Posts Tagged ‘interview’

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #57: Agent Episode with DongWon Song and Jennifer Udden

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:08:33 — 49.0MB)

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  • Matt and Mur come to you from Morgan Freeman’s hyperbaric negotiation chamber with very special guest co-hosts and their very own book agents, DongWon Song of Howard Morhaim Literary Agency and Jennifer Udden of Barry Goldblatt Literary!
  • This episode is dedicated to Allie Wade, who asked the Ditch Diggers about contracts last June and is just not receiving the answer (Matt insists this was an elaborate training simulation to teach authors about the lengthy waiting process in publishing).
  • The Ditch Diggers and their agents discuss publishing contract clauses for which to watch out, standard clauses, and the nature of clauses themselves.
  • Matt asks DongWon and Jennifer to do a “Know Your Rights” Rundown and go over the major rights often requested by publishers in contracts, what those rights mean, and how to approach which rights to sell and which to retain as an author.
  • DongWon and Jennifer attempt to tackle the eternal question (their version of “Where do you get your ideas?” for authors) posed to agents, “What are you looking for?”
  • Our guest agents discuss the changing marketplace and economic culture of fiction, Amazon, and the vanishing book blogger.
  • Twitter Q&A! Topics include authors needing multiple agents.
  • The customary end-of-episode shilling!
  • DongWon Song on Twitter!
    https://twitter.com/dongwon
  • DongWon Song’s website!
    http://www.dongwonsong.com/
  • Jennifer Udden on Twitter!
    https://twitter.com/suddenlyjen
  • Jennifer Udden’s website!
    http://www.jenniferudden.com/
  • The Shipping & Handling Podcast!
    http://www.shippingandhandlingpodcast.com

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #55: Christopher Brown and Timely Subjects

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 55:49 — 39.4MB)

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ARGH I put this in the feed but somehow didn’t make the blog post live! Here is #55. #56 will be coming soon.

Notes of Show:

  • Matt and Mur come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Border Crossing (it’s an inside reference) with special guest co-host Christopher Brown.
  • Morgan’s border crossing is a cerebral crossing into expanding your mind (Matt mostly comes here for the colors), because Morgan is an open-world kind of guy.
  • Mur apologizes to Christopher for inadvertently botching her recording of Christopher’s interview on her OTHER podcast, I Should Be Writing.
  • Christopher talks about his novel, Tropic of Kansas (Harper Voyager, 2017), a dystopian road trip about a walled-off America, and how the themes and events in the book came to life around him after he finished it.
  • The Ditch Diggers discuss with Chris how writing a novel that abruptly became so topical affected, for better or worse, the process of shopping his novel to publishes and selling the book to the public.
  • The folly of chasing headlines and current events in your fiction, and how it mimics attempting to write to the market and chase the next fiction “trend.”
  • Matt and Mur engage Christopher on the subject of award season, as his novel is on the long list for the Compton Crook Award, and the three discuss the do’s and don’t’s of campaigning for literary awards.
  • Christopher talks about how awards and the marketing of them can be used to spotlight underseen and unrecognized work from around the world, using an anthology of Mexican fiction he edited/translated that was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, and how it affected and validated the authors, as a prime example.
  • The Ditch Diggers dive into the email question bag and take on the always popular topic of MFA’s.
  • The customary end of episode shilling (Ditch Diggers is once again eligible for Best Fancast Hugo!)

Twitter handles: Mur, Matt, Chris

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

ISBW #387: Learning to strike out // Jacob Sager Weinstein interview [REPOST]

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:02 — 29.7MB)

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I’ve had some website issues lately, and this went up on the temp website, but not this one, so I’m posting this if you missed it, and the new one will go up tomorrow.

Thanks for your patience!

—

This one is all about WHY it’s all right to write poorly, and what it can teach you.

Guest: Jacob Sager Weinstein

Podcasts, Projects

ISBW #386: NaNo Primer 2 // Grant Faulkner Interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:06 — 42.8MB)

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Grant Faulkner QuoteIt’s time to really prep for NaNoWriMo! We then talk to Grant Faulkner about time hunts, his new book, and how to kill writer’s block.

Remember to send me your NaNo username to add you as a friend and to enter a drawing to win BOTH Pep Talks for Writers AND I Should Be Writing!

Podcasts, Projects

ISBW #385: NaNo Primer 1 // Nicky Drayden Interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:26 — 35.3MB)

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NaNoWriMo is in less than a month! AUGH! So we talk prep, and we talk to Nicky Drayden, author of The Prey of Gods (which was a NaNo book!)

If you want to friend me on NaNoWriMo, I’m mightymur there as usual!

Remember, if you want to win The Prey of Gods, email me! I’ll draw a name at random and announce it on the next show!

AND if you want a daily NaNoWriMo boost, then support the Patreon! I’ll be doing a daily podcast there, a short note to encourage people to keep going. It’s fun.

Next on the podcast: Grant Faulkner from NaNoWriMo and author of Pep Talks for Writers.

  • Current Writing Project: Remora and Sam, a Patreon-only serial.
  • Currently reading: The Salt Line by Holly Goddard Jones (follow me on Goodreads if you like, I’m usually reading a bunch of stuff at once.)
  • Last movie seen: Blade Runner 2049
Podcasts, Projects

ISBW #383: Point of View // Beth Cato Interview

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:01 — 30.1MB)

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I discuss the power of point of view and how it makes us sympathize with characters, what the different words (protagonist, antagonist) means, and reference a bunch of books and movies. Then I talk to Beth Cato.

AND GUESS WHAT? You can WIN Beth Cato’s books! All you have to do is email me and I’ll do a random drawing on the next ISBW, but I’d really appreciate it if you spread the word on social media too.

I reference a lot of books this episode, links below! (affiliate)

The fine print:
Theme music by John Anealio.

Creative Commons License
I Should Be Writing #382 by Mur Lafferty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

 

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #44: Gavia Baker-Whitelaw and Freelance Ditches

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:09:51 — 64.1MB)

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How to dig freelance ditches

And what are freelance ditches anyway?
Digging Freelance Ditches: Sniper with doberman

  • Mur and Matt come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Pop Culture Popcorn Boutique, and Mur actually lets Matt do the intros.
  • The Ditch Diggers welcome special guest co-host, staff writer for The Daily Dot and pop culture analyst extraordinaire, Gavia Baker-Whitelaw!
  • Everyone immediately agrees that Gavia’s mom would make the best agent ever, and that would also be her pro-wrestling gimmick.
  • Gavia talks about being a full-time writer for The Daily Dot and her areas of expertise.
  • Matt asks Gavia what makes a good cultural criticism writer, and Gavia does her best to answer such a broad question.
  • Gavia talks about how livejournal fanfiction led to her current career, how she selects topics to cover, and the life of a piece at The Daily Dot.
  • Gavia talks about her side project The Rec Center and being steeped in fandom as a writer.
  • The validity of liquids in sandwiches, and the validity of fanfiction as a writing medium.
  • Twitter Q&A, including how a book, movie, etc. gets the attention of a market like The Daily Dot.

Links of interest:

Note: Mur will be appearing at WorldCon in Helsinki in a few weeks and doing a LIVE Ditch Diggers with writer and publisher Alasdair Stuart standing in for Matt (with Matt’s approval, naturally. We’re not staging a coup to replace Matt even though Al does have a better accent.) See my program here!

Affiliate links to our books!

Podcasts, Projects

ISBW #376: Must you be writing daily? And Robyn Bennis interview!

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Is Writing Daily a Necessity?

Writing daily, with Robyn Bennis interview
Robyn Bennis

A new article has writer Twitter in a froth. It turns out that someone wrote a clickbait article about how if you aren’t writing daily, then you might as well quit. This is so, so, so wrong.

Did I write daily for a while? Yes. Do I recommend the Magic Spreadsheet for others who want to write daily? Yes. Did it help me and others? Yes. But telling you that you MUST write daily because I did is like saying that since I ran a marathon, everyone must run a marathon else they have no chance of being an athlete. So I get into that more in this episode.

Then I talk to Robyn Bennis, author of the debut novel The Guns Above! (Note, the interview has some NSFW words but I reversed them, so there’s no swearing but there are a few strange backward-sounding words. But I do have a new tool coming to make bleeping words easier!)

Also, don’t miss the latest Ditch Diggers regarding parenting and a writing career!

Affiliate Links:

Podcasts, Projects

Ditch Diggers #36: Cassandra Khaw and Lack of Self Preservation

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:04:26 — 45.2MB)

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Matt and Mur come to you live from Morgan Freeman’s Harry Potter-themed Escape Room with special guest co-host Cassandra Khaw!

  • Morgan and JK Rowling have dueling Escape Rooms based on each other’s work and Cassandra is very perplexed.
  • Matt and Mur talk to Cassandra about developing her first video game, She Remembered Caterpillars, which encourages parents to talk with their kids about mortality and has been nominated for Best Children’s Game of the Year.
  • Matt makes it clear Mur is NOT encouraging parents to leave their kids in funeral home escape rooms to teach them about death.
  • Cassandra talks about her sophomore year writing and publishing fiction ranging from cthulhu noir to paranormal romance involving were-bears.
  • Breaking into video game reviews and tech writing, the Ditch Digger way.
  • Mur, Matt, and Cassandra discuss the mentality it takes to drop everything and physically relocate to pursue your writing career.
  • Long term vs. short term goals and motivation.
  • The Ditch Diggers discuss how technology has and will alter both of those things.
  • Mur reaffirms the DD commitment to discuss politics when it’s relevant to the show, whether you like it or not.
  • Twitter/email Q&A! Topics include finding freelance work, taxes for writers, pandas, non-fiction books vs. online markets, organizing multiple projects, and much more.
  • Cassandra Khaw on Twitter: https://twitter.com/casskhaw
  • Cassandra’s website: http://www.cassandrakhaw.com/

BOOKS AND GAMES BY CASSANDRA

MENTIONED BY CASSANDRA IN THE EPISODE

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Books, Podcasts, Projects

ISBW #370: Gamification // Jason Chabot and Kylie Chan Interviews

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I discuss how I try to get work done using Habitica and 4thewords.com. Then talk to Jason Chabot and Kylie Chan!

New books! Coming out January 31! Preorder now!

~
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