First Draft Episode #205: Kendare Blake, Somaiya Daud, and Sarah Enni at the University Bookstore in Seattle

Pantsing and world building with Kendare Blake, author of the Three Dark Queens trilogy and Anna Dressed in Blood; Somaiya Daud, author of Mirage; and Sarah Enni, author of Tell Me Everything and host of this podcast! This episode is audio from the March 2019 event at The University Bookstore in Seattle, Washington.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Kendare wore a Jeff Goldblum T-shirt in honor of Tell Me Everything!

• Sarah wanted Sudden Cove, the town in Tell Me Everything to feel like a Stars Hollow (from the Gilmore Girls) of the west coast, or like Pawnee from Parks and Recreation.

• The Bigfoot Discovery Museum is real, Sarah did go there with fellow YA and MG author Kirsten Hubbard (author of Wanderlove, Watch the Sky, Race the Night and more -- listen to her First Draft interview here!)

• The purveyor of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum was a man who looked just like George R. R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series

• The Bees by Laline Paull, is a book from the point of view of bees

• Somaiya is inspired by Star Wars (especially the prequel trilogy, The Phantom Menace) and the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, but she also really loves The Silmarillion.

• MoPOP, a modern art museum in Seattle that hosted the Star Wars costume exhibit when it was in town

• Dealing in Dreams by Lilliam Rivera also explores the world of a matriarchy

• Somaiya uses Scrivener to organize her extensive historical documents that she writes before she drafts her books

• Aeon Timeline is timeline software Somaiya paid for to create a 1,000-year history of the world of her book

• I get to discuss Yucca Mountain, where we should be sending all of America’s radioactive waste!

I want to hear from you!

Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998. You can also email the podcast at firstdraftwithsarahenni@gmail.com. 

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  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!

First Draft Episode #204: Siobhan Vivian, Kami Garcia, Stephanie Kate Strohm, and Jessica Brody on the “Pitter Patter: Writing Fresh Love Stories” from YALLFest 2018

Young Adult romcoms were the subject of the “Pitter Patter: Writing Fresh Love Stories” panel at YALLFest on Nov. 8, 2018. Hear contemporary romance writers compare makeout daydreams, talk about writing love in a time of #MeToo, and the lack of appreciation for stories with happy endings. Featuirng: Kami Garcia, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Creatures and The Lovely Reckless and Broken, Beautiful Hearts, and more; Stephanie Kate Srtohm, author of Prince in Disguise, It’s Not Me It’s You and Love a la Mode and more; Siobhan Vivian, author of Stay Sweet and The List, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, and more; and Jessica Brody, Sky Without Stars, 52 Reasons to Hate My Father, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing That You’ll Ever Need and more.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Jenny Han, author of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty (listen to her First Draft episode here), who co-wrote the Burn for Burn series with Siobhan

• The Great British Baking Show featuring co-host Mary Berry

• #MeToo and #TimesUp

• Zach Woods’ GQ profile feature

• We imagine a world where George Clooney in Oceans 11 says, “This isn’t a good idea!” and goes home

• Margaret Stohl was Kami’s co-author of Beautiful Creatures (listen to Margie’s First Draft interviews here and here)

I want to hear from you!

Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998. You can also email the podcast at firstdraftwithsarahenni@gmail.com. 

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  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!

First Draft Episode #202: D.C. Pierson

D.C. Pierson, comedian, writer, filmmaker and author of The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To and Crap Kingdom, and co-writer and star of indie comedy movie Mystery Team, talks about getting more vulnerable with age, using his fiction to explore the gap between what we expect of the world and what turns out to be true, and being sick of not finishing things.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Dan Eckman and Meggie McFadden are two comedians D.C. has worked with for years, in part on an adaptation of D.C.’s first book, The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To

• D.C. loved the cover of his dad’s copy of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

• Rubber Soul was the one Beatles album D.C.’s family had on cassette or CD

• In conjunction with the documentary The Beatles Anthology, detailed compilations of Beatles ephemera were released in three double-CD sets: Anthology 1, Anthology 2, and Anthology 3. D.C. listened to these more than the regular Beatles albums, which means he listened to a lot of alternate versions of songs and random studio chatter. He credits that with jumpstarting much of his curiosity as a storyteller.

• While D.C. attended the Rita and Burton Goldberg School of Dramatic Writing at NYU’s Tisch Institute of Performing Arts, one of his teachers was Charlie Rubin, who wrote for Seinfeld and In Living Color, and was a showrunner for Law & Order: Criminal Intent

• Derick was D.C.’s improv group which formed at NYU, made up of D.C. Pierson, Dominic Dierkes, Donald Glover, Dan Eckman, and Maggie McFadden

• Mystery Team was a fully independently-made movie that the Derick Comedy group made, which had a screening at Sundance, and led the group to move to Los Angeles

• Upright Citizens Brigade improv theater is where D.C. honed his comedy and performing chops during and after college

• The concept for Mystery Team is basically: what if characters from Encyclopedia Brown never really grew out of their idealized, 1950s childhood, and kept trying to solve crimes?

• Donald shared what he learned writing for 30 Rock (with Tina Fey, Robert Carlock, Matt Hubbard, Kay Cannon) with his Derick Comedy friends to help them write a tight script for Mystery Team

• Nathan Rabin, who wrote for The A.V. Club at the time, wrote a glowing review there for Mystery Team that D.C. credits with helping the movie gain momentum

• A passing encouraging comment from comedian, actor, writer, and musician Eliza Skinner gave D.C. the boost he needed to start writing a book

• Dianne McGunigle, manager and a producer of Atlanta, was D.C. agent at the time that he wrote a first draft of The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep… and she read it quickly, a favor for which D.C. is forever grateful

• Gerry Howard, who edited David Foster Wallace’s The Broom of the System and Girl with Curious Hair, as well as Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, was the editor D.C. worked with for The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep… D.C. was starstruck to be going to the offices where Sloane Crosley—essayist and writer known for I Was Told There’d Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number and her newest, Look Alive Out There—also worked.

• The Los Angeles Times gave The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep… a lovely review

• D.C. was inspired by psychologist Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

• One of D.C.’s favorite English teachers sent him Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham provided a quote that summed up what he likes to explore in all his writing

• To me, Crap Kingdom is asking, “What if Lord of the Rings was deeply uncool?”

• Stephen King’s On Writing is one of the writing books that has inspired D.C. in his fiction process

• One of D.C.’s earliest imrpov teachers, Owen Burke, referred to the following passage from Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, on the endurance of human thought and creation: “We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?”

• D.C. sometimes teaches at Writing Pad, a writing program offered online and in L.A./S.F.

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  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!

Participate

To leave a voicemail for a future episode, call 818-533-1998. Or you can email the show at firstdraftwithsarahenni@gmail.com.

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!

First Draft Episode #203: Simon Curtis

Simon Curtis, pop star, actor, and author of Boy Robot and its forthcoming sequel. Listen to his brand-new singles, “Graduate” and “Rainbow” now!

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Simon’s first big gig was as a part of the children’s choir for a national touring production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

• Simon’s “It Gets Better” video for The Trevor Project is beautiful and heartbreaking and very worth a watch.

• Early on when he got to LA, Simon was able to audition for Johnny Wright, manager for acts like New Kids on the Block, the Backstreet Boys, N*SYNC, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and more.

• Simon starred in Spectacular! a Nickelodeon TV movie

• Simon made his first album, 8 Bit Heart, after challenges in his acting career threw him into a depression

• LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow and Michael Scott, author of The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, were two of the earliest voices encouraging Simon to write a novel

• Michael Strother, who became Simon’s editor at Simon Pulse, first reached out to Simon as a supportive fan of his music online as @CupcakeAndy

• I reference Sabaa Tahir’s author journey, where she spent six years writing her first novel, Ember in the Ashes, and then had to turn around and write the sequel in waaaaaay less time. Sabaa talks about this (and so much more!) in her episode of First Draft.

• Simon recorded and released R∆ while he was writing Boy Robot (the book)

• Ariana Grande’s “Thank U Next” is on the level with Simon’s purposeful cultivation of gratitude

• Simon’s song “Love” was a song that hit him like a lightning bolt

• Janet Jackson’s The Velvet Rope album is a full ALBUM, not a collection of singles

• Simon was obsessed with Swedish pop groups A Teens and Play

• Five years ago Simon discovered Fleetwood Mac, iconic band featuring Stevie Nicks, check our Rumours and be forever changed

• Kacey Musgraves’ album Golden Hour was so freaking rad and reshaped Simon’s taste in music

• Victoria Aveyard (author of the Red Queen series; listen to her First Draft interviews here and here) had a conversation about not asking people to read their books — Simon takes an opposite approach: “Bitch, read my book!”

• I will never stop crying watching the part of Netflix documentary, Knock Down the House, when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gives herself the most badass pep-talk

I want to hear from you!

To leave a voicemail for a future episode, call 818-533-1998. Or you can email the show at firstdraftwithsarahenni@gmail.com.

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  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!

First Draft Episode #201: Gaby Dunn

Gaby Dunn, co-author of the New York Times bestselling young adult novel I Hate Everyone But You with her writing partner Alison Raskin. The sequel, Please Send Help, is out now! Gaby and Alison also host the Just Between Us podcast and YouTube channel. Gaby is also the host of the podcast Bad With Money and author of the book Bad with Money: The Imperfect Art of Getting Your Financial Sh*t Together.

LINKS AND TOPICS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• Listen to Gaby’s first episode of First Draft with her co-author and comedy partner Allison Raskin here

• Gaby has a money book that came out in January called Bad With Money based on her podcast of the same name.

• Started the Bad With Money podcast because she is not a money expert at all and wanted to ask basic finance questions like “What is a stock?” or “What is a 401k?”.

• CNBC is a business and finance-based TV network (which was the launching pad for Suze Orman, financial adviser and TV host, author of Women and Money and The Road to Wealth, who has appeared on Gaby’s show)

• Gerrymandering Case in which hard drives of a deceased Republican strategist were discovered, and he was understood to be encouraging a top census official to add a citizenship question to the survey for political gain.

• Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin’s YouTube Channel “Just Between Us”, which is an LA based odd-couple comedy channel. It has now shifted over to a podcast format.

• Gaby went to school for journalism and when she had to interview people and ask a tough question she would give a story of her own first so people would feel like they were talking to a real person. Gaby relates it to the 30 Rock bit were Tracy Morgan feels like he’s lost touch with his audience.

• In her recent novel, Gaby talks about It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (TV show) and feeling like the character Charlie during the “There is no Carol in HR!” scene.

• Gaby and Allison Raskin sold their first novel, I Hate Everyone But You, in a bidding war between Macmillan and Simon and Schuster. Simon and Schuster won the bid but Gaby signed a deal for a solo book with Macmillan.

• Broke Millennial and Broke Millennial Takes on Investing by Erin Lowry

• Gaby talked with Suze Orman off the record and agreed to disagree on the importance of systemic issues.

• Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (TV show)

• Please Send Help takes place four years after I Hate Everyone But You to match the growth of the readers and becomes a cross over between the Young Adult and Adult Genre.

• Bury The Lede is a Crime Thriller and Gaby’s first graphic novel. She wanted to move away from comedy and towards crime procedurals. Gaby pitches Bury The Lede as Killing Eve (TV show) or Lesbian Hannibal (TV show).

• Gaby draws on her experience as an intern at The Boston Globe where she would show up to work, get a police radio, and drive around looking for stories.

• Gaby worked at the Boston Globe while the case of Clark Rockefeller was unfolding. Clark Rockefeller was the pseudonym of Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter, convicted murderer and imposter who posed as an American socialite, and was eventually arrested for kidnapping his daughter following a contentious divorce. “The Man in the Rockefeller Suit,” written by Mark Seal for Vanity Fair, is a great piece on the case, and the movie Gaby mentions is Who is Clark Rockefeller? starring Eric McCormack of Will & Grace.

• Boom Studios is publishing her graphic novel. They have also published Lumberjanes, Heavy Vinyl, and The Avant-guards. Gaby’s editor is Dafna Pleban.

• Claire Roe and Miquel Muerto are the artists for Bury The Lede.

• Emily Heller (Stand-up Comedian), Jon Gabrus (Actor and Comedian), and Dave Holmes (Author, TV host, and critic) are a few of the guests that have been on the Just Between Us podcast.

• S1E2 of Bad With Money features Gaby’s session with Brad Klontz, financial therapist and author of Mind over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health

SUBSCRIBE TO FIRST DRAFT WITH SARAH ENNI

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  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!

First Draft Episode #200: Special Anniversary Episode

For the 200th episode of the First Draft with Sarah Enni podcast, previous guests sent in answers to questions like, where do you turn for inspiration? What are you hopes and dreams at this moment in your career? What do you do besides writing that makes you a more skillful storyteller? And, of course, any advice! Listen in to hear tips, tricks, and reassurances and encouragement from dozens of bestselling and award-winning writers!

People Featured, and Links and Topics Mentioned, In This Episode

• Podcasts I listened to obsessively, which inspired me to start this podcast, include Fresh Air with Teri Gross, WTF with Marc Maron, and You Made it Weird with Pete Holmes

• Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series, Carve the Mark duology and the forthcoming short story collection, The End and Other Beginnings: Stories from the Future (listen to her First Draft podcasts here, here, and here)

• Kayla Cagan, author of Piper Perish and Art Boss (listen to her First Draft interview here)

• Will Hines, author of How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth (hear his First Draft episode here)

• Sara Farizan, author of Here to Stay, Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel, If You Could Be Mine (hear her First Draft interview here)

• Kass Morgan, author of The 100 series and Light Years (stay tuned for her episode of First Draft!)

• Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Beasts Made of Night, Crown of Thunder, and War Girls series

• Tochi recommends playing narrative video games, like God of War, Assassin's Creed, or Red Dead Redemption

• Leigh Bardugo, author of the Shadow and Bone series and Six of Crows duology, and the forthcoming adult novel, Ninth House , and more (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

• Josh Gondelman, author of the forthcoming memoir Nice Try, writer and producer of “Desus and Mero” and Emmy-winning writer for “Last Week Tonight on John Oliver” (hear his First Draft interview soon!)

• Maris Kreizman, author of Slaughterhouse 90210 and host of LitHub’s The Maris Review podcast

• Ryan Graudin, author of the Wolf by Wolf, Invictus, The Walled City, and more (hear her First Draft interview here)

• Sabriel by Garth Nix

• Jason Reynolds, author of Look Both Ways, the Track series, Long Way Down, As Brave As You, All American Boys, and many more (stay tuned for his episode of First Draft)

• The New Yorker

• The Newberry Award; The National Book Award; The Pulitzer Prize

• Stephanie Garber, author of the Caraval series (listen to her First Draft episode here)

• Elana K. Arnold, author of A Boy Called Bat, Damsel, What Girls Are Made Of, Infandous, and more (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)

• Lance Rubin, author of Denton's Little's Deathdate, Denton's Little's Still Not Dead, and Crying Laughing (listen to his First Draft episode here)

• Freedom (computer app)

• Deep Work Work by Cal Newport

• Courtney Summers, including Sadie, Cracked Up to Be, This Is Not a Test, Fall for Anything, All the Rage, Some Girls Are (hear her First Draft episodes here and here)

• “Real Romance,” The New Yorker profile about Nora Roberts

• Mary H. K. Choi, author of Emergency Contact and Permanent Record (stay tuned for her episode of First Draft)

• The Venice Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia) and Dia:Beacon

• Bridget Tyler, author of The Pioneer and The Survivor (listen to her First Draft episode here)

• Scientific American, which Veronica just subscribed to

• Samantha Mabry, author of A Fierce and Subtle Poison and All the Wind in the World (listen to her First Draft episode here)

• Elissa Sussman, author of Stray and Burn (listen to her First Draft interview here)

• Abdi Nazemian, author of Like a Love Story, The Authentics, and The Walk-In Closet (listen to his First Draft interview here)

• Madonna, the queen of Abdi’s book

• The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

• Morgan Matson, author of he Date, Amy & Roger's Epic Detour, The Unexpected Everything, and more! (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

• Julie Buxbaum, author of Tell Me Three Things, What to Say Next, and Hope and Other Punchlines (listen to her First Draft interview here)

• Danielle Paige, author of Dorothy Must Die, Stealing Snow and Mera: Tidebreaker (listen to her First Draft episode here)

• David Yoon, author of Frankly in Love (stay tuned for his episode of First Draft!)

• Zan Romanoff, author of Look (due Spring 2020) and A Song to Take The World Apart and Grace and the Fever (listen to her First Draft interview here)

• Writing Workshops LA

• Francesca Lia Block, author of Weetzie Bat, The Thorn Necklace, and so many more (listen to her First Draft episode here)

• Aminah Mae Safi, author of Not the Girls You're Looking For and Tell Me How You Really Feel (listen to her First Draft interview here)

• Alex London, author of Black Wings Beating, Proxy, The Wild Ones series and more (listen to his First Draft episodes here and here)

• Nina LaCour, author of We Are Okay, The Disenchantments, Everything Leads to You, Hold Still and more (hear her First Draft episodes here and here), and listen to Nina’s podcast, Keeping a Notebook

• Hamline University’s MFA program

• The Slow Novel Lab, Nina LaCour’s online course on writing

• Lilliam Rivera, author of Dealing In Dreams and The Education Of Margot Sanchez, (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

• Pseudonymous Bosch, aka Raphael Simon (author of the The Name of This Book is a Secret and the Bad Magic series, and more) and Shane Pangburn, who together created The Unbelievable Oliver and the Four Jokers (stay tuned for their First Draft episode!)

• Amy Lukavics, author of Daughters into Devils and The Ravenous (listen to her First Draft episode here)

• Maurene Goo, author of Somewhere Only We Know, I Believe in a Thing Called Love and The Way You Make Me Feel and Since You Asked (Listen to Maurene’s first, second, and third episodes of First Draft)

• That time Maurene interviewed Sarah Enni for this podcast! (The Sarah Enni episode of First Draft )

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  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!

First Draft Episode #199: Robin Wasserman

Robin Wasserman, New York Times bestselling author of adult novel Girls on Fire, as well as young adult novels The Waking Dark, The Book of Blood and Shadow, Hacking Harvard, The Cold Awakening series, the Seven Deadly Sins series. Her next novel, to come out with Scribner, is Mother Daughter Widow Wife.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Robin loved Diane Wynne Jones and Stephen King as a kid, particularly Salem’s Lot, The Stand, and It. (Robin wrote for The Atlantic about, “How Stephen King Saved My Life”)

• Johannes Kepler, a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer, about whom Robin would gladly talk about forever. (And I would listen!)

• Robin wrote her senior thesis about Dr. Timothy Leary, who co-conducted studies known as the Psilocybin Project, which sought to test whether psychedelics could cure the emotional pain of Western man. Leary was fired from Harvard when the ethics of his studies came into question, and went on to continue promoting the use of psychedelics as a thought leader in the 60s counter-cultural movement. Leary has written extensively about his philosophy, including in books like The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, his book with his partner in the experiments, Richard Alpert* (now known as Ram Dass); his autobiography, Flashbacks; and Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out. Many have written about him, including The Timothy Leary Project: Inside the Great Counterculture Experiment, compiled by the archivist Jennifer Ulrich; and Timothy Leary: Outside Looking In by Robert Forte.

  • *Of interest to me is that the TV show LOST paid homage to Ram Dass by naming a character Richard Alpert

• David Levithan, who has and does host a regular drinks night for New York authors of young adult fiction. Robin went to one of these gatherings and met John Green before Looking for Alaska won the Printz.

• Kurt Cobain was the lead singer of Nirvana, the band that broke open grunge. Cobain died by suicide in 1994. If you’re interested in Cobain, or Nirvana, or the grunge scene generally, I personally recommend Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm, and the documentary Montage of Heck by Brett Morgen (about which Robin wrote, “The Art of Resurrection: Montage of Heck,” in the Los Angeles Times Review of Books).

• The Satanic Panic was a phenomenon in the 1980s, wherein millions of Americans feared that an underground cult of Satan worshipers were practicing rituals and committing crimes. Robin particularly recommends Richard Beck’s We Believe the Children, which covers the phenomenon of, specifically, day care workers being charged with horrible accusations of child abuse. I’m obsessed with this phenomenon, and there are a ton of other podcasts that do a great job explaining it:

  • For a broad overview, the Stuff You Should Know podcast released an episode about The Satanic Panic

  • The Satanic Panic is a multi-part, deep dive into the phenomenon and many of the cases that came to define it (and their resources page isn’t to be missed)

  • The McMartin Child Abuse trial was one of the most massive and egregious examples of the Satanic Panic as a community-seizing exercise of hysteria. Both WNYC’s The Takeaway and Generation Why have devoted episodes to exploring the case. Documentary filmmaker Penny Lane (whose most recent film, Hail Satan?, is awesome) went on KCRW’s The Document to discuss the case, and the phenomenon.

• Robin was inspired, in part, by an event of mass hysteria that afflicted dozens (of mostly high school cheerleaders) in LeRoy, New York, a phenomenon covered in the New York Times and Slate. Robin wrote about the phenomenon for the Los Angeles Times Review of Books (“Girl Trouble”), which is a non-fiction piece on the history of hysteria and a review of The Fever by Megan Abbott. Another book written about that phenomenon is The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas (listen to Kara’s episodes of First Draft here and here).

• The West Memphis Three was another case of hysteria leading to false convictions, in which three men in West Memphis, Arkansas were held responsible for the deaths of three young boys. The trial was controversial, and the three convicted men were released after serving more than 18 years in prison. The case is covered in a modern classic of documentary filmmaking, a trio of docs that begins with Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.

• The concept of “kindred spirits” put forth by Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery led Robin to some dysfunctional concepts of female friendship as a young woman

• Holly Black, who Robin calls “the queen of life modeling exercises” (listen to Holly Black’s First Draft episode here), asked her to write out what author she’d like to be. Robert Cormier and Neil Gaiman were among the many different answers to that question. Robin threw out that she’d like to be a cross between Michael Chabon and Joss Whedon.

• What/If, the TV show that Robin wrote for, is now available to watch on Netflix!

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Linda Holmes, author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast; Jonny Sun, internet superstar, illustrator of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Gmorning, Gnight! and author and illustrator of Everyone’s an Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too;  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!

First Draft Episode #198: Jonny Sun

Jonny Sun, Canadian author and illustrator of Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too and Gmorning, Gnight!, TV writer on BoJack Horseman, screenwriter, one of TIME Magazine's 25 Most Influential People on the Internet in 2017, and a doctoral candidate at MIT and a creative researcher at the Harvard metaLAB.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Jonny remembers watching The Muppet Show as a kid (even though in some ways that really isn’t a kids show), and later he realized that was why he loved sketch comedy

• Jonny loved reading Calvin and Hobbes as a kid, and he read a good amount of Charlie Brown, Zits, and The Far Side, all of which were comedy

• The Wayside School books by Louis Sachar was Jonny’s intro into absurdist humor

• He watched American Pie (movie) with his family, lol

• Playwright David Ives, who Jonny calls the theater version of sketch comedy

• Jonny played Nathan Detroit in a production of Guys and Dolls, and his best friend played Sky Masterson — Jonny’s best friend went on to perform with Second City and is now appearing in Come From Away in Toronto

• Bruce Springsteen’s show, Springsteen on Broadway, is an interesting example of an artist engaging with works from every phase of their life

• Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern and As Seen on Tumblr was part of a wave of books made from things that were funny on the internet

• Winnie the Pooh is used as a reference for how Jonny structured Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn too like a social media site

• Jonny recently gave a TED Talk!!!!

• The Perry Bible Fellowship is a webcomic by Nicholas Gurewitch

• He didn’t hesitate to illustrate Lin-Manuel Miranda’s book, Gmorning, Gnight! and he’d been a fan of Miranda’s plays, especially “In the Heights,” for years

• Jonny made TinyCareBot after the 2016 election as a way to gently nudge himself to be kind to and take care of himself

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!

First Draft Episode #194: Linda Holmes

Linda Holmes, pop-culture critic at NPR and co-host of the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, is out with her debut author of Evvie Drake Starts Over. I loved what Linda had to say about how practicing appellate law helped hone her critical writing; getting used to listening to her own voice; how she manages anxiety and depression, and the difficulty in even acknowledging that she wanted to write a novel.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• I got the good NPR shirt, and the soup-sized mug, when I visited Linda to interview her at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C.

• Linda’s interview on The Hilarious World of Depression podcast

• Television Without Pity, which became Previously.tv, which recently became PrimerTimer.com!

• The Amazing Race was on the top of my mind when thinking about Television Without Pity

• Again With This, a podcast hosted by Sarah D. Bunting and Tara Ariano, two of the founders of Television Without Pity, who do episode-by-episode recaps of Beverly Hills 90210

• Stephen Thompson, one of Linda’s dear friends and co-workers, worked at The Onion before joining NPR

• Linda’s writing was formerly hosted on the Monkey See blog at NPR, but that blog was sunsetted in favor of expanding the Pop Culture Happy Hour brand

• Dancing with the Stars is now discussed on NPR, and that is largely due to Linda’s influence

• All Songs Considered, the music-oriented NPR show and podcast that served as the inspiration for Pop Culture Happy Hour

• Talk of the Nation, a live call-in show which had Linda on as a guest. She loved the spontaneity of participating in a live radio show

• Linda had every intention of writing a book for National Novel Writing Month, alas her apartment flooded

• Chuck Knoblauch throwing a baseball into the stands, hitting Keith Olbermann’s mother

• If the yips interests you as much as it interests Linda, check out Field of Fear, a 30 for 30 mini-documentary

• Before Sunrise is a movie that’s mostly talking, and is amazing, but Linda wanted Evvie Drake to have more action than that

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a TV show that brings Linda joy and is fun, but also is warm-spirited and compassionate

• Audie Cornish gets a break from being a very serious NPR news reporter when she guests on Pop Culture Happy Hour

• Linda uses Matt Damon growing potatoes in the film The Martian as a parable for the importance of art and culture in our lives

• Sarah Burnes at The Gernert Company reps Linda (hear Sarah Burnes’ episode of First Draft with Sarah Enni 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!

First Draft Episode #196: Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, Amy Andelson, and Emily Meyer

Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith, Amy Andelson, and Emily Meyer are the team behind Trinkets, the Netflix TV series based on Kiwi’s young adult novel of the same name. Kiwi Smith is one half of the screenwriting team behind films like 10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde, Ella Enchanted, and more, and the author of young adult novels The Geography of Girlhood, and Trinkets. Amy Andelson and Emily Meyer are the writing team behind films like Step Up 3D, Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List, and the young adult novel Layover, and they adapted Trinkets and are credited as co-creators of the TV show.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Every listener should check out the first episode of First Draft with Sarah Enni with Amy Andelson and Emily Meyer, when we talked about her first novel, Layover

• 10 Things I Hate About You was shot at Stadium High School in Tacoma, Wash.

• Shooting Trinkets on location in Portland, Ore. was a way to differentiate the show visually from glossier teen shows like Riverdale, and evoke classic teen shows like My So-Called Life

• Awesomeness TV produced the show and helped shape the project into a TV show

• Writer and artist Alex Israel was singing Amy and Emily’s praises to Kiwi for years before the three actually met

• John McAlary, the casting director for Trinkets, said he saw 6,000 actors during the casting process for the show’s key roles

• Seeing Trinkets star Brianna Hildebrand sing on her Instagram inspired Kiwi, Amy, and Emily to include singing as part of her character

• Actor Katrina Cunningham, who plays Sabine in Trinkets, and is a performer as well and her music is featured in the show

• Kiwi is currently writing “Party Girls” with long-time co-writer Karen McCullah

• End of the Fucking World and Russian Doll are TV series that Kiwi thinks are ideal bingeable lengths for TV series

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!

First Draft Episode #195: Jennifer Donnelly

Jennifer Donnelly, New York Times bestselling author of A Northern Light, Revolution, These Shallow Graves, and The Tea Rose series (incl. The Tea Rose; The Winter Rose; The Wild Rose) and Waterfire Saga series (incl. Deep Blue; Rogue Wave; Dark Tide; Sea Spell), Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, among others, who is back with the New York Times bestselling Stepsister. Jennifer talks about being raised on bedtime stories about life under the Hitler regime; how to deep-dive into writing a historical novel; and the joy of being obsessed.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Learn more about The First Draft Listener Club

• The New York Teen Author Carnival

• When Jennifer visited Portobello Road in East London, she felt like she was stepping back into the London of Charles Dickens (author of Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities), artist William Hogarth, Jack the Ripper (learn more with The Complete History of Jack the Ripper by Phillip Sugden), The Labour Movement, the London Dock Worker Strike

• Simon Lipskar of Writer’s House was interested in Jennifer’s first crack at writing a novel, which was 1,100 words(!)

• Sally Kim, VP and Editor in Chief at Putnam, was then at St. Martin’s, when she purchased Jennifer’s first book

• Steven Malk at Writer’s House became Jennifer’s agent to sell A Northern Light and subsequent books

• Jennifer’s mom bought her a copy of An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, and that sparked the obsession that led to A Northern Light. (Non-fiction accounts of the murder of Grace Brown include Adirondack Tragedy: The Gillette Murder Case of 1906, written by Joseph W. Brownell and Patricia Enos; and Murder in the Adirondacks: An American Tragedy Revisited, by Craig Brandon.)

• The murder case of Laci Peterson, documented in true crime novel A Deadly Game: The Untold Story of the Scott Peterson Investigation by Catherine Crier

• Jennifer was stopped short by a New York Times article about the heart of Louis Charles, Dauphin of France, the imprisoned son of the king of France who was toppled by the French Revolution. The story was likely either “Genetics Offers Denouement To Mystery of Prince's Death,” by Suzanne Daley, or “MEANWHILE : Learning from a heart stilled by revolution,” by Catherine Field.

• Jennifer was inspired by “Savage Beauty,” the Met’s retrospective of fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s work

• Jennifer’s short story in Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All led her to explore the themes of beauty and how we reinforce those standards on young women in Stepsister

• I blow up Maurene Goo’s spot (author of I Believe in a Thing Called Love, The Way You Make Me Feel, and her newest, Somewhere Only We Know) getting obsessed with the Supernatural TV show (listen to Maurene’s First Draft episodes here, here, and here)

• I’m obsessed with The Dyatlov Pass Incident, which was covered in Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar

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!

First Draft Episode #194: Abdi Nazemian

Abdi Nazemian, TV writer, producer of films like Call Me By Your Name, and author of Like a Love Story, The Authentics, and The Walk-In Closet, talks about discovering gay icons in the time before the internet, putting all your obsessions in your work, crying in coffee shops, and writing about history from an emotional standpoint, so we can repeat the best of it.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Abdi’s daughter has a PJ Harvey poster in her bedroom, which makes her the coolest seven-year-old on the block

• Archie comics were what turned Abdi into a voracious reader

• Andy Hardy, Christmas, and movies from the 30s and 40s were some of the Americana that made Abdi drawn to the U.S. culturally

• Tahereh Mafi, author of the Shatter Me series, A Very Large Expanse of Sea, Furthermore, and Whichwood (listen to Tahereh’s episode of First Draft here)

• Old TV shows like I Love Lucy were deliberately sexless

• Judy Garland and Joan Crawford were two women who had public personas, but were hiding their interior lives. Abdi was drawn to that as a young, closeted gay man

• The book How to Be Gay by David M. Halperin dives into how certain films and people become gay icons

• Tori Amos’s Boys for Pele (33 ⅓) by Amy Gentry, a book that dives into the making of Tori Amos’s iconic album

• One of Abdi’s first jobs was as an assistant in the company founded by director Alan J. Pakula, director of Sophie’s Choice and All the President’s Men, among other films

• Abdi spent so much time reading scripts in his first jobs, he achieved Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of becoming an expert after spending 10,000 hours doing a thing (which Gladwell outlines in his book, Outliers)

• Abdi is obsessed with Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series, and feels that Maupin’s books have had the most influence over him as a writer

• Reading James Baldwin makes Abdi “want to do something else,” because Baldwin is so intimidatingly good

• Sarah suggests writing a couple pages of your finest Flannery O’Connor rip-off and see how it feels to mimic someone else’s voice

• Tehrangeles is the word for the huge community of Iranians in Los Angeles

• Alessandra Balzer was Abdi’s editor for The Authentics, and he knew he wanted to keep working with her

• Abdi shares a quote from Hedwig and the Angry Inch writer and star John Cameron Mitchell about putting your obsessions into your work

• The Act Up movement was pivotal to drawing attention to the AIDS crisis

• Right from “Lucky Star,” Madonna’s first song and video, Abdi was obsessed with her

• Two O.J. Simpson-focused films: O.J. Simpson: Made in America (documentary), and The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story is a good example of Abdi’s dedication to revisiting history

• Truth or Dare, the documentary about Madonna’s 1990 Blonde Ambition tour

• Some queer works that Madonna led Abdi to explore include the historic documentary Paris is Burning, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, known for Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and Talk to Her

• Abdi is obsessed with RuPaul’s Drag Race

• Mommy Dearest is one of the films that RuPaul supposedly gives contestants before they come on RuPaul’s Drag Race

• Abdi is a huge fan of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, a 12-week program of creative exercises meant to unblock

• Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, the Netflix series based on the massively popular book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

First Draft Episode #189: David Iserson

David Iserson, screenwriter of The Spy Who Dumped Me, writer on Saturday Night Live, United States of Tara, and New Girl, and author of YA novel Firecracker, talks about micro and macro humor, how unreliable narrators is one of the beautiful advantages of writing a book, co-writing as being in conversation with someone, and the merit of spite writing.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol was one of the only books marketed to boys that David read as a young boy

• Judy Blume, author of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and Sweet Valley High by Francine Pascal were some of the books David read as a kid, because he wasn’t drawn to the “Boy who only throws strike-outs!” books

• B. Dalton Bookstore, where David would go shopping for books at the mall -- David says, “As a New Jersey pre-teen and teen, most of my memories are mall-related.” RIP B. Dalton!

• David was very, very into comic strips as a kid, like Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson and Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed

• There’s a Bat in Bunk Five by Paula Danziger, a book set in an art summer camp that made David realize he could go to something other than sports camp during the summer Buck’s Rock camp in Connecticut

• Quentin Tarantino, an independent screenwriter and director of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction whose work made David realize that people wrote movies

• Zach Braff, actor in shows like Scrubs and writer and director of Garden State, was David’s TA and freshman year RA at Northwestern

• Miramax, Harvey Weinstein’s film production company, was where David got his first assistant job after moving to Los Angeles. David worked for a producer who played a part in creating The Cider House Rules, Pulp Fiction, and Bourne Identity

• Parks and Recreation, a TV show that I believe shows all its characters being excellent at something, which makes us like them more

• Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon were the anchors on Weekend Update when David was submitting jokes to Saturday Night Live and first got a joke on the air

• “Seinfeld, a show about a stand up comic written by some of the funniest people in the world, but there are very few ‘joke jokes,’” David says. “They are placed in a situation and you see what this situation means to them. To me, that’s the highest form of writing comedy.”

• David wrote on New Girl, where he says he wrote a lot of joke-jokes

• The United States of Tara, starring Toni Collette, was the first scripted TV show David worked on

• UCLA Extension, which offers a lot of continuing education classes for writers

• Susanna Fogel, David’s co-writer on The Spy Who Dumped Me, which David says was written out of a “fist-shaking, ‘We’ll show you!’ energy.”

• David and Susanna’s episode of Scriptnotes, a screenwriting process hosted by John August, writer of Charlie’s Angels, Big Fish, Go, as well as the Arlo Finch middle grade series (listen to his First Draft episode here), and Craig Mazin, writer of upcoming series Chernobyl, as well as The Hangover Part II and Identity Thief.

• “I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny.” ~ Mitch Hedberg’s joke about writing jokes

   

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!

Got a book to recommend?

Record yourself raving about it, and send the audio file to sarah@firstdraftpod.com!

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!

First Draft Episode #188: Ally Condie

Ally Condie, New York Times bestselling author of the Matched series, as well as Summerlost and The Darkdeep, co-written with Brendan Reichs. In this conversation, Ally talks about what inspired her to get an MFA after establishing herself as a bestselling author, always working on two things at once, and how the 2016 election gave Ally enough rage to write her newest young adult novel, murderous revenge story The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• The Planet of the Apes movies, which were filmed near where Ally grew up in rural Utah
• Ally was inspired by a blog post by Shannon Hale, New York Times bestselling author of The Princess Academy and Austenland, where she wrote about writing 1,000 words a day. Ally was inspired by Shannon to commit to daily word goals. She started with 500.
• Lisa Mangum, editor at Shadow Mountain press, which released Ally’s first few books
• Brandon Mull, New York TImes bestselling author of the Fablehaven and Beyonders series, who got his start at
• Shadow Mountain PressChris Shoebinger, publishing director at Shadow Mountain Press, who released Ally from her publishing contract so she could pursue a bigger contract for Matched
• Jodi Reamer, literary agent at Writer’s House, who also represents Tahereh Mafi, New York TImes bestselling author of the Shatter Me series (listen to her First Draft episode here), Ransom Riggs, New York Times bestselling author of the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series (listen to his First Draft episode here), John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, and Stephenie Meyer, author of the global phenomenon Twilight series
• Julie Strauss-Gabel, publisher at Dutton Books, who has edited John Green, Adam Gidwitz, New York Times bestselling author of A Tale Dark & Grimm and The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog, and Gayle Forman, New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay and I Have Lost My Way
• The Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in writing for children, the program Ally attended
• Emily Wing Smith, author of The Way He Lived and All Better Now, and Carol Lynch Williams, author of The Chosen One and Glimpse, two Utah authors Ally was friends with who also attended the Vermont College of Fine Arts for the MFA program
• Kekla Magoon, author of National Book Award Longlisted X: A Novel (written with Ilyasah Shabazz), Coretta Scott King-honored The Season of Styx Malone and How it Went Down, and was Ally’s mentor at the Vermont program and helped her with an early draft of Poe Blythe
• An Na, author of Printz winner and National Book Award long-listed A Step From Heaven, as well as Wait For Me and The Place Between Breaths, was also an advisor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts
• Martine Leavitt, author of Keturah and Lord Death, and Calvin,  who Ally calls “a stone cold genius.” Martine helped Ally work on a project during her Vermont residency.
• Quentin Tarantino’s advice to screenwriters was to delete the last two lines of dialogue from every scene, which Alfred Gough and Miles Millar--creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands shared with me on their recent First Draft episode. That’s similar to Ally’s feeling that sometimes she writes past the natural ending of a chapter.
• Brendan Reichs, New York Times bestselling author of Genesis, and co-writer of Virals with his mother, New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs, and The Darkdeep with Ally. Brendan and Ally fortuitously decided to pursue an MFA at Vermont at the same time.
• YALLWEST and YALLFest, two national young adult and middle grade book festivals held in Charleston, S.C. and Los Angeles. Ally is on the board of the festivals, alongside Brendan Reichs and Margaret Stohl, New York Times bestselling author of the Beautiful Creatures series, Red Widow and Royce Rolls (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)
• Stranger Things meets The Goonies, the pitch for Ally and Brendan’s co-written middle grade series, The Darkdeep

• Ally’s pitch for Poe Blythe is: “Mad Max: Fury Road meets Firefly meets something really lovey.” I got a distinctly Heart of Darkness (by Joseph Conrad) vibe from Poe when I read it!

• Write Out, the non-profit organization Ally founded as a way to bring authors to kids in rural Utah
• Brendan Reichs, Shannon Hale, Soman Chainani (author of The School for Good and Evil series--listen to his First Draft interview here), and Yamile Saied Mendez (author of Blizzard Besties: A Wish Novel, and the forthcoming On These Magic Shores) are among the authors who volunteer at Write Out
• Ally and I urge listeners to Marie Kondo your fear -- go write that angry revenge novel!!!!

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!

First Draft Episode #187: Will Hines

Will Hines, improviser and actor, host of the podcast, “Screw It: We’re Just Going to Talk About the Beatles,” and author of How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth joins me to talk about using his Tumblr to test audience engagement; the delicate nature of writing about a community you are a part of; his thorough approach to making the self-publication process as professional as possible; and his next (fictional) book about improv, co-written with fellow improviser Billy Merritt, Pirate Robot Ninja.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Josh Simpson, an improviser and teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade training school in Los Angeles, and co-host of The Meat, an improv podcast
• Jimmy Breslin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and journalist, who wrote The Good Rat, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, and The World According to Breslin, and more
• The Upright Citizen’s Brigade, the improv group and school founded by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts.
• Will’s Tumblr, Improv Nonsense, which gained traction and has been featured on Vulture and elsewhere

• Truth in Comedy by Charna Halpern, Del Close, and Kim “Howard” Johnson, considered one of the premiere books about long-form improvised comedy
• Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual, the UCB training manual
• Improvise: Scene From the Inside Out by Mick Napier

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions of Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, a writing advice book that Will read as a young computer programmer
• Andrew Sullivan, a conservative author, editor, and blogger who featured Will’s post, “Improv as religion,” on his site, garnering lots of attention

• The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• Repetition exercises as a part of the Meisner Technique study of acting

• Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
• “A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room,” by George Saunders, a silly and slightly sci-fi short story that typifies his early writing and is the kind of humor writing that inspires Will
• John Hodgman, author of Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches
• In writing, Will is concerned about what he calls “The Kevin Smith Problem,” where every character sounds the same (a la Clerks, Mallrats, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back)
• Jason Mantzoukas, an actor, writer, and seasoned improviser who Will saw constantly improving his craft
• Offset printing, a style of printing on the page that is “the way to make your book look beautiful,” according to Will, but it is more expensive, and requires a minimum print run
• Artist Maëlle Doliveux, who drew the cover of Will’s book
• Chip Kidd, a well-known book designer of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton; Dry by Augusten Borroughs; and Naked by David Sedaris (he also has a hugely popular Ted Talk!).
• Daniel Clowes, a cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. His work is collected in the solo Eightball project.
• The Pirates, Robots, Ninjas theory, coined by Billy Merritt, a fellow UCB alum and teacher

• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; and

• “Carry On, Jeeves,” by P.G. Wodehouse; and
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams are some of the funny books Will recommends
• Without Feathers by Woody Allen, a collection of his writing which Will read and enjoyed as a masterclass on comedy before we knew all that awful stuff about Woody Allen
• Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence by Geoff Dyre, a meta novel about a man who wants to write about D.H. Lawrence but finds himself wanting to focus on anything else
• Steve Martin, who blurbed Geoff Dyre’s book and has written his own, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life (nonfiction) and Shopgirl: A Novella (fiction)

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!

First Draft Episode #184: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the TV and screenwriting duo behind Smallville and Into the Badlands, join Sarah to talk about their debut thriller, Double Exposure. The guys talk about how, even after writing and/or producing more than 300 hours of television and movies, they are still engaged in learning and improving their craft; getting on the superhero train WAY before the MCU; and delivering a satisfying ending in books.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Bugs, a BBC One TV show created by UK-based Carnival Films (Agatha Christie’s Poirot; Downton Abbey; many others)  for which Al and Miles wrote two episodes
• The Hardy Boys series of children’s mysteries created by Edward Stratemeyer (who also created Nancy Drew)  and written by ghostwriters under the pen name Franklin W. Dixon
• The Peter Stark Producer program at USC, where Alfred and Miles met and learned all aspects of the film industry
• Laura Ziskin, producer of No Way Out, and Pretty Woman, who was an influential teacher at the USC film production program to Al and Miles
• William Goldman, an author (Adventures in the Screen Trade, The Princess Bride, many, many others) and screenwriter (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; All the President’s Men, among many others) renowned for writing scripts that entertained the reader -- a trend followed by screenwriters Shane Black (Lethal Weapon; The Last Boy Scout) and Joe Eszterhas (Flashdance; Basic Instinct)
• John August, Al and Miles’ classmate at USC and screenwriter of Big Fish, Frankenweenie, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as author of the Arlo Finch middle grade series (listen to his First Draft interview here)
• Mango, the spec script that Al and Miles sold right out of film school
• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the movie that made Al and Miles’ spec script a hot commodity out of film school
• Scriptnotes, the podcast co-hosted by John August and fellow screenwriter Craig Mazin, which is a worthy companion podcast to any writers who enjoy First Draft!

• Bugs, a BBC One TV show created by UK-based Carnival Films (Agatha Christie’s Poirot; Downton Abbey; many others)  for which Al and Miles wrote two episodes

• Homicide: Life on the Street, a police drama based on the work of David Simon (The Wire; Treme; The Deuce)

• 3rd Rock From the Sun, a sitcom in the 90s starring John Lithgow and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

• Lethal Weapon IV and Shanghai Noon, the two buddy comedy scripts that Al and Miles wrote before Smallville
• The WB, Smallville’s network (RIP)
• Lois and Clark, the TV show about Superman that predated Smallville

• X-Men, the 2000 movie that helped bring about the superhero resurgence on film and TV
• Christopher Nolan, the writer and director who rebranded Batman in the well-regarded Dark Knight trilogy of films

• Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, two recent superhero movies with tons of comedy

• Spider-Man II, Al and Miles’ take on Spider-Man, which was a little more serious than the Spider-Man we know today
• Jenette Kahn, executive, publisher, editor-in-chief of DC Comics when Al and Miles created their spin on the Superman universe with Smallville

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek, some of the teen stories that dominated TV when Smallville debuted

• I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (the pen name of James Frey, Jobie Hughes, and Greg Boose), and the film of the same name written by Al and Miles, and their first collaboration with James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and book entrepreneur with Full Fathom Five)

• Hannah Montana: The Movie, which Al and Miles produced, thanks to Al’s oldest daughter, who was obsessed with that TV show
• Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and Michelle Yeoh are among the internationally respected martial artists and actors Al and Miles have worked with

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers are some of the epic movies that inspired Al and Miles for the world of Into the Badlands

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown as a model for the franchise character with a little-known job that leads to globe-trotting adventures--the kind of story Al and Miles were interested in telling with Double Exposure
• The famous transcript of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark

• The Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest, The ODESSA File by Frederick Forsyth, and the works of John le Carre are among the films and authors cited throughout Double Exposure
• Last Remaining Seats, a program that shows old movies in downtown Los Angeles
• The Zapruder Film (YouTube link) (warning: depicts a presidential assassination), which might factor into the Double Exposure follow-up novels…
• Mimi Leder, director of Deep Impact, gave the guys some great advice when they were feeling overwhelmed
• “Just cut the last two lines of every scene.” Advice from Quentin Tarantino that Al and Miles swear by
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, two thrillers that they admire
• Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
• James Patterson
• Waterstones bookstore in London

• The Shannara Chronicles by Terry Brooks, which Al and Miles adapted for television

• Al and Michaels loved taking Masterclass online classes from: David Mamet; Aaron Sorkin; Shonda Rhimes; and James Patterson

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!

First Draft Episode #184: Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller (find him on Twitter and Instagram), musician and writer, is a solo artist as well as lead singer of The Old 97s. His first book for children, No More Poems: A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse, illustrated by Dan Santat (listen to his First Draft episode here).

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green being one of the books Rhett has read with his kids as a way to talk about difficult subjects, head-on

• How being inspired by writers like Raymond Carver led to a disagreement with his creative writing teacher at Sarah Lawrence
• “The Messenger,” Rhett’s most recent solo album
• “My Generation,” the song where The Who famously said they’d rather die than get old
• Willie Nelson, patron saint of Americana music
• Rhett’s buddy Mickey Raphael, harmonica player for Willie Nelson
• Other artists giving Americana a moment: Jason Isbell; Chris Stapleton; and Brandi Carlile
• “We Could Have Been the Cowboys,” Rhett’s article for Sports Illustrated
• Rhett wrote a paper about Gustav Klimpt for his then-girlfriend, who was getting a graduate degree in art history
• John Dickson Carr, an early whodunit writer, the inventor of the “locked room” drama
• Ben Acker (listen to his First Draft podcast here), who introduced Rhett to First Draft and, thereby, the illustrator of No More Poems, Dan Santat (listen to his First Draft podcast here)
• Megan Tingley, editor at Little, Brown
• e e cummings, the poet who inspired Rhett’s dedication to non-punctuation

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, or John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 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!

First Draft Episode #184: Bridget Tyler

Bridget Tyler (find her on Twitter and Instagram, too!), debut author of The Pioneer, comes to First Draft with Sarah Enni to talk about adventure and sci-fi, getting outside of her own bubble for storytelling perspective, avoiding the Leia-Han love story trope... and in a First Draft exclusive,  Bridget reveals the name of the sequel to The Pioneer!

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• The title of the sequel to The Pioneer!

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, or John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 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!

First Draft Episode #183: Author and Illustrator Jon Klassen

Jon Klassen, Caldecott Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of the “I Want My Hat Back” series, as well as the illustrator of Sam and Dave Dig a Hole and Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett; The Dark by Lemony Snicket; House Held Up by Trees by Ted Kooser; Cats' Night Out by Caroline Stutson; and many more. Find him on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr!

Circle, the third and final book in Barnett and Klassen’s “Triangle, Circle, and Square” series, is available now where books are sold!

In the course of our conversation, Jon and I discuss how his early experience as a set designer changed how he thought about picture book audiences, why he felt that painting objects or animals had as much emotional impact as human characters, and how the personal arc of his best-known series, I Want My Hat Back, went from ironic detachment to artistic earnestness.

Links and Topics Mentioned in This Episode

• The Little Mermaid was one of the Disney movies that made Jon aware of animating as a job
• Maurene Goo, author of Somewhere Only We Know, The Way You Make Me Feel, I Believe in a Thing Called Love, and Since You Asked (Listen to Maurene’s first, second, and third episodes of First Draft)
• Chris Appelhans, co-director of Wish Dragon, an animated feature scheduled for release on July 26, 2019
• Arts Center
• One of Jon’s earliest jobs was working on Coraline, the animated film based on the book from Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
• An early illustrating gig for Red Cap Cards led Jon to discover his love for drawing animals, including bears wearing hats
• Carrie Gifford (co-owner of Red Cap Cards)
• Filmmaker and author Ed Wood
• The third book in the I Want My Hat Back trilogy was partly inspired by a scene in the Chevy Chase comedy European Vacation
• Author Mac Barnett is one of Jon’s most frequent collaborators
• Jon is inspired by the classic children’s book series Frog and Toad, and it was one of the first things he and Mac Barnett bonded over
• What Can a Citizen Do? By Dave Eggers; illustrated by Shawn Harris
• Dave Eggers’ online satire periodical McSweeny’s
• 826 National, the literacy non-profit founded by Dave Eggers and educator Nínive Calegari
• The “things” in Where the Wild Things Are by Marcus Sedgewick came about after Sedgewick almost quit on the project
• Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd

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, or John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 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!

Lilliam Rivera, author of THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ, is back with DEALING IN DREAMS, out now!  She talks about writing a Latinx future, entering a room with hope, and getting to meet Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Lilliam Rivera 2.0 Show Notes

Lilliam’s first interview on First Draft here

Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of FRUIT OF THE DRUNKEN TREE

Amerie

Zareen Jaffrey, executive editor at Simon & Schuster

Anderson Cooper

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

A Clockwork Orange (movie)

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Warriors (movie)

Mad Max Fury Road (movie)

Ray Bradbury

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Pablo Cartaya, author of MARCUS VEGA DOESN’T SPEAK SPANISH

Veronica Roth (listen to her First Draft podcasts here and here)

Meg Medina

Matt de la Pena

Soman Chainani, New York Times bestselling author of the SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL series, including the most recent A CRYSTAL OF TIME (out today!) talks about the insidiousness of triumphant good, how tutoring taught him discipline, and the epic battle of Serena Williams versus Maria Sharapova.

Soman Chainani Show Notes

The Ramona series by Beverly Cleary

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

Renee Ahdieh, author of The Wrath & the Dawn series and Flame in the Mist (listen to her First Draft podcast here)

50 Shades of Grey by E.L. James

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Cinderella Ate me Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

Soman’s appearance on the Tim Ferriss podcast

Maria Sharapova

Serena Williams

Tiger Woods

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Fault in Our Stars (movie)

Becky Albertalli, author of SIMON VERSUS THE HOMO SAPIENS AGENDA (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Love, Simon (movie)

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (movie)

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (movie)

Sarah Enni, debut author of TELL ME EVERYTHING and usually the host of the First Draft podcast, answers questions from past First Draft interviewees about craft and ego, staying on schedule, Bob Costas’ pink-eye story, the evolution of her interview style, Hammer the cat’s origin story.

Sarah Enni bonus episode show notes

Maurene Goo (listen to her First Draft episode here)

Nic Stone, author of DEAR MARTIN and ODD ONE OUT (listen to her First Draft podcast here)

Kristen Kittscher, author of WIG IN THE WINDOW and TIARA ON THE TERRACE (listen to her First Draft podcast here)

Bullet journal

Allie Brosh’s comics about procrastination

Shane Pangburn (listen to his First Draft podcast here)

Kate Hart, author of AFTER THE FALL (listen to Kate Hart’s First Draft interview here)

Bob Costas

Tochi Onyebuchi, BEASTS MADE OF NIGHT and CROWN OF THUNDER (listen to his First Draft podcast here)

The Deftones, lead singer Chino Moreno

The Darkness, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”

Victoria Aveyard, author of the RED QUEEN series (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)

Margaret Stohl, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES and CATS VS. ROBOTS (listen to her First Draft episode here)

Jasmine Warga, author of HERE WE ARE NOW and (listen to her First Draft episode here)

Libba Bray, author of THE DIVINERS (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)

Pod Save America (podcast)

Danielle Paige, DOROTHY MUST DIE and STEALING SNOW (listen to her First Draft episode here)

Arrested Development

Stephanie Kuehn, author of CHARM & STRANGE (listen to her First Draft podcast here)

“Welcome to New York,” by Taylor Swift

Peter Stone, author of THE PERFECT CANDIDATE (listen to his First Draft episode here)

Kumail Nanjiani (actor, Silicon Valley)

Sabaa Tahir, author of the EMBER IN THE ASHES series (listen to her First Draft episode here)

Sam Maggs, author of GIRL SQUADS and more (listen to her First Draft episode here)

Alison Cherry, author of RED and PROS OF CONS and more (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)

Pod Save America (podcast)

NPR Politics podcast (podcast)

The Daily (podcast)

Keep It (podcast)

Serial (podcast)

S-Town (podcast)

Subscribe to Sarah’s newsletter

Beth Revis, author of the ACROSS THE UNIVERSE series and the GIVE THE DARK MY LOVE series (listen to her First Draft podcast here)

The Bigfoot Discovery Museum

Kitchen’s Temple

Jeff Goldblum

Leigh Bardugo, author of the SHADOW AND BONE and SIX OF CROWS series, and her upcoming book, NINTH HOUSE (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

Kaitlin Ward, author of WHERE SHE FELL (listen to her First Draft podcast interview here)

Brandy Colbert, author of LITTLE AND LION and THE REVOLUTION OF BIRDIE RANDOLPH (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

Aminah Mae Safi, author of the upcoming TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Kayla Cagan, author of PIPER PERISH and ART BOSS (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Susan Dennard, author of the WITCHLANDS series (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Ameriie, editor of the BECAUSE YOU LOVE TO HATE ME anthology and she recently released two albums, 4 AM MULHOLLAND and AFTER 4 AM

Sara Farizan, author of HERE TO STAY (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Sarah Enni, debut author of TELL ME EVERYTHING and usually the host of the First Draft podcast, answers questions from fellow YA writer Maurene Goo! Sarah shares her lengthy path to publishing, the role of humor and tone in contemporary fiction, her outlining process, and the one cross-country flight that changed everything.

Sarah Enni Show Notes

Maurene Goo, author of the upcoming SOMEWHERE ONLY WE KNOW and THE WAY YOU MAKE ME FEEL, I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE, and SINCE YOU ASKED

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Xenon: Girl of the 21st Century (movie)

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

YALLWEST

Zan Romanoff (listen to her First Draft podcast here)

Seattle Metropolitan

Washington Business Journal

American Lion by Jon Meacham

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Sara Zarr (listen to her First Draft podcast here)

Ameriie

Interstellar (movie)

Tahereh Mafi (listen to her FIrst Draft interview here)

Kate Hart (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Kaitlin Ward (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Stephanie Kuehn (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Kirsten Hubbard (listen to her First Draft interview here)

YA Highway

Sarah Burnes (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Amanda Maciel (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Lorde

Local Natives

DJDS “Trees on Fire”

Jeff Goldblum

Veronica Roth (listen to her First Draft podcasts here and here)
Never Been Kissed (movie)

Amanda Maciel Show Notes

TELL ME EVERYTHING by Sarah Enni

TEASE by Amanda Maciel

LUCKY GIRL by Amanda Maciel

Post Secret (social media site)

Michelle Schusterman

David Levithan

Emergency Contact by Mary H. K. Choi

Nina Goffi

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Sarah Burnes, literary agent with The Gernert Company. She has been my agent since 2013. I loved what Sarah had to say about her approach to the slush pile, the myth of work-life balance, and her “no assholes” rule.

Sarah Burnes Show Notes

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar

Alloy book packaging company

Zan Romanoff (Listen to her First Draft episode here)

Beautiful Creatures by Margaret Stohl and Kami Garcia

Pseudonymous Bosch

Jon Gertner

Witches of America by Alex Marr

Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by  Ruth Franklin

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Vicki Lame, editor at St. Martin’s

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

What If This Were Enough by Heather Havrilesky

Amanda Maciel, editor at Scholastic

Susan Dennard is the New York Times bestselling author of the SOMETHING STRANGE AND DEADLY series and THE WITCHLANDS series. Her newest novel in that series, BLOODWITCH, is out February 12.

Susan Dennard Show Notes

Susan’s wikipedia page

Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (hear her First Draft interviews here and here)

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Paul Scheer (host of How Did This Get Made)

Joanna Volpe, literary agent at New Leaf Literary

Harper Collins

Tor

Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan

Anne McCaffrey

Misfits & Daydreamers (Susan’s newsletter) and her writing about writing and life

The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Alexandra Bracken

“The Silicon Valley Suicides,” by Hanna Rosin

Avatar: The Last Airbender

Assassin’s Creed

Holes by Louis Sachar

The FRIENDS episode where Joey and Phoebe try to find a truly selfless act

National Novel Writing Month

Robin LaFevers, author of the New York Times bestselling HIS FAIR ASSASSINS series, talks about the memories that live on in our bodies, the downside to critique groups, and how writing her breakout series retriggered old trauma--sidelining her ability to write for more than a year. She worked her way, physically and emotionally, back to write the latest in the series, COURTING DARKNESS, out February 5, 2019.

Robin LaFevers Show Notes

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Writer Unboxed

SCBWI

RWA (Romance Writers of America)

Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart

Jesus Camp (documentary)

Donald Maass (agent and author of Writing the Breakout Novel)

Leigh Bardugo (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)

Renée Watson, New York Times bestselling author of PIECING ME TOGETHER a Newberry Honor book and winner of the Coretta Scott King award, THIS SIDE OF HOME, and many others, and co-author of WATCH US RISE, out February 12. Renée is also founder and executive director of the I, Too Arts Foundation, a non-profit organization housed in the home of legendary poet Langston Hughes, committed to nurturing voices from underrepresented communities in the creative arts.

Renée Watson Show Notes

Renée Watson’s first First Draft interview

I, Too Arts Collective

Dreamyard

Community Word Project

A Place Where Hurricanes Happen by Renee Watson

Langston Hughes

Kate Messner (author)

Kendolyn Walker, program director at I, Too

Jennifer Baker, social media director at I, Too and co-host of the Minorities in Publishing podcast

Ellice Lee, graphic designer for I, Too and Associate Art Director of Philomel, Penguin Random House

Tracey Baptiste

SCORE, the nation’s largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors

Ellen Hagan, poet and co-author of WATCH US RISE
Black Enough, an anthology edited by Ibi Zoboi

Roshani Chokshi, New York Times bestselling author of THE STAR-TOUCHED QUEEN, CROWN OF WISHES, and the ARU SHAH series talks about the first book in her latest young adult series, THE GILDED WOLVES, out January 15. She talks about connecting to her history through fairy tales, how being voted most likely to succeed caused a lot of angst, and the pressure of picking an AIM away message.

Roshani Chokshi Show Notes

Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Jhumpa Lahiri

AFI (band)

Thursday (band)

Deftones (band)

Harry Potter

Sailor Moon (cartoon)

Christiane Amanpour (TV broadcast journalism)

His Girl Friday

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (book)

The Young Elites by Marie Lu (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

Rick Riordan

His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

Stormrunner by J. C. Cervantes

Stephanie Lurie, Editorial Director, Rick Riordan Presents (Disney-Hyperion)

Claire Legrand (listen to her First Draft interview here)

National Treasure (movie)

Lara Croft (video game character)

“Venus in Furs” a song by The Velvet Underground

Holly Black (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Radiance by Catherynne Valente

Deathless by Catherynne Valente

Tomb Raider (movie)

The Librarian (movie)

The Mummy (movie)

Dan Brown

Tracey Neithercott, author of Gray Wolf Island, talks about being inspired by unsolved mysteries and real life treasure hunters, how writing shapes our identities, and how she wrote her debut book while dealing with a life-altering chronic pain diagnosis.

Tracey Neithercott Show Notes

The Bodyguard (movie)

Whitney Houston

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Dawson’s Creek (TV show)

Kiersten White (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Absolute Write

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Sarah LaPolla, literary agent

Stand By Me (movie)

Oak Island

Astonishing Legends podcast about Oak Island

Forrest Fenn (antiquities dealer who buried a treasure)

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Scrivener
Tahereh Mafi (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Melissa Albert, New York Times bestselling author of The Hazel Wood and its forthcoming sequel, as well as Tales from the Hinterlands, talks about stuffing her debut book with secret book recommendations, the borderlessness of being a young reader, and loving angry girls in fiction.

Melissa Albert Show Notes

Vera Nabokov

The Baby-Sitters Club by Ann M. Martin

Lolita

Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Thomas the Rhymer by Ellen Kushner

Wise Child by Monica Furlong

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Hook (movie)

Charles de Lint

Helen Oyeyemi

Philip Pullman’s Grimm Brothers translation

Roshani Chokshi’s forthcoming trio of novellas

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Kelly Link

Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)

Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs (listen to his First Draft interview here)

Flannery O’Connor

Time Out Chicago

A Spark of Light (Barnes & Noble exclusive edition)

Barnes & Noble YA Blog

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

Feed by M. T. Anderson

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Francesca Lia Block (listen to her First Draft interview here)

His Hideous Heart by Dahlia Adler

Working Partners (work for hire book company in England)

George Saunders essay about what writers really do when they write

Sadie by Courtney Summers (listen to her First Draft interview here)

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Twilight Zone (TV show)

Radiance by Catherynne Valente

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

Romeo + Juliet (movie)

Love Lists, a blog post by Stephanie Perkins

Emma Chastain, writer

The North Texas Teen Book Festival

Welcome to Night Vale (podcast)

The Magicians Trilogy by Lev Grossman

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke

Ira Glass
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

Sarah Dessen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of ONCE AND FOR ALL, JUST LISTEN, THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREVER and many more. Her newest novel, THE REST OF THE STORY, will come out in June 2019.

Sarah Dessen Show Notes

Jackie Collins

Stephen King

Mary Higgins Clark

Maurene Goo (listen to her First Draft interviews here, here, and here)

Alexander London (listen to his First Draft interviews here and here)

Melissa Walker

Doris Betts (writing teacher at UNC)

John Green

Jodi Picoult

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

Lee Smith (author)

Save the Date by Morgan Matson (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

Sarah Dessen’s 2013 blog post about pulling a book

The Hilarious World of Depression podcast episode featuring NPR’s Linda Holmes

Shakespeare in Love (movie)

J.K Rowling

The Bustle article about Sarah Dessen’s tweet convo with JK Rowling

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Harlan Cohen

Elana K. Arnold, author of YA books Damsel, What Girls Are Made Of, Infandous, and Middle Grade series A Boy Called Bat, and many more, talks about working until the book feels worthy, reusing structure, and uncovering a deep well of rage in her writing.

Elana K. Arnold Show Notes 2.0

Elana’s first First Draft interview

His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman

Martha Brockenbrough, author of Unpresidented
An Ordinary Day by Elana K. Arnold (picture book coming out next year)

Nina LaCour, author of We Are Okay, winner of the 2018 Printz Award, and other contemporary YA titles like Everything Leads to You and Hold Still, joins me to talk about how she’s expanding her teaching role with The Slow Novel Lab, and an exciting new podcast venture called Keeping a Notebook.

Nina LaCour Show Notes

Nina LaCour’s first First Draft interview

Lorde’s album Pure Heroine

We Are Okay

Nina’s interview on Yin Chang’s podcast, 88 Cups of Tea

Alfred Hitchcock

The Castle of Otranto, a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole

Virginia Woolf

Jane Eyre

Wuthering Heights

Frida Kahlo (Artist)

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour

Keeping a Notebook (and the episode featuring Sarah Enni)

The Slow Novel Lab

“On Keeping a Notebook” by Joan Didion

Sara Zarr’s podcast This Creative Life

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

Save the Cat

SquareSpace

MailChimp

Nina’s short story in the Foreshadow YA online YA anthology collection

Writing the Breakout Novel: Worksheets by Donald Maass

Hamline low residency MFA program

Peter Stone, debut author of THE PERFECT CANDIDATE, talks about his time in Washington (before the onset of the 24-hour news cycle), how interns run the world, and how writing a speech for his wife led him to finally try a novel.

Peter Stone Show Notes

The Firm by John Grisham

YALLWEST

YALLFest

Watergate (for more, listen to Slow Burn Season 1)

Monica Lewinsky (for more, listen to Slow Burn Season 2)

Chandra Levy

The My Favorite Murder podcast episode about Chandra Levy’s death

The NPR Politics podcast

The Wilderness (by Crooked Media)

JonBenet Ramsey

Laci Peterson

Newt Gingrich

Old Ebbitt Grill (bar in Washington, D.C.)

The Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

The Robert Mueller Investigation

George Papadopoulos

Edward Snowden

Whitewater (for more, listen to Slow Burn Season 2)

Vince Foster (for more, listen to Slow Burn Season 2)

House of Cards (TV show)

Scandal (TV show)

The Pelican Brief (movie)

The Hunt for Red October (movie)

Ben’s Chili Bowl (restaurant in D.C.)

Tortilla Coast (restaurant in D.C.)

Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe

Neil Gaiman’s quote about writing while inspired

Holly Black, Newberry Honoree and New York Times bestselling author of many things, including many series such as the SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES, THE CURSE WORKER, MAGISTERIUM, and her most recent series, FOLK OF THE AIR. The latest book in that series, THE WICKED KING, comes out January 8—the tour dates to support that book were just released on Hypable today!

Holly Black Show Notes

Tony DiTerlizzi, her artist for Spiderwick Chronicles

Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee

OwlCrate

FairyLoot

Third Eye Blind

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Interview With a Vampire by Anne Rice

Kevin Lewis (editor, Simon & Schuster)

Sabriel by Garth Nix

Tamora Pierce

Cassandra Clare

Kiersten White (listen to her First Draft interview here)

Dhonielle Clayton (listen to her First Draft interviews here and here)

Office Smart

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Kelly Link

Dante’s Inferno

Volcano

Robin Talley—author of LIES WE TELL OURSELVES, WHAT WE LEFT BEHIND, AS I DESCENDED, OUR OWN PRIVATE UNIVERSE—talks about her newest novel, PULP. Robin shares insight about transitioning into being a full-time writer and stay-at-home mom, writing a Judy Blume book for queer girls, and writing books with her younger self in mind.

Robin Talley Show Notes

Robin’s previous First Draft episode

Simon Versus the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (listen to her First Draft episode here)

Dahlia Adler

Pacemaker

Scrivener

Forever by Judy Blume

Love, Simon (movie)

Ann Bannon (famous lesbian pulp author)

Spring Fire by Marijane Meeker