Episode 98: Judith Warner’s advice for writing middle-grade, and dealing with perfectionism

When we booked author Judith Warner on the show, we had a lot of questions for her about what writers (especially kid, YA and middle-grade fiction writers) need to know about middle-school friendship, and how that period affects the rest of our lives and our friendships.

Judith talks brilliantly and clearly on that topic, but we go so much wider and deeper in this interview. She talks about how she manages her perfectionism, and when it spirals into a form of OCD. It’s a struggle a lot of writers deal with, and we appreciated having this open discussion.

If you’ve struggled with any of these things we discuss, please do get in touch with us – either through our website, on our Instagram or elsewhere.

Judith’s new book, And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School, touches on the important role that this middle-grade period has in all our lives and our friendships.

She is also the author of the New York Times best-seller, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, and We’ve Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. She is also the author of the New York Times column, “Domestic Disturbances.” We discuss her writing career in more detail in the interview, but she began writing as a journalist, including working as a special correspondent for Newsweek in Paris and the author of the 1993 best-selling book Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story. Her writing has won a number of awards and she has also received numerous fellowships.

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Theme music is “It’s Time” by Scaricá Ricascá. 

Have a question you’d like us to try to answer, or a topic you’d love to have us cover? Interested in being a guest? Contact us here.  Thanks for listening, and get to work!

In this episode: