Write The Book

Vermont Author Nancy Hayes Kilgore, in a conversation about her new novel, Bitter Magic (Sunbury Press). As we mentioned during our interview, one character who Nancy Hayes Kilgore describes in Bitter Magic is the devil himself. He appears to Isobel Gowdie in a spot where a tree had stood only moments before. She depicts him as a blonde man wearing green, but during their encounter he changes. This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write a character based on a famous non-human entity: a leprechaun, a fairy, a centaur, a cherub, a poltergeist, a ghost. Consider what you feel to be accurate about how this entity has been depicted historically, and how you might change that depiction. Will you use this character in your work without naming who or what it’s based on, or will you leave that to readers to identify? Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 693

An interview from the archives with consultant and teacher Carolyn Conger, PhD, about her book Through the Dark Forest: Transforming Your Life in the Face of Death (Plume).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was inspired by the book, Through the Dark Forest: Transforming Your Life in the Face of Death. No matter where you are in life - age-wise, health-wise, or otherwise - this week consider what you’ve left unfinished so far in your life, and what you would like to do about it. Maybe also keep in mind how you have navigated the pandemic, and whether the past year and a half have made you feel more vulnerable. Write about all the things that come up as you invite these thoughts and feelings. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 692  

Poet, editor, scholar, and musician Tony Trigilio, whose new collection is Proof Something Happened, winner of the 2020 Marsh Hawk Poetry Prize. This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Tony Trigilio. This prompt is adapted from John Daido Loori's The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life. Sit with an object/memory/experience until it begins to reveal itself to you -- its details, contours, emotions, and so on. Be open to the possibility that you might need to sit for a long time. As you get more comfortable with the object's familiar contours, the odd, strange, subtle, mysterious, and absurd (and equally-as-real) aspects of this object of your mind will reveal themselves. Express these in a poem - any form, shape, structure, tone, or pitch. You are writing about "what else" the object is, and likely also writing about "what it is not." Like a painter working with negative space, this approach can help you discover the fullest sense of your subject matter. Good luck

Best-selling author Caroline Leavitt, whose novel With or Without You just came out in paperback (Algonquin Books).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Caroline Leavitt. Write a page about two people who are in love without mentioning passion, desire, kids or any other words associated with love. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 690

Interview from the archives with poet and prose writer Barbara Henning, regarding her book A Swift Passage (Quale Press). I have family visiting this week - lots of loved ones filling our two guest rooms, and sleeping on the floor in the finished basement, and in one case staying in the dining room. It’s a lot of fun, and a bit of a clown car. Today’s Write the Book Prompt is to imagine a house full of visitors. What might look like in your case? Where will everyone sleep? How do they all get along? What do you feed them? Do any old rivalries resurface? Old flames? Does anything happen to create a moment of excitement or adventure? How would you establish the characteristics of each person to turn these visitors into interesting characters in a work of prose or poetry? Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 689

Bestselling author Christina Baker Kline, whose novel The Exiles, came out in paperback this month from Custom House.  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Christina Baker Kline, who suggests writing the details of your morning, making sure to include all five senses in the first paragraph. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 688

Local author, yoga practitioner, and teacher Kyle Ferguson, whose new book (with co-author Anthony Grudin) is Beyond Hot Yoga: On Patterns, Practice and Movement (North Atlantic Books).  Kyle's reading during our interview is excepted from Beyond Hot Yoga: On Patterns, Practice, and Movement by Kyle Ferguson and Anthony Grudin, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2021 by Kyle Ferguson and Anthony Grudin. Used by permission of publisher. One concept discussed in the book is that of “flipping” an established practice—turning it on its head, you might say—to explore the power of opposition. Can we do this as a writing exercise? What is a pattern for which you regularly reach? Do you always write in the morning and find it’s not flowing lately? Maybe write after lunch instead, or last thing at night; maybe write in a notebook rather than on the laptop. Craft-wise, do you start every scene mid-dialogue? Do you use the same tired gestures for your main character? How might you flip these patterns to expl

Author Patrick Hicks, whose new novel is In the Shadow of Dora: A Novel of the Holocaust and the Apollo Program (Stephen F. Austin University Press ).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously suggested by my guest, Patrick Hicks. In order to develop new characters and make them believable, it's crucial to know their likes and dislikes. Patrick spends quite a bit of time doing character sketches before he starts writing in order to know their backgrounds and personalities. For fun, he sends his characters to the grocery store to buy five items. What do they need? What do they buy? Don't think about this for very long -- just write it down. What they buy will tell you something about their personalities, their wants and desires, and their daily lives. How do they get to the grocery store? By bus? Car? What kind of car do they drive? Why that particular kind of car? Do they have bumper stickers? What's in the car? How are they dressed when they go shopping? What are they thinking about as they move thro

Award-winning Irish Author Rachel Donohue, whose new novel is The Temple House Vanishing (Algonquin).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Rachel Donohue, who suggests writing a paragraph in which your character is in one mood at the beginning, and a different mood by the end.  Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 685

Interview from the archives with Vermont Poet Daniel Lusk. This conversation took place at the time that his collection Kin was published (Maple Tree Editions). This week’s Write the Book Prompt comes from a local writer and artist who lives in Bristol, Vermont: Lily Hinrichsen. Choose one of the works of art on her website, and write an ekphrastic poem. Ekphrastic comes from the Greek word for description. Here’s a definition from the Poetry Foundation:  an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.  So my suggestion is that you visit Lily’s website, take a look at the art there, and write! If you choose to share the outcome with me, I’ll share it with Lily, and she may post it on her website at the side of the work you chose to write about.   Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prom

Author and award-winning poet Natasha Sajé, whose new book is Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity University Press).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Natasha Sajé, who discussed the concept during our conversation, referring to “The Flash Forward” and “The Flash Back.” As long as your readers know the present moment of a scene, and that scene is clear to them, you can move around in time to inform the moment, making it richer and deeper. In Natasha’s book, she presents a dinner party in such a way that it becomes an elegy to friends she will later lose to AIDs. And so a dinner party scene gives way to a flash forward of what is coming - the AIDS epidemic, insight into its roots and politics, lives lost, a community devastated. That scene in turn brings us back to the happy dinner party, so that we finish by reading the “present” moment of the party scene. A mouse runs through the room, Natasha and another guest scream, and the scene ends almost comically, but still a str

Marcia Butler, author of Oslo, Maine (Central Avenue Publishing). This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, Marcia Butler, who suggests writing a 1200 word short/short story in the first person point of view. But do not use the pronouns “I” “Me” or “My” until at least halfway through, and preferably at the very end. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion. Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 682  

An interview from the archives with Vermont Author Alec Hastings, whose 2013 debut novel was Otter St. Onge and the Bootleggers: A Tale of Adventure, published by The Public Press. This one first aired on The Radiator!  This week's Write the Book Prompt is to write about a flight delay (which I'm presently experiencing...)  Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.  Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 681    

Award winning British Author Rupert Thomson, whose latest novel is Barcelona Dreaming (Other Press).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt was inspired by my conversation with Rupert Thomson, who mentions Christine Schutt as an author who values "sentence magicians," those writers who particularly focus on sentence-level writing and revision to the benefit of their prose. Rupert refers to the way one excellent sentence can flow into the next, and how the best of these transitions will create tension. He mentions Mary Gaitskill, Joy Williams, Denis Johnson, William Faulkner, and Flannery O'Connor as some of his own favorite "sentence magicians." This week, study your sentences. Are they doing all they can for your work? Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.  Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 680

An interview from the archives with British Author Diane Setterfield. We discuss her novel, Bellman & Black (Atria/Emily Bestler Books).  Diane Setterfield’s novel Bellman & Black begins with a child’s prank that has far-reaching consequences. Today’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about such a moment in the life of one of your characters--an act of thoughtlessness or cruelty that reverberates long past what he or she might have expected. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion. Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 679

Vermont poet and author Erika Nichols-Frazer, who has edited a new collection on themes of mental health, A Tether to This World: Stories and Poems About Recovery (Main Street Rag). We are joined later in the hour by the poet A. E. Hines, a contributor to the collection.  This week we have two Write the Book Prompts, thanks to the generosity of my guests. The first was offered by Erika Nichols-Frazer, who credits it to the poet Chelsie Diane. Write a letter to yourself that starts with the phrase “I forgive you.”  And Earl, who publishes as A.E. Hines, shares an exercise on practicing self exposure. Pick a moment from your past or a personal circumstance that stands out in your mind as embarrassing: one that makes you at least slightly uneasy when sharing it. Now write a short poem about that experience using either second or third person — as if you’re telling the story about someone else. It doesn’t have to be a big thing; it could be something you did, a mistake you made, or something that happened to you

Author David Laskin, in a conversation from 2013 about his book. The Family: A Journey Into the Heart of the Twentieth Century (Penguin).  In March 2021, he published a novel, What Sammy Knew (Penguin). This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to write about someone who follows through on a bad idea, even though they know it will be a bad idea.  Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 677

Vermont Author Joseph Covais, whose debut novel is Quiet Room, the first in the "Psychotherapy With Ghosts" trilogy (New Line).  This week’s Write the Book Prompt is to consider an alternative to the conventional discovery of a ghost -- that blood curdling scream and dash out of the house with your arms in the air. If you spent the night in an old, unfamiliar home and found a ghost leaning over you in the middle of the night, could you  maintain your presence of mind and ask the spirit a question? What might you say? Write a short dialogue and see what comes. Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.   Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 676

Author David Arnold, whose new novel is The Electric Kingdom (Viking Books for Young Readers). This week’s Write the Book Prompt was generously offered by my guest, David Arnold. His first inspiration for The Electric Kingdom came to him as he was a new stay-at-home Dad, caring for his newborn son. It was the image of a boarded-up farmhouse in the middle of the woods. (I suggested that maybe his new-dad brain was trying to encourage him to rent a cabin as a writing retreat. He said no...) For him, the farmhouse allowed him to begin taking notes for The Electric Kingdom. He invites us to use that same image as a prompt this week.  A farmhouse, deep in the woods, boards over the windows. Where does this take you? Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion. Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 675

Two interviews from the archives. Ralph Culver, author of Both Distances (Anabiosis), has a new book coming in the fall: A Passable Man (MadHat Press). And James Fallon is the author of The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain (Current).  This week's Write the Book Prompt is again visual. Take a look at the photo,  below, and write!  Image via https://unsplash.com/@bewakoofofficial Good luck with your work in the coming week, and tune in next week for another prompt or suggestion.  Music Credit: Aaron Shapiro 673