podcast – Page 3 – marginally

Episode 33’s interview with poet and book publicist Abigail Welhouse reminds us that wanting attention is fine

Meghan April 23, 2018 No Comments

In Episode 33, we sat down to talk to poet, book publicist and horseback riding instructor Abigail Welhouse, a great treat for April, which is National Poetry Month. Abigail is the author of Bad Baby (dancing girl press), Too Many Humans of New York (Bottlecap Press), and Memento Mori (a poem/comic collaboration with Evan Johnston), and works as a publicist at Scott Manning & Associates. She also works in a second day job for GallopNYC as a horseback riding instructor.

You can follow her by subscribing to her Secret Poems at tinyletter.com/welhouse, following her on Twitter (@welhouse), or check out her website at welhouse.nyc.

Full show notes and the episode are available here. You can also get Marginally on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever get your podcasts.

news, podcast, tips, you can do it too

Episode 32 is all about revising

Meghan April 16, 2018 No Comments

In Episode 32, we talk about lots of different elements of revising. We decided to do this episode because Olivia is about to (probably) embark on a revision of her novel, and Meghan’s wrapping one of hers, so she had some wise words to share. We talk about lots of stages of revising and rewriting, and we also give a shout-out to our (erm, Meghan’s) favorite books about the process.

Listen and get the full show notes and list here.

news, podcast, prompts

Episode 30 is all about writing prompts

Meghan April 2, 2018 No Comments

It’s the first episode of the month, which means it’s prompt time! In Episode 30 (holy cow, 30 episodes!), we share our responses to the March writing prompt, which, if you don’t remember it, was the one-word prompt: “peremptory.” In the course of this, we discuss the backstory for Meghan’s novel and how to tell a story from the point of view of a cat. We also share the April writing prompt, from DIYMFA’s Writer Igniter. Get the full show notes here, and check out all our writing prompts here.

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inspiration, news, podcast

In episode 29, we pretend we know something about short stories

Meghan March 26, 2018 No Comments

In response to a listener request (hi Rossi from Lit and Pie!), we spill all we know about short stories and the non-fiction version, essays. How we read them, what we use them for, and why you might want to give them a try. Full show notes are here.

news, pep talk, podcast, update, you can do it too

Episode 28 is short and sweet

Olivia March 19, 2018 No Comments

Episode 28 is short in duration but rich in news and content. We give a shout-out to two listeners who listed us in their favorite podcast lists (LitandPie and Audrey J Martin). Thanks again for that!

Then we talk about a new occasional feature that we’re calling “You can do it, too,” all about margin-writers we’ve been reading about, who’ve used their day job in their writing or who talk about their day jobs.

And finally, we’ve got a What’s Working Now/Everything’s Terrible.

And maybe pneumonia and some howling cats.

Full show notes here.

day jobs, getting it done, inspiration, podcast, rituals, tips

On Episode 27, Hamid Ismailov reminds us how a day job can help your writing

Olivia March 12, 2018 No Comments

In today’s episode, we talked to the BBC journalist and prolific novelist Hamid Ismailov. Hamid has a fascinating day job – Editor of the Central Asia service at the BBC World Service – but he still makes time in evenings several months a year to write novels. He shared with us his system for averaging one novel for year, but still having time to daydream about your next project(s), and why he doesn’t want to quit his day job.

Hamid is the author of numerous books in Russian and Uzbek, which have been translated into English and many other languages. His most recent book is The Devils’ Dance. One of his first books to receive widespread acclaim in English is The Railway, which has an untraditional, folkloric structure and many fantastic characters. Since then, in English he has published several books, including The Dead Lake, about the area of Kazakhstan where nuclear testing had occurred previously, an elegy about Moscow called The Underground, and A Poet and Bin Laden, and many more books and artistic projects that have not been tranlsated. He was formerly the BBC’s Writer in Residence, and during that time he wrote many lovely blog posts.

We enjoyed talking to him, and we think you’ll learn from and be inspired by our discussion with him this week.

Full show notes are here.

podcast, prompts

Episode 26 is live, with lots of writing prompt responses

Olivia March 5, 2018 No Comments

In Episode 26, we read through our responses to the February writing prompts – all about adapting your work to the style of a book on your bookshelf.

And, even better, we got a listener prompt response for the January writing prompt, about describing someone’s job search. We loved reading Maria’s response, and we think you’ll like it too.

Finally, we announced our March writing prompt – a one-word prompt:

Full show notes are here.

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getting it done, news, podcast, productivity

Episode 25 answers your burning questions about answering questions

Meghan February 26, 2018 No Comments

Today, we answer a listener question from Maria, who wanted to know how we approach research. We talk about how all books need research, not just nonfiction historical fiction, when to google and when to ask someone, the stages of research, and our tools and processes.

Next week will be our monthly writing prompt episode, so don’t forget to send in your responses! All our prompts are here, and even if you don’t want us to share yours on air, we’ll still send you a critique and enter you into our drawing for fun writer mail.

You can listen to the full episode and get show notes here.

Let us know — how do you handle research? What are your favorite tools and methods?

madeleine l'engle's summer of the great-grandmother (crosswicks book two) and yellow index cards — Meghan’s notecards

news, pep talk, podcast

Episode 24 is here to pep you up

Meghan February 19, 2018 No Comments

We’ve been doing pep talks off and on here on our blog, and find they’re helpful not just for our followers, but for ourselves as well! So this week, we’ve introduced a new short segment for our podcast — the pep talk! Go here to listen to the our first two talks and the stories behind them in the full episode, and look for just the excerpted talks themselves as single releases. Make sure you’re subscribed in your podcast player so you don’t miss a single pep talk.

Have a pep talk you’d like to share, or one you’d like to here? Let us know in the comments!

inspiration, pep talk, podcast, tips

Our Episode 23 chat with filmmaker Ashley Maynor

Olivia February 11, 2018 No Comments

Episode 23 is live, and we are super excited to bring you our wide-ranging conversation with Ashley Maynor, who is a university librarian by day and an award-winning filmmaker by night. Ashley is a long and dear friend of Olivia’s. This conversation is anything but boring – we touch on divorce and our inner octagenarian, as well as farm animals.

Using her mad librarian skills, after our chat she put up this great Resources for Creatives page, with things to get you unstuck, a crash course on starting a podcast and a guide to microbudget film production. We thought you’d like to check it out!

Full show notes are here.