Tue, 28 May 2019
First Draft Episode #193: Kate Spencer Kate Spencer, comedian, author of Dead Mom’s Club: A Memoir, and co-host of fabulous podcast Forever35 talks about the never-ending quest for confidence, exorcising grief and pain through writing, and how a podcast about serums became a podcast about feelings. Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode -
Amy Poehler, comedian, actress, writer, and director, who is not from the same town Kate is from, but they both grew up “outside Boston” -
Early on in childhood Kate fell for The BabySitter’s Club books by Ann M. Martin, and the Sweet Valley Twins series by Francine Pascal, and then she fell for Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. -
Revisiting The Boxcar Children, written by Gertrude Chandler Warner, with her daughter was a special bonding experience -
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and other “kids surviving intense circumstances” books are so fascinating, right?!? -
Kate’s eight-year-old daughter is plowing through Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novels, including Smile, Sisters, and Guts -
The Fear Street books by R.L. Stine, It by Stephen King, and V.C. Andrews’ books like Flowers in the Attic and Petals on the Wind -
The film Grease is not actually appropriate for young kids, it turns out -
When she moved to New York City, Kate signed up for classes at the UCB Theater and rose through the ranks in the improv community -
I basically demand that Kate read Vacationland: True Stories From Painful Beaches by John Hodgman because she went to college in Maine -
The two writers I mention who went to Vermont College for Children’s Writing well into their careers are Ally Condie, author of Matched, The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe, and more (listen to her First Draft interview here) and Brendan Reichs, author of Nemesis, Virals, and co-author with Ally Condie of The Darkdeep -
On Grief by C.S. Lewis was one of the only books out there for people experiencing loss for a long time -
The poet Taije Silverman has written about the grief of caring for her dying mother, and Kate found her work while grieving for her own loss -
Kate and her Forever35 podcast co-host Doree Shafrir’s conversation on the By the Book podcast, in which Kate discusses finding Twilight by Stephenie Meyer while grieving and how it inspired her to write -
“How I Finally Let Go of Grief for my Dead Mom,” Kate’s piece in Buzzfeed about the pain of letting go of grief -
Holly Root, founder of Root Literary, is Kate’s literary agent -
Kate’s husband is Anthony King, who has written for TV shows Silicon Valley, Broad City, Search Party, Playing House and more, and he co-wrote Beetlejuice: The Musical which has been nominated for eight Tony Awards, including best musical -
Kate is writing in Scrivener, a writing program -
Elana K. Arnold, author of Damsel, What Girls Are Made Of, Infandous, A Boy Called Bat, and more (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here) said in her interview with me that she feels like she might be ready to move on from writing about anger and feminism -
A Cup of Jo is the website and newsletter run by Joanna Goddard that is packed -
Kate wants to be up front about the fact that Vinter’s Daughter sent her their Active Botanicals Serum, she did not buy it herself -
The Call Your Girlfriend episode that walked through an OB-GYN appointment -
Cat Winters, whose recent book, The Raven’s Tale, called for her to research Poe a ton. In that process she discovered that Edgar Allen Poe’s #1 hater outlived him, then wrote his obituary and his first biography, which has shaped how we think about Poe to this day. (Listen to Cat’s First Draft episode here) Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free! Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!
Direct download: Kate_Spencer_FINAL.mp3
Category: Literature
-- posted at: 9:22am PST
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Tue, 21 May 2019
First Draft Episode #192: Lindsay Smith Lindsay Smith, author of the forthcoming Alchemy of War, as well as Sekret, Skandal, Dreamstrider, A Darkly Beating Heart, The Witch Who Came in From the Cold, and the Saints of Russalka series, talks about growing as a writer through D&D, refiguring her writing process after being diagnosed with ADHD, and learning to value more than just productivity. Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode -
Hear Lindsay Smith’s first episode of First Draft with Sarah Enni here -
Lindsay has an AlphaSmart keyboard that she takes on the D.C. train system so she can write while she commutes -
One “What if?” that got Lindsay writing Alchemy of War was, “What if I took Inglourious Basterds (movie) but it was like Stranger Things (TV show)?” -
Lindsay was inspired to write A Darkly Beating Heart, after visiting Japan and staying in a historically preserved town meant to preserve the Edo Period -
Lindsay researched Rasputin for the hot villain in the Saints of Russalka series, including reading books about him and also jamming out to “Ra Ra Rasputin,” a disco song by German Euro group Boney M. -
Lindsay has written short stories for A Tyranny of Petticoats and Toil and Trouble, anthologies put together by fellow D.C. YA writer Jessica Spotswood (hear her First Draft episode here) and Tess Sharpe -
Lindsay wrote a short story in the universe of the Blue Rose role playing game -
Stucky: the fandom name for Captain America (Steve Rogers) + The Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnum) -
Britta Lundin, author of Ship It (hear her episode of First Draft with Sarah Enni here) wrote for Riverdale (TV show) and is open about loving fandom in a similar way to Lindsay (who loves The Winter Soldier) -
Lindsay collaborated with Max Gladstone for The Witch Who Came in from the Cold, a serial story released by Serial Box (founder Julian Yap approached Lindsay about developing and writing it). The first season of The Witch Who Came in From the Cold was released as a book by Simon & Schuster -
Lindsay and her husband are in multiple Dungeons and Dragons groups, which she says calls on a whole different skill set from her writing brain -
Lindsay turned to KBoards, a forum for self-published authors, to discover the ins and outs of the self-pub industry when she released Web of Frost -
The app “Self Control” has been useful to keep Lindsay focused as she tries to figure out how to balance productivity with self-care -
Courtney Summers, New York Times bestselling author of Sadie and generally super smart person, told me, “Time is the least free thing.” (Listen to her First Draft with Sarah Enni here) -
Lindsay was paired with an artist for the Strange Romance comic anthology, -
Lindsay wrote an angry girl comic for A Soul Divided Slash Caged in Flesh, a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inspired anthology Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free! Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!
Direct download: Lindsay_Smith_FINAL.mp3
Category: Literature
-- posted at: 10:29am PST
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Tue, 14 May 2019
First Draft Episode #191: Ryan Graudin Ryan Graudin, New York Times bestselling author of the Wolf by Wolf series, as well as Invictus and The Walled City, talks about staging Redwall battles in the backyard, how bad teachers inspired her love of history, and how restrictions at key times in her life led her imagination to flourish. Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode -
The Redwall series by Brian Jacques -
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander were among the fantasy stories Ryan devoured after she discovered Redwall -
AIM: AOL instant messenger -
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine was a novel Ryan devoured, and was so upset by the fact that it didn’t have a sequel that she made her first foray into fan fiction -
Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien -
Bret Lott author of Oprah Book Club pick Jewel, who taught Ryan at the College of Charleston, where she majored in creative writing -
Cathedrals by Raymond Carver was the kind of high literary fiction that was all Ryan was allowed to write about in college (she turned to fantasy after graduation) -
Kowloon, the Walled City in Hong Kong that inspired Ryan to write The Walled City -
Jackie Pullinger, a woman who worked inside Kowloon for 25 years, and author of Chasing the Dragon: One Woman’s Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kong’s Drug Den and A Crack in the Wall: The Life and Death of Kowloon Walled City. Hearing her story inspired Ryan to explore Kowloon and to write The Walled City -
SNIS: Shiny New Idea Syndrome -
Anata No Warehouse, an arcade in Tokyo that replicates Kowloon Walled City in painstaking detail -
Bloodsport, the Jean Claude Van Damme movie in which certain scenes were filmed in Kowloon Walled City -
Ryan’s short pitch for Wolf by Wolf is: Code Name Verity (by Elizabeth Wein) meets Inglorious Basterds (movie) meets X-Men (comic book and movie series) -
The Leviathan Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld, which is a fantasy world that takes place in an alternate World War I, which inspired Ryan’s approach to World War II in Wolf by Wolf -
Alvina Ling, VP, Editor-in-Chief of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, was Ryan’s editor for The Walled City, Wolf by Wolf, and Blood for Blood -
YALLFEST, an annual young adult book festival that takes place in Ryan’s hometown of Charleston, S.C. -
Ryan asked Alexandra Bracken, author of Passenger, for advice on writing time travel. Alex told her, “Run--don’t do it,” but Ryan went ahead and did it anyway -
Pam Gruber is a Senior Editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and she was Ryan’s editor for Invictus -
Ryan’s next book, a stand-alone YA, is pitched as Lost meets Westworld meets Black Mirror (her nickname for it is TwistyAFBook) -
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark was one of the books Ryan may not have read unless she was in South Korea with limited access to English-word books Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free! Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!
Direct download: Ryan_Graudin_FINAL.mp3
Category: Literature
-- posted at: 8:48am PST
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Tue, 7 May 2019
First Draft Episode #190: Stephanie Garber Stephanie Garber, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Caraval series, talks about turning to writing to escape burnout and depression from her first job, persevering when even her Mom told her the writing thing wasn’t meant to happen, and the things that make her nervous about releasing Finale, the final book in her breakout series. Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode -
The North Texas Teen Book Festival, which Stephanie and I were both in attendance this year. On the sidelines, we made time to sit down and chat for the podcast! -
SASE: an abbreviation for 'self-addressed stamped envelope.' An SASE is an envelope on which you have stuck a stamp and written your own name and address. -
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer; The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld; and Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr were among the first YA books that Stephanie discovered when she was rediscovering writing, while battling burnout and depression at her first job out of college -
Big Sur Children’s Writing Workshops, where Stephanie said they “eviscerated” her work—but she loved it -
Much like Anne Montgomery in the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery, Stephanie is a sensitive person who may or may not have ever exclaimed to be “in the depths of despair!” -
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, which inspired Stephanie to write Caraval (though the books are very different!) -
The Game (movie) directed by David Fincher and starring Michael Douglas, which has a passing similarity to some elements of Caraval -
Stephanie has said she wanted Caraval to feel like a Baz Luhrmann movie or a Florence and the Machine song -
The Great Gatsby, directed by Baz Luhrmann, from which we got our glorious .gif of Leonardo DiCaprio holding out a glass of champagne -
Stephanie was inspired to write Caraval after hearing the song “Centuries,” by Fallout Boy, which features the lyrics: “Some legends are told / Some turn to dust or to gold / But you will remember me / Remember me, for centuries” -
Legend by Marie Lu, which Stephanie erroneously believed was about a character named Legend (it is not). Instead of waiting for someone else to write about that kind of character, Stephanie went and did it herself! -
Jennifer E. Smith, who was an editor and still does freelance editing, in addition to being the author of The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and Field Notes on Love, and more! (Listen to her First Draft podcast episode here) -
SCBWI, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, was one place Stephanie turned to for help editing an early version of Caraval (and the editor there told her it would never sell…) -
Prim from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the kind of sister character Stephanie wanted to avoid, especially when she was writing Legendary -
Stacey Lee, author of Under a Painted Sky and Outrun the Moon, is an author-friend who Stephanie counts on to always tell her the truth Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free! Rate, Review, and Recommend How do you like the show? Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Please share this episode on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or via carrier pigeon (maybe try a text or e-mail, come to think of it). Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!
Direct download: Stephanie_Garber_FINAL.mp3
Category: Literature
-- posted at: 10:41am PST
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