Dear Writer
Summary: Dear Writer is a weekly podcast about the experiences of two aspiring authors, from setbacks to successes, and all that goes on in-between. In her other life, show host Ashley Lindsay is a chemist, working in the fields of sustainability and innovation in the city of Auckland, New Zealand. And her co-host Sarah Anderson is an operating room nurse, residing in Calgary, Canada. But on evenings and weekends, we're bloggers at Linderson Creations. Podcasters on Dear Writer. And first and foremost, aspiring authors.
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- Artist: Linderson Creations
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Podcasts:
Today on our author spotlight we had Jonathan Reddoch and Elizabeth Suggs from Collective Tales Publishing. Jonathan and Elizabeth both have a passion for writing and are focused on writing and publishing speculative, horror and science fiction stories. Their first anthology, Collective Darkness, was the #1 Amazon bestseller for new horror anthologies. We talked to Elizabeth and Jonathan about their journey and what led them to enter the world of publishing.
On this Culturing Creativity episode, we geeked out over games and discussed how different games may enhance your creativity, and can sharpen skills that are useful in your writing. Who knew that playing games could have such great perks?
This week we had our promo episode for When the Rain Falls, our first novel which is due to release in October. Listen in to hear all about our characters and be the first to hear the book's blurb. We also recapped old times, which included reading terrible excerpts from the original version of the book we wrote fifteen years ago.
On this talking shop episode, Sarah reviewed a book she believes every writer should have in their toolkit: 'The Emotion Thesaurus' by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Ashley reviewed a chapter on dystopian fiction in the academic book, 'Beyond the Blockbusters: Themes and Trends in Young Adult Fiction' by Rebekah Fitzsimmons and Casey Alane Wilson.
In our author spotlight this week is Kira Leigh. We had a scintillating conversation with Kira about their book series, Constelis Voss, and their process as an author. Our discussion ended up diving deep beneath the surface. We explored the topic of writing diverse characters, and discussed how important it is to ask hard questions about life and society while creating your work.
On this culturing creativity episode, we discussed how where and when we write can effect the productivity, and—in some cases—the quality of our writing. This discussion included a very amusing breakdown of barriers we have found with writing both in cafes and outdoors. We talked about our day to day writing life, and incorporating writing into our vacations.
On our 40th episode of Dear Writer, we take a look at the process of self-publishing, and explain what that's looked like for us so far. We discuss the pros and cons of self publishing, and our experience as newcomers to the trade.
Our talking shop episode this week gifted us with another of Ashley's mini-lectures, where she explained a useful article she read on the young adult dystopian genre: A Creative Exploration and Analysis of Contemporary Dystopian Fiction. Munira Ezzi. Writing in Practice. Volume 4, 2018. Sarah, meanwhile, was struggling to find time. So, in an effort to find a useful resource to discuss, she headed over to YouTube and found a useful channel, 'Outstanding Screenplays' that had snippets of interviews from famous authors and screenwriters which she found inspiring. In our leisure reading, Ashley discussed a book, 'The Chocolate War' by Robert Cormier, and Sarah reviewed 'When We Were Lost' by Kevin Wignall.
This author spotlight episode, we welcomed on the show C.M. Healy. C.M. is an author of children's books ranging from early readers to poetry collections, and he also has published two YA Fantasy novels in his 'Beyond the After' series. We greatly enjoyed talking to C.M. about his books and his process.
On this culturing creativity episode, we explored the benefits of cowriting, and discussed our experience as coauthors. We talked about the challenges involved, and how we overcome them.
This episode of Dear Writer, we begin a three part series on the journey so far, beginning with our attempts to be traditionally published. We discussed the reasons why traditional publishing can be attractive, and our personal reasons for pursuing this pathway.
We reviewed two great resources on this talking shop episode. Sarah chose The Magic Words: Writing great books for children and young adults by Cheryl B. Klein, and Ashley took a new approach and discussed an article she'd read: World Line and Narrative Realism. Julia J.C. Blau and Amy Rose Capetta. Journal of Creative Writing Studies. Vol. 5. 2020. Article 9.
This week on Dear Writer we had Kaitlyn Legaspi in the author spotlight. Kaitlyn writes young adult fantasy and has published four books, three as part of her 'Dark Irregular' Trilogy, and the first of her 'Cardholder' series. It was great to chat with Kaitlyn about her experience and her process, and we enjoyed learning all about her books.
This week for our culturing creativity episode, we discussed the effect clutter has on creativity: good, bad or neither? We talked about our personal habits, and whether we think these habits make us more or less productive.
On this month's hour long episode, we deep-dived into theme and began threshing out what it really is and why it's important. We talked about how we use theme and ways to deepen the theme without coming off as 'preachy'.
