Gary Phillips (South Central Noir) & Molly Odintz (Austin Noir)

Today we’re focusing on noir and Barbara DeMarco-Barrett is with the perfect guests to talk about it: Molly Odintz and Gary Phillips. Molly is senior editor for CrimeReads and editor and contributor to Austin Noir (Akashic). She grew up in Austin and was a bookseller at BookPeople. Gary Phillips has published various novels, comics, short stories and edited several anthologies including the Anthony-winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir and South Central Noir, recently published by Akashic. The Washington Post named his novel One-Shot Harry as one of the best mysteries of 2022, and it’s been nominated for a Nero and Macavity awards. He was also a staff writer and co-producer on Snowfall, streaming on Hulu about crack and the CIA in 1980s South Central where he grew up. And Barbara edited and contributed a story to Palm Springs Noir, also published by Akashic.

Molly and Gary joined Barbara to talk about noir (what it is, it's history), putting together an anthology, the Writers Guild strike, beginning stories, the role of an editor when putting together an anthology, and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 26, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett

Kelly McMasters, author of “The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays”

Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, and former bookshop owner. She is the co-editor of This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press, 2017) and the ABA national bestseller Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult, 2023).

Her first book, Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, was listed as one of Oprah's top 5 summer memoirs and is the basis for the documentary film ‘The Atomic States of America,’ a 2012 Sundance selection.

Kelly joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest release, The Leaving Season: A Memoir-in-Essays (WW Norton, 2023). They discuss how this form mirrors the novel-in-short-story form and its differences. They discuss flash versus conventional essays, discovering what your essay is really about, and one piece of advice Kelly always uses during her revision process. Kelly also shares her insights about making a living as a writer and artist, what it requires, and why she won’t compromise. There are also references to advice Kelly gave in her TedX Talk about experiencing “voice block” (as opposed to “writer’s block”).

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on June 28, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett

Candi Sary, author of MAGDALENA

Candi Sary is a graduate from the University of California, Irvine. Her novel, Black Crow White Lie, won a Reader Views Literary Award, a Chanticleer International Book Award, and was First Runner-Up in the Eric Hoffer Book Award. Her new novel, Magdalena, will be released by Regal House Publishing on July 11. A mother of two adult children, Sary lives in Southern California with her husband, a dog, a cat and several ducks. 

Candi Sary joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about Magdalena and the path to publication. She also talks about creating a playlist to put you in the head of your protagonist and the world of your story, her influences, ghosts, taking your time, how Magdalena affected the writing of her current novel, and more

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on June 16, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett

Andrew Porter, author of the collection “The Disappeared”

Andrew Porter is the author of the short story collection The Theory of Light and Matter, which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the novel In Between Days, which was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection and an IndieBound “Indie Next” selection, and the short story collection The Disappeared, which was published in April 2023.

Andrew’s short stories have appeared in One Story, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, The Threepenny Review, and Prairie Schooner, among others. He has had his work read on NPR’s Selected Shorts and twice selected as one of the Distinguished Stories of the Year by Best American Short Stories. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Andrew is currently a Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Trinity University in San Antonio.

Andrew joins Marrie Stone to talk about The Disappeared. He talks about the state of the short story in contemporary fiction (with references to Rebecca Makkai’s article about why we should be reading short stories), and what short stories can do for readers that novels cannot. He shares insights from his former professor, Marilynne Robinson, about endings. He talks about how he approaches flash fiction. He discusses why three is such a magical number of characters for a story, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on June 13, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett

Jude Atwood, author of MAYBE THERE ARE WITCHES

Jude Atwood is the author of the new novel, Maybe There Are Witches. Jude grew up on a farm in small-town Illinois. After graduating from Bradley University and Chapman University, he became a community college professor in Orange County, California. His first novel, Maybe There Are Witches, published by Regal House, won the Kraken Prize for Middle Grade Fiction.

Jude joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about creating a fictional town, how plotting allows you to write chapters out of order, beginning with character, writing side characters, submitting to publishers, book banning and more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

An eternal thanks to our patrons. Your support enables us to do what we do. We appreciate every one of you. Thank you.

(Recorded on June 16, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett

Janelle Brown, author of “I’ll Be You”

Janelle Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels I’ll Be You, Pretty Things, Watch Me Disappear, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, and This Is Where We Live. Her books have been sold in two dozen countries around the world. Pretty Things - named a Best Book of 2020 by Amazon - and I’ll Be You are both currently being adapted for television.

Janelle joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest, I’ll Be You. She talks about her former journalism career and how it serves her fiction, why she enjoys working with characters afflicted by addiction, how winding back to a character’s childhood often unlocks their psychology, the writing challenges and exercises she gave herself to find her characters’ voices, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

Thank you to our new patrons — Dan Conway, Dina Andre, Kelly Gates, and Jan Mannino —who joined us in June. Thank you to our May patrons Judi Ulrey, Susan Nolen and Robert Leming. And a very special thanks to our longtime and loyal patrons who have been with us and stayed with us — Maureen Dunphy, Helena Touseull, Deana Pink, Valerie Kurita, Stephanie King, Elizabeth Duran, Maura Conlon-McIvor, Jace Burgess, Elizabeth Benedict, Lacey Beattie, Connie Nash, Lisa Cupolo, Holly Norton, Victor Mariano, Aimee Wing, Tanya, Patti Jazanoski, Leslie Archibald, Candi Sary, Melora Leiser, Robin Kalota, Craig Elbe, Debra Cross, Amy Muia, Deborah Gaal, Anne Dunham, Kathleen Peterson, Annabel Daguerre, Maggie Ginsberg, Richard Polt, Dennis McNamara, Kimber Grey, and Nathan Sandiford. Your support enables us to do what we do. We appreciate every one of you. Thank you.

(Recorded on June 6, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett

Andre Dubus III, author of SUCH KINDNESS

Andre Dubus III is the author of The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, Bluesman, and the New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. He’s been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The National Magazine Award for Fiction, Two Pushcart Prizes, and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. His books have been published in more than 25 languages, and he is a Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His new novel is Such Kindness, published by Norton.

On the show, Andre Dubus and Barbara DeMarco-Barrett discuss how ideas take form, how much he knows about his characters before he begins, writing interiority, writing in his car, having a father who was a writer, why he’s haunted by his novel The House of Sand and Fog, and his big problem with social media.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 12, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett

Lisa See, author of “Lady Tan’s Circle of Women”

Lisa See’s twelfth book, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, follows the life of Tan Yunxian, a 15th century doctor during the Ming Dynasty in China (a relatively unheard of concept back then). It explores marriage, motherhood, and medicine through her eyes, as well as the lives of the women around her (midwives, concubines, her powerful mother-in-law, and even the Chinese empress).

Lisa joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, and how her research and writing process changed as a result of the pandemic. She talks about how much she outlines the story before beginning to write, how she approaches the research, how she tackles “cringy” scenes, how she accesses her minor characters, how losing her own mother (the writer Carolyn See) has impacted her subsequent novels, and how she’ll approach future writing differently in light of what this book taught her.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 31, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Danya Kukafka, author of NOTES ON AN EXECUTION

Danya Kukafka is the author of the nationally bestselling novels Notes on an Execution and Girl in Snow. Her books have been reviewed favorably in outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, and have been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide. Notes on an Execution recently won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, and is currently in development as a feature film. Danya works as a literary agent with Trellis Literary Management.

Danya joined Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about using a time lock, keeping a process journal, point of view, how being an agent affects her own writing, genres and categories, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 26, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Cathleen Schine, author of “Künstlers in Paradise”

Cathleen Schine is the author of 13 novels, including The Love Letter, which was made into a movie starring Kate Capshaw, Rameau’s Niece, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, and The Grammarians. Her articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. Her essays have been included in Best American Essays 2005, an Anthology of New Yorker Humor, and elsewhere.

Cathleen joins Marrie Stone to talk about her latest novel, Künstlers in Paradise. She talks about writing during the pandemic and how it influenced this novel, as well as whether humor can still be an appropriate tone, given world events. Cathleen shares insights about writing dialogue and dialect across cultures and generations, how addressing problematic things within the novel can help solve the problem, her research process, organizing her materials, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 28, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Anthony Chin-Quee, author of “I Can’t Save You"

Anthony Chin-Quee is a board certified Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, and Throat surgeon) with degrees from Harvard University and Emory University School of Medicine. He has done multiple performances for The Moth, where he’s won their local Story Slam, placed as a runner-up in the Detroit Grand Slam, and performed on their NYC mainstage. He was a medical consultant for ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and a member of the writing staff of FOX’s The Resident for two seasons, distilling complex medical and social issues into palatable and understandable mainstream storylines. His memoir, I Can’t Save You: A Memoir— a candid account of the ways in which medical residency training shattered the mind of an empathetic, well-intentioned doctor, and the arduous task of piecing it back together again through painful and overdue self-discovery—was released by Riverhead Books on April 4th, 2023 to critical acclaim. He has published opinions in Forbes and been interviewed by NPR on the topic of systemic racism in medical education. Anthony currently resides in England with his wife and daughter.

Tony talked with Barbara about the path to publishing his debut memoir, nailing the voice, finding an agent, dealing with rejection, honesty in memoir, writing with a reader in mind, and more

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 12, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Ann Napolitano, author of “Hello Beautiful”

Ann Napolitano’s latest novel, Hello Beautiful, was an instant New York Times bestseller and Oprah’s 100th Book Club pick. Her last novel, Dear Edward, was published by Dial Press in January 2020 and was also a New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna selection, and was released on February 3rd as an Apple TV+ series. You can find an interview with Ann about that novel in our archives.

Ann is also the author of A Good Hard Look and Within Arm’s Reach. She was the Associate Editor of One Story literary magazine from 2014-2020.

Ann joins Marrie Stone to talk about Hello Beautiful. In addition to the book’s backstory, they talk about the many months Ann forces herself to spend on a book before beginning to write, how to pay attention to your unique inner magnetic board as a writer, the advice about endings she follows from George Saunders, and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on May 3, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Kenan Orhan, author of the collection “I Am My Country”

Kenan Orhan’s fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The Common, Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Prize Stories and The Best American Short Stories. His story collection, I Am My Country and Other Stories, is published by Random House. Kenan teaches literature and creative writing at the Kansas City Art Institute and lives in Kansas.

He joins Marrie Stone to talk about the collection, his relationship with Turkey, how his approach to the short story form has changed over time, how his stories exemplify and depart from the Joy Williams’ rules of short stories, and much more. Kenan also talks about finding his agent and his path to publication.

A reminder that April is the one-year anniversary of our Patreon page, and 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the show. We’re winding down the month, but still offering some additional perks and incentives through the end of April. To learn more, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 11, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Idra Novey, author of TAKE WHAT YOU NEED

Idra Novey’s new novel is Take What You Need, published by Viking. She is also the author of Those Who Knew, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her first novel Ways to Disappear, received the 2017 Sami Rohr Prize, the 2016 Brooklyn Eagles Prize, and was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Her poetry collections include Exit, Civilian, The Next Coun­try, and Clarice: The Visitor, a collaboration with the artist Erica Baum. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into a dozen languages and she’s written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine, and The Paris Review. She is the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Poets & Writ­ers Mag­a­zine, the PEN Trans­la­tion Fund, and the Poetry Foundation. Her works as a translator include Clarice Lispector’s novel The Pas­sion Accord­ing to G.H. She teaches fiction at Princeton University.

On the show Barbara talked with Idra about being a genre misfit, the lack of quotation marks, subtext, the crossover from poetry and translation, welding, and much more.

A reminder that April is the one-year anniversary of our Patreon page, and 2023 is the 25th anniversary of the show. To celebrate, we’re offering some additional perks and incentives all month long. To learn more, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 15, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Book Coach Jennie Nash, author of “Blueprint for a Book”

Jennie Nash is the founder of Author Accelerator, a book coaching service that has helped hundreds of writers complete their book projects. Her clients have landed top New York agents; snagged 5- and 6-figure deals from publishers such as Scribner, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Norton, and Hachette; hit the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller list; been chosen for the Reese Witherspoon Book Club; and won dozens of national indie book awards.

Jennie has spent 30 years on all sides of the publishing industry and is the author of four novels, three memoirs, and four self-help books for writers including The Writer’s Guide to Agony and Defeat: The 43 Worst Moments in the Writing Life and How to Get over Them; Blueprint for a Book: Build Your Novel From the Inside Out; Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book: Plan and Pitch Your Big Idea; and Read Books All Day & Get Paid For It.

Jennie joins Marrie to talk about the art and business of book coaching, what coaches can (and cannot) do for you, how to know when you need one, when in the process to hire one, and how they differ from having an editor or MFA advisor. She also walks through some of the strategies in her Blueprint manuals and how they can be combined with other writing methods (such as Save the Cat , Robert McKee’s Story, John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story, etc.). She says spending a few weeks asking yourself some foundational questions about your book at the beginning might save you hundreds of pages and years of work.

A reminder that April is the one-year anniversary of our Patreon page, and 2023 is the 25th anniversary of the show. To celebrate, we’re offering some additional perks and incentives all month long. To learn more, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on April 5, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Richard Bausch, author of PLAYHOUSE

Richard Bausch is the author of 13 novels and 8 collections of short stories. He’s been published everywhere: The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and Narrative, to name a few. He’s been awarded a Guggenheim, and has won too many awards to mention. He’s currently a professor at Chapman University in Orange, California. Visit his website to learn more.

On the show Barbara DeMarco-Barrett talked with Richard Bausch about his current novel, Playhouse, writing multiple POV characters, not staying in your lane, what he does when he hits a wall, what’s most useful to writers who want to get better, and so much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on March 31, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Sadeqa Johnson, author of "The House of Eve"

Sadeqa Johnson’s latest novel, The House of Eve, hit the New York Times bestseller list as soon as it was published. It was also a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick for the month of February. But Sadeqa fought for her success. The House of Eve was her fifth published novel and her second historical fiction novel. Getting off the ground took perseverance and ingenuity.

Sadeqa shares her unconventional path to success, her move from contemporary domestic fiction to historical fiction and how she approaches the two genres, how her background in acting serves her fiction, her approach to research, revision, dialogue and more, and how she’s learned to speak — and listen — to her characters.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on March 20, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Margot Douaihy, author of SCORCHED GRACE

Margot Douaihy earned a BA in Writing from the University of Pittsburgh Writing Program, an MA in Creative & Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, and a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Douaihy is the author of the true-crime poetry project Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr; Scranton Lace; the Lambda Literary Finalist Girls Like You (Clemson University Press); and I Would Ruby If I Could (Factory Hollow Press). Douaihy’s sleuth fiction inhabits and reconstructs hardboiled PI tropes through a queer lens. Douaihy’s work has been featured in PBS NewsHour, Colorado Review, Madison Review, Tahoma Literary Review, North American Review, among others. Honors include the Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award, Finalist (2020), Red Hen Press Quill Prose Award, Finalist (2019), C&R Press Best Novel Award, Longlist (2018), Lambda Literary Award Poetry, Finalist (2015), and River Styx Micro-Fiction Contest Finalist (2015).

Margot joins Barbara to talk about Scorched Grace, the first imprint of Gillian Flynn/Zando. They talk about the irreverent nun protagonist, Sister Holiday in the mystery novel, naming characters, writing dialogue, backstory, and so much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

Recorded in March, 2023.

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Kelly Link on her latest collection, “White Cat, Black Dog”

Kelly Link is the author of four previous story collections including Get in Trouble, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize (a link to her interview with Marrie about that book can be found here). Her short stories have been widely published in literary magazines including The Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. She’s also the co-founder of Small Beer Press and co-edits the occasional zine Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet.

Kelly joins Marrie to talk about her latest collection, White Cat, Black Dog, out later this month and published by Random House. They talk about the role of fairy tales, Scottish ballads, and 17th century French lore in her work. Kelly walks through the evolution of several stories, the ways some of them surprised her, and how her illustrator was able to communicate something about one story that Kelly was not willing to include. Kelly talks about the Joy Williams’ list of 8 essential things every story needs and much more.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on March 2, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett

Jordan Harper, author of EVERYBODY KNOWS

Jordan Harper, the Edgar-Award winning author of She Rides Shotgun and Love and Other Wounds, has been an ad man, a rock critic, and a writer/producer for television. He was born and raised in Missouri and now lives in Los Angeles. His new novel is Everybody Knows. On the show Jordan talked about his path to crime fiction, the Los Angeles setting, beginning and ending the novel, renting a room at the famed Chateau Marmont to write the first chapter, and so much more.

This interview was done on Zoom on Sunday, Feb 26, 2023 for Sisters in Crime Orange County. If you prefer watching the interview, visit Barbara’s YouTube channel (Barbara DeMarco-Barrett) or the YouTube channel for Sisters in Crime Orange County. On both channels, there are a number of interviews.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit the show’s Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded on February 26, 2023, for Sisters in Crime Orange County.) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett