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Writers talk craft, agent hunt, query trenches, publishing industry, and more. Hosted by Mindy McGinnis.
Episodes
Monday Sep 11, 2017
Monday Sep 11, 2017
Host Mindy McGinnis is joined by Jeff Zentner, author of the William C. Morris Award winning and Carnegie Medal longlisted book The Serpent King (2016). Jeff shares about how his love of music led him into a career as a novelist, drawing inspiration from people in real life to populate the pages of your fiction, and how to effectively write the opposite gender.
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Monday Sep 04, 2017
Monday Sep 04, 2017
Guest Madeleine Roux, New York Times Bestselling Author of the ASYLUM series, joins host Mindy McGinnis to talk about the neglect of genre fiction in the educational setting, her unique method of garnering an agent, the ever-present disdain of YA, the pressure of following up a New York Times Bestselling series, and the pain of having a project close to your heart not find its audience.
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Monday Jul 24, 2017
Monday Jul 24, 2017
This month host Mindy McGinnis welcomed Middle Grade novelist and playwright Tara Dairman as well as Regional SCBWI Director and YA author Jody Casella. Listen to their episodes to learn about such topics as querying when you are already a published author, and how to use social media as an MG writer - which means your audience isn't necessarily online.
Also, learn about H.R. 1695 - the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act. What is it, and why should you care?
Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire will be taking a break during the month of August. New listeners, take the time to catch up on the 21 published episodes!
Monday Jul 17, 2017
Monday Jul 17, 2017
Today’s guest is Jody Casella, author and a former high school English teacher. Her YA novel Thin Space received a starred review from Kirkus. She blogs, reviews books, speaks at libraries and schools, and teaches workshops at the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio. She is the Regional Director of the Ohio Central/South region of SCBWI. Jody joined host Mindy McGinnis to talk about MFA’s, querying as an already published writer, the benefits of joining SCBWI - the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators - and how attending book festivals geared for readers can also be beneficial to writers.
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Monday Jul 10, 2017
Monday Jul 10, 2017
Today’s episode is being featured on Podbean’s crowd support service. If you like what we do here, please consider supporting the show by visiting https://patron.podbean.com/writerwriterpantsonfire
For a dollar a month you’ll get a thank you from me, Mindy McGinnis, on the blog or through one of my social media accounts. For five bucks you get a shoutout on a podcast episode, and for ten you can pose questions or suggest topics for the end of the month guest-free show. Twenty dollars will get you a Google chat with myself, or if you’re a writer looking to advertise your book, a freelance editor or copyeditor who would like to air your services to the aspiring writers who listen in here, checkout the patron crowd funding services offered through Podbean.
Today's guest is Tara Dairman whose debut novel All Four Stars, about an 11 y/o restaurant critic moonlighting for New York’s biggest newspaper was published in 2014, followed by The Stars of Summer and Stars So Sweet in 2015 and 2016. A new standalone middle-grade novel, The Great Hibernation, will hit the shelves on September 12.
Tara joined me to talk about how a contest helped her gain an invitation to query a closed agency, how to navigate social media when your target audience may not be there, and the question of who you write for when you write middle grade – the kids, or the gatekeepers?
Episode Links:
Monday Jul 03, 2017
Monday Jul 03, 2017
Host Mindy McGinnis rounds up the guests and topics for the month of June, as well as shares a little on the history of copyright in the US, the Berne Convention, and what this means for writers today.
Monday Jun 26, 2017
Monday Jun 26, 2017
Today’s guest is Jessica Strawser, editor of Writer’s Digest, and author of ALMOST MISSED YOU, which was named to the March 2017 Barnes & Noble Best New Fiction List. Jessica joins host Mindy McGinnis to talk about how her career in journalism led to a position at Writers Digest, and how that informs her fiction writing, as well as her novel, ALMOST MISSED YOU, which deals with miscommunication in relationships, the all-encompassing love of motherhood, and the question of if we truly know our significant other.
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Monday Jun 19, 2017
Monday Jun 19, 2017
Author Tiffany McDaniel, an Ohio native whose writing is inspired by the rolling hills and buckeye woods of the land she knows, joins host Mindy McGinnis. She is the winner of The Guardian's 2016 "Not-the-Booker Prize" for her debut novel, The Summer that Melted Everything. The novel is a current nominee for the Lillian Smith Book Award, and a finalist for the Ohioana Literary Award and the Women's Fiction Writers Association Star Award for Outstanding Debut. Tiffany talks about eleven years of rejection, making sure that human emotion and characters trump the setting, being a female author who prefers to write dark themes, and the cons of using technology in your manuscript.
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Monday Jun 12, 2017
Monday Jun 12, 2017
Today’s guest is Kim Dinan, author of the memoir, The Yellow Envelope: One Gift, Three Rules, and a Life Changing Journey Around the World. She has backpacked to over twenty-five countries on five continents. Her love of the outdoors landed her a coveted job on Backpacker Magazine’s Get Out More Tour and has compelled her to climb mountains in the Himalayas, raft frigid rivers in Patagonia, and walk five hundred and fifty miles across Spain on her own. Her popular travel blog, So Many Places, was named one of the best outdoor blogs by USA Today and has been featured online by such sites as Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.
Kim joins host Mindy McGinnis to talk about the difference between querying fiction and non-fiction and her need to write that started with a blog, and culminated with a memoir, as well as writing the truth in non-fiction even when it’s not flattering to yourself or others, and trying not to take reviews personally when you write memoir. Also, Kim’s journeys around the world and her take on active motherhood.
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Monday Jun 05, 2017
Monday Jun 05, 2017
Michelle Gagnon, author of the Kelly Jones mystery series, the YA tech-thriller Persefone trilogy, as well as her newest, a Jane Eyre retelling titled Unearthly Things, joins host Mindy McGinnis to talk about the process of acquiring an agent, the hard truth about discovering your agent is a bad fit after the fact, and the unique differences in screenplay writing versus fiction. Also covered: jumping from adult to YA audiences and reading Jane Eyre as an adult and discovering that Rochester is… kind of a creeper.
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