'Hooville, a tribute to Charlottesville, Virginia, where she earned a B.A. in English at UVA. In 2003, Carlotta won the O. Henry Pun Off World Championship, much to the delight or chagrin of her two daughters. She is also a fervent Instagrammer -- follow her at @HaikuAustin and @lottapalooza. Sasha West’s first book, Failure and I Bury the Body (Harper Perennial), was a winner of the National Poetry Series, the Texas Institute of Letters First Book of Poetry Award, and a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review Online, Agni, Georgia Review, Copper Nickel, and elsewhere. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at St. Edward’s University, where she received the Distinguished Teaching Award.

The current state of affairs have provided some challenges for everyone's work flow. We're faced with questions like: How do I continue going about the day to day business of being a writer during a crisis? Where can I find inspiration amidst so much uncertainty and fear? Will I ever find the clarity of mind to sit and write again? Join us for a discussion with WLT Executive Director Becka Oliver and four writers about how they are approaching the writing process during this time full of so many distractions. Featuring Edward Carey, Michael Noll, Maya Perez, and Natalia Sylvester. Looking for the books we talked about? Support Indie bookstores! This link supports BookPeople, but if you have a local Indie, think about calling them and ordering from them: https://bookshop.org/lists/writers-league-of-texas-reading-list Follow WLT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay updated on what we're up to! https://www.facebook.com/WritersLeagueOfTexas https://twitter.com/WritersLeague https://www.instagram.com/writersleagueoftexas/ Subscribe to our Youtube for more content! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl5WUV7MRD8xgJb1psP_3yQ/

Writing during a pandemic has proven to be an interesting endeavor - in fact, it may be the perfect time to turn inward and write about ourselves and our relationship to the world around us. Whether you're working on a personal piece about our current times, embarking on something new, or you're returning your focus to a memoir or essay collection that has been in works long before we first heard the word "coronavirus," this conversation is for you. In this panel discussion, authors Charlotte Gullick and Antonio Ruiz-Camacho are in conversation with WLT Executive Director Becka Oliver about writing personal essays and memoir. Books we talked about: https://bookshop.org/lists/writers-le... Follow WLT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay updated on what we're up to! https://www.facebook.com/WritersLeagu... https://twitter.com/WritersLeague https://www.instagram.com/writersleag... Check out our YouTube channel for more free content! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl5WUV7MRD8xgJb1psP_3yQ

For writers, there is an intense focus on query letters and agents: the first part of the process that will eventually lead to a book for sale to the public. But not nearly as much is known by writers--and even experienced, published authors--about how books are marketed and sold by publishers and bookstores. In this panel discussion, booksellers and sales representatives from publishers will discuss how decisions get made and the chain of events that puts a book on a shelf. Books we talked about: https://bookshop.org/lists/writers-le... Follow WLT on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to stay updated on what we're up to! https://www.facebook.com/WritersLeagu... https://twitter.com/WritersLeague https://www.instagram.com/writersleag... Check out our YouTube channel for more free content! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl5WUV7MRD8xgJb1psP_3yQ

For early-career writers, the focus is almost entirely on getting that first book published: finishing the book, finding an agent, selling it, working with editors, doing book events. But what happens after you get everything you want? You'll write a second book, a third, and so on. What will that work look like? How will your career begin to develop? What can new authors be thinking about now so that they're set up for a long, fruitful career? When your career hits a rough patch, how can you respond? This panel features Gabino Iglesias, Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Don Tate, all of them talking about what authors need to know to keep doing what they love (and getting paid for it) over the long run.

Writers are often told that the first page and first chapter of a novel must be gripping, un-put-downable. But what does that mean? Given all the different genres and types of stories out there, are there any general rules or suggestions for what will keep readers, agents, and editors turning past page one? In this panel, Salima Alikhan, Robert Ashcroft, Bridget Farr, and Stacey Swann discuss what they strive for in their own work and first pages from others' novels they have admired.

For writers, television usually gets lumped in with social media in the list of wastes of time. But probably every writer you know watches television, in part because we’re living in a golden age of programming and because so many shows are based on novels (Game of Thrones, Handmaid’s Tale, Pretty Little Liars, Outlander, Big Little Lies, Orange Is the New Black). And, it’s always been the case that some writers move back and forth between working on books and scripts. Join Samantha M. Clark, Eugene Fischer, and Scott Von Doviak as they talk about the inspiration and mechanics that can be borrowed from TV for use on the page.

How does identity shape the way people's citizenship is viewed by both the general and reading public? What are the different groups one can be a citizen of? How does one tell a story about moving between different groups? What issues are posed by translation and the ways that stories and poems include multiple languages? How do artists approach stories that disrupt a group's sanctioned or "official" narratives? Join Dr. Kathleen Brown, Christen Smith, Irwin Tang, and Liliana Valenzuela as they discuss these questions and more to really discover what citizenship means, and how it can affect the craft of writing.

Short stories sometimes get short shrift in the literary world. Collections of them are harder to sell than novels. Their form is often treated as a training ground for the longer work of a novel. Yet the short story market is thriving, and the story form continues to develop in innovative ways that are particular to the genre. In this panel, David Afsharirad, Oscar Casares, Jack Kaulfus, and Rebecca Markovits talk about the art and business of this essential literary form.

Perhaps the defining literary work of the past decade has been the personal essay. An explosion of online literary venues has created more possibilities than ever for individuals to write and publish their real-life stories. Listen as M. M. Adjarian, Charlotte Gullick, and Chaitali Sen explore the shape that personal essays can take, the perspectives and mechanics of successful essays, and suggestions for where to find models for your own.

Romance is the bestselling literary genre in the world, but the appeal of love stories isn't only confined to books with covers featuring beautiful people showing a bit of skin. Join authors Clara Bensen, Liana LeFey, Benjamin Reed, and Paige Schilt as they discuss what makes a love story successful today--in any genre, including memoir. What makes love-lost characters compelling, what obstacles can stand in their way, and what is needed for a satisfying ending?

It's common for readers--and writers, too--to describe novels as "poetic." Usually this means that the language is lyrical, but the lyric is only one type of poetry and only one style available to poets (and prose writers as well). In this panel, Charlie Clark, Zoë Fay-Stindt, Tomás Q. Morín, and Allyson Whipple discuss what "poetic" actually means and all of the style possible within modern poetry by reading and talking about some of their favorite poems. We also talk about what prose writers can learn from poetry. If you're looking for your next favorite poet, this is a must listen.