Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

[Paula Whyman, what’s coming up]: The upside of winter + learning how to roll with setbacks Ep 1184 Feb 21, 2025

Welcome to the final installment of my interview with Paula Whyman, author of the new book, “Bad Naturalist: One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop.” Paula's first book is “You May See a Stranger,” an award-winning, linked collection of short stories. Her work has been supported by fellowships from McDowell, Yaddo, and other residencies in Grants, and she was a Tennessee Williams scholar in fiction at the Sewanee Writers Conference.

Today we find out what's currently brewing for Paula and what she knows at this moment about where her personal through line is leading her next,

We covered:

- The upside of winter

- Why she’s looking for American kestrels (a small raptor) every morning

- A longing for sheep

- Getting less frustrated by setbacks

- The books she stays up late reading with a flashlight so as not to wake her husband

Connect with Paula at paulawhyman.com.

There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Paula Whyman, inner stuff]: Why “writing what you know” is misguided advice Ep 1183 Feb 19, 2025

This is part two of my interview with Paula Whyman, author of the new book, “Bad Naturalist: One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop,” in which she documents her attempt to restore 200 acres of retired farmland while wearing the wrong footwear, getting conflicting advice, and having essentially no idea what she's gotten herself into, but finding her way through it anyway.

Today I'm talking with Paula about what I call inner stuff, trying to bring the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work out into the light.

We unpacked:

- Making the switch from fiction to non-fiction–and how that changes the conversations you have with readers to be less about the work, and more about you

- How working as an editor can make writing harder

- Allowing yourself to blurt, stare off into space, meander, and walk away

- Editing and revising as procrastination

- How writing about failure is more interesting than writing about success

- Staying active and strong as you get older

- A love letter to scientists

- Why planting native plants in your yard is so impactful

- Her favorite cheesy 70s songs

Connect with Paula at paulawhyman.com.

There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Paula Whyman, practical matters]: Guidance for knowing whether you really want to turn that idea into a book Ep 1182 Feb 17, 2025

This week my guest is Paula Wyman, author of the new book, “Bad Naturalist: One Woman's Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop.” Paula's book is a blend of memoir, natural history, and conservation science, and it's a chronicle of her attempts to restore 200 acres of farmland long gone to seed in the Blue Ridge Mountains, despite the fact that she never excelled at gardening.

Paula's first book is “You May See a Stranger,” an award-winning, linked collection of short stories that won praise from “The New Yorker” and a starred review in “Publishers Weekly.” Paula's stories have appeared in “McSweeney's Quarterly,” “Ploughshares,” and “The Southampton Review,” and her nonfiction has been featured on NPR, in “The Washington Post”, and “The Rumpus,” among other places.

We covered:

- How having a pet praying mantis as a kid is directly related to her naturalist exploits

- In praise of doing deep dives into random subjects

- How a manageable dream of restoring a small meadow to its natural state ballooned into rehabbing a 200-acre mountaintop

- The novel she was writing that she can’t even remember what it was about now

- How hearing a young Howard Stern shaped her career path

- The power of doing deep dives

- Turning scribbles and bad doodles into a book

- A plug for using the writing software Scrivener

Connect with Paula at paulawhyman.com.

There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Cynthia Weiner, what’s coming up]: Fast food, diet soda, and Eddie Vedder Ep 1181 Feb 07, 2025

Welcome to the final installment of my interview with Cynthia Weiner, author of the brand new book “A Gorgeous Excitement,” a coming of age novel set in 1980s New York City that is inspired by both Cynthia's own upbringing on the Upper East Side during the 80s and the infamous Preppy Killer.

Cynthia is also the assistant director of the writer's studio in New York City and her short fiction has been published in “Open City,” “Ploughshares,” and “The Sun,” has earned a Pushcart Prize and been anthologized in Coolest American Stories 2024.

We covered:

- The 90s soundtrack that’s helping Cynthia get into her next project (which is set in the 90s)

- The three writers whose example inspires Cynthia on her own path

- Her burning desire to have a house with a yard and, most importantly, a tree

- The Max show she’s bingeing, her elaborate daily diet soda ritual, the best day of the week, and the fast food meal she’s craving

Connect with Cynthia on Instagram at @cynthiaweiner

There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Cynthia Weiner, inner stuff]: Learning to tolerate the discomfort that comes from “airing your dirty laundry” aka, writing anything remotely personal Ep 1180 Feb 05, 2025

In part two of my interview with Cynthia Weiner, author of a hot-off-the-presses coming-of-age-novel, “A Gorgeous Excitement,” we cover what I call inner stuff, the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it.

We unpacked:

- Learning how to tolerate the discomfort of sharing your work

- And how to ignore the voice that tells you nobody cares what you have to say

- How she came to imagine that inner critical voice as a “shit bird”

- Why she could work on one sentence for years

- Why she’d rather stay home than travel some place new

- How getting older has made her a better writer (and a worse sleeper)

- How she’s re-wired the idea that it’s bad to draw attention to yourself

Connect with Cynthia on Instagram at @cynthiaweiner

There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Cynthia Weiner, practical matters]: How living a boring life helped her write a novel titled, ironically, “A Glorious Excitement” Ep 1179 Feb 03, 2025

This week I'm talking with Cynthia Weiner, author of “A Gorgeous Excitement,” a coming of age novel set in 1980s New York City. “A Gorgeous Excitement” is inspired by Cynthia's own 80s upbringing on the Upper East Side of New York, as well as the infamous Preppy Killer, a former prep school student who killed a girl in Central Park in the summer of 1986 and who frequented a bar called Dorian's, where Cynthia spent many nights drinking with friends.

Her work has won the Pushcart Prize and been anthologized in the Coolest American Stories. Cynthia is also the assistant director of the writer's studio in New York City where, fun fact, I took classes with her in the early 2000s.

We covered:

- The award she won in second grade that hooked her on the writing life

- How she stumbled into teaching writing

- Writing as a “weird compulsion”

- The plus sides of working on a novel for nearly 10 years

- The daily rituals that help her write

- The time management technique that helps her get unstuck

- Why catching up with a friend helps her write

- How living a boring life leaves more space for the work

Connect with Cynthia on Instagram at @cynthiaweiner

There are new Finding the Throughline episodes roughly every other week–hit “subscribe” so you know when the next ones drop!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finding the Throughline ep. 1176: My biggest takeaways from the last 6 months of interviews + news! And a tiny request. Dec 30, 2024

As we come up on the end of the year AND this podcast's one-year anniversary, I wanted to share the things from the last six months of interviews that are still sticking with me--a little tour of the a-ha moments and insights that have made a lasting impression. It's a little walk down memory lane, a little like re-reading your journal well after the fact.

I also have some news to share and a teeny tiny but very meaningful request to make.

PLUS, if you have a writer you'd like me to interview--maybe it's you!--you can message me on Substack (search for Finding the Throughline) or email me at kate@katehanley.com.

Thank you as ever for listening!

And, this is your last chance to take advantage of my discount code on AirDoctor air purifiers, which work amazingly well at filtering out all kinds of icky things so your lungs don't have to and are whisper quiet. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

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[Laura Belgray, what’s next]: How a distaste for planning and goalsetting has worked out pretty great + the author who most inspires her Ep 1175 Dec 20, 2024

Welcome back to the Finding the Throughline interview with Laura Belgray, author of the national bestseller Tough Titties, a collection of essays that is essentially a permission slip to be a dork, a sometimes-unspiritual slacker, a late bloomer and, ultimately, unapologetically you. Laura is the founder of Talking Shrimp and co-creator of The Copy Cure with Marie Forleo. She has been featured in Elle, Fast Company, and Business Insider, and has written for Bravo, HBO, Nick at Nite, VH1, and more.

Today, we find out what’s currently brewing for Laura and what she knows at this moment about where her personal throughline is leading her next, as well as what kinds of things she’s been reading, watching and listening to lately

We covered:

• Crawling out of a pit of despair after the election results

• Continuing to build her email list in the modern world where there are so many more things vying for our attention

• How she is not a visionary or planner—yet has achieved many amazing things anyway

• David Sedaris as the author who first introduced her to a genre/structure of book that is a collection of essays and also memoir.

• Her love of fiction and lack of confidence she will be able to write one someday, though she would love to

• How she would love to win Powerball so she could write whatever she wants

• How she wouldn’t have written a fraction of what she’d written if she didn’t write as a way to eat and make money

• Margot's Got Money Troubles by Rufy Thorpe--the last book that she could not put down.

• Spaghettini pomodoro at Scarpetta, with plenty of extra butter

Connect with Laura at talkingshrimp.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Laura Belgray, inner stuff]: When an editor gives you comments that make you want to cry and shut down all your creativity + crawling out of writer’s block Ep 1174 Dec 18, 2024

Welcome back to the second part of my conversation with guest Laura Belgray, author of “Tough Titties,” a hilarious, bestselling collection of NYC-flavored life lessons that Laura’s own husband calls a “loser Sex and the City.”

Today I’m talking with Laura about what I call inner stuff–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you’re not fully conscious of it

We covered:

• How writing a book was one of the hardest things she’s ever done professionally

• The tough feedback her editor initially gave her

• The aftermath of the criticism that led to crying, pacing, and writer’s block

• A friend’s metaphor of mountain climbing helped her to start working on her book

• The experience of dealing with anxiety and people pleasing tendencies when writing a memoir

• The dangers of self-comparison which can lead to despair and nonproductivity

• Learning to borrow from authors she loves without trying to be them or feel disappointed because she doesn’t have the exact same talents they have in the same way

Connect with Laura at talkingshrimp.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Laura Belgray, practical matters]: How to build a kickass career as a slacker (hint: get paid to do your favorite things) Ep 1173 Dec 16, 2024

This week my guest is Laura Belgray, author of the national bestseller Tough Titties: On Living Your Best Life When You’re the F-ing Worst. Laura is also an internet-famous copywriter, founder of Talking Shrimp, and co-creator, with Marie Forleo, of The Copy Cure. Laura started her writing career at Spy Magazine, New York Magazine, and then VH1 before starting her own copywriting and teaching business almost by accident. That business went on to earn a million dollars the year she turned 50–an achievement Laura wrote about for “Business Insider.”

Fun fact: Laura taught Sherman Helmsley, aka George Jefferson from The Jeffersons, how to moonwalk.

We covered:

• How she finagled a job for herself that involved her watching a lot of TV (one of her favorite things to do)

• Why getting paid to ‘’write emails to friends’’ is her dream job

• How inspiration comes from writing--not the other way around

• The magical powers of writing on the fly

• Her morning routine which includes iced coffee, a walk outside, and dicking around

• The website she swears by to get her writing every day

• How she deals with bouts of talker’s block on social media

Connect with Laura at talkingshrimp.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Susan Merrell, what’s coming up]: Wrestling with devoting more time to your own work vs. keeping your day job + plus awesome life advice from her friend Ep 1172 Dec 13, 2024

In this final part of my conversation with Susan Merrell (author of Shirley: A Novel, teacher in the MFA in Creative Writing & Literature at the Lichtenstein Center of Stony Brook Southampton, and co-creator, with the novelist Meg Wolitzer, of the BookEnds Fellowship novel revision program) we talk about where her personal throughline is leading her next and she shares how she’s been writing two different books for the last eight years (OMG).

We covered:

• Her two current book projects: one about a man haunted by a story he’s read and another about living full-time in a “vacation town” thought to be abandoned in winter

• Real estate privilege

• The books she includes on her writing syllabus and why

• Finding inspiration in everything, including cereal boxes

• Giving up the plum nature of her current life vs chasing the dream.

• Her friend’s philosophy—whatever move you make tends to be the one your feet took you to

• Why silence is her pick-me-up of choice

• Her friend’s magnificent roasted chicken

Connect with Susan at susanscarfmerrell.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Susan Merrell, inner stuff]: Why being a little needy might make you a more prolific writer Ep 1171 Dec 11, 2024

In this second part of my interview with Susan Merrell, author of Shirley: A Novel, teacher in the MFA in Creative Writing & Literature at the Lichtenstein Center of Stony Brook Southampton, and co-creator, with the novelist Meg Wolitzer, of the BookEnds Fellowship novel revision program, we talk about what I call inner stuff–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you’re not fully conscious of it.

We covered:

• Really cool, serendipitous story about how she came to write a novel about the iconic American writer, Shirley Jackson

• How she deals with her inner Achilles heel: shame

• Meditation as the answer to everything

• How the need for validation drives many writers to produce more (this was truly fascination and made me think, hmm, maybe I just don’t have a drive for validation, and maybe that’s not a good thing?)

• How teaching students makes her feel ‘’ridiculously happy’’

• How the publishing industry doesn’t necessarily support the right books

Connect with Susan at susanscarfmerrell.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Susan Merrell, practical matters]: Working when you’re not technically “working” + vomit draft Ep 1170 Dec 09, 2024

This week my guest is Susan Scarf Merrell, author of Shirley: A Novel, which became a major motion picture. She’s also the author of A Member of the Family, and The Accidental Bond: How Sibling Connections Influence Adult Relationships.

Susan teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing & Literature at the Lichtenstein Center of Stony Brook Southampton, and she is the co-creator, with the novelist Meg Wolitzer, of the BookEnds Fellowship novel revision program.

Susan’s essays, book reviews and short fiction have appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Fun fact: she brushed her hair and changed out of her sweatshirt for this interview, which inspired me to do the same!

We covered:

• How she first became a published author as a child

• Her mother (Maggie Scarf), a psychology journalist who worked on books about Antarctica and Jane Goodall

• Her alternative fantasies to writing, like being a swimmer or opening a bakery

• How she was a copy editor in the right place at the right time and talked her way into a job as a research professor which eventually earned her a tenured position

• The value of a what she calls a vomit draft

• How a lot of the times she’s working on her writing, she’s not actually sitting at a desk and writing—she’s baking, or walking, or swimming

Connect with Susan at susanscarfmerrell.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Hannah Seliger: What’s coming up]: Why Hannah hopes her upcoming memoir will “piss off the right people” + the books, food, and music bringing her pleasure Ep 1169 Dec 06, 2024

In this final installment of the Finding the Throughline interview with James Beard Award-nominated journalist Hannah Selinger (whose book, Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly, will be released in 2025 and is available for pre-order now), we talk about what’s coming up next for her as well as what she’s been reading, watching, and eating, including:

- The badass Martha Stewart documentary

- “Health and Safety,” a memoir by Emily Witt, staff writer at “The New Yorker”

- Her invention of the term #Scandivol

- How “The Real Housewives” series rope you in

- Her best friend who gives her major writer’s envy

- Her goal to get off the hamster wheel of freelance

- Why she hopes her book “Cellar Rat” will piss people off

- The most pleasurable books she read this year

- An ode to French vanilla coffee creamer, McDonald’s french fries, and the Indigo Girls

Connect with Hannah at https://www.hannahselinger.net/ or on Instagram @druishamericanprincess.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Hannah Selinger inner stuff]: The dreams that take a decade to come true are worth the wait + loudmouth troll shitposting Ep 1168 Dec 04, 2024

Welcome back to my interview with Hannah Selinger–James Beard Award-nominated lifestyle journalist, Certified Sommelier, about-to-be memoirist, and–surprise!-someone who just sold her first novel.

In this episode we really get into the nitty gritty of the mindset it takes to build a career as a journalist and author.

We covered:

The amazing feeling that happens when a longer piece of writing falls into place

How starting the actual writing or a new piece gives her the heebie jeebies

Fighting imposter syndrome after reading another writer’s stellar work

Loudmouth troll shitposting on Instagram

The devolution of journalism and how to navigate it

Scraping by at lousier pay rates, and the enormous stack of W2s it generates

The fallacy of people telling her it wasn’t possible to make a living as a writer

Staying afloat in an industry that frequently experiences large scale layoffs

Yes, Virginia, you can sell a novel to a publisher

Connect with Hannah at https://www.hannahselinger.net/ or on Instagram @druishamericanprincess.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Hannah Selinger, practical matters]: The reality of making a living as a freelance writer + shifting from articles to books + the death of a tortoise Ep 1167 Dec 02, 2024

This week my guest is Hannah Selinger, a James Beard Award-nominated lifestyle journalist who is also a Certified Sommelier.

Hannah's work has appeared in a long list of prestigious places, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Wine Enthusiast, Al Jazeera, and more. Her book Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly, will be released in 2025 (and it’s available for pre-order now).

Fun fact: Hannah has traveled to 25 countries and currently lives in Boxford, Massachusetts with her husband, two sons, two dogs, and one Russian tortoise.

We covered:

The sad tale of woe that happened when one of Hannah’s family tortoises got sick and died

How taking a gap year after graduating from college led Hannah to work in restaurants for a decade

Why she decided to become a certified sommelier

Creating imaginary restaurants to put on her resume in order to land a job at a Bobby Flay restaurant

What it felt like to have a piece published in the NY Times Modern Love column

How getting that prestigious clip did NOT magically result in her getting an agent

How the task of making a living as a writer is so very different from the artful, leisurely writing romanticized in graduate school

How many of her dreams that seemed completely delusional ended up coming true–10 years later.

How she partners with PR agencies to generate story ideas

Her personal essay about being an American Jew who is against the war in Gaza that’s coming out on EatingWell.com in a few weeks

Starting the morning with a pitch

Connect with Hannah at https://www.hannahselinger.net/ or on Instagram @druishamericanprincess.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Antonia Angress: What’s coming up]: “I aspire to get to a place where I can be a hermit and let my work stand on its own” Ep 1166 Nov 29, 2024

In this final part of my interview with Antonia Angress, author of "Sirens & Muses," we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions.

(Note–this episode is a replay. We’ll be back to new episodes next week, yay!)

We talked about:

- The novels about motherhood Antonia is reading to prepare for when her baby is born

- The pressure on young women authors to be likable, available, and approachable

- The two writers Antonia looks to for inspiration on being successful while “resisting the machinations of publicity that can devour you”

- Getting better at not squandering time, vacuuming the rugs

- The Pulitzer finalist Antonia devoured in a couple of days

- What it’s like when your husband becomes a Swiftie in his 30s, when you’ve been on board since your teens

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Antonia Angress, inner stuff]: Throwing away the work that isn’t working + adapting to the public speaking side of being a writer Ep 1165 Nov 27, 2024

n this episode I'm talking with Antonia Angress, author of “Sirens & Muses” and a 2024 NEA Creative Writing Fellow about the squishier side of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it.

(Note–this episode is a replay. We’ll be back to new episodes next week, yay!)

- The part of the writing process that Antonia relishes

- The specific point in the book-writing process where Antonia focuses on making her sentences pretty

- How she only kept “a few paragraphs” from the first draft of her second novel (!!)

- Adapting to the public speaking portion of being a writer

- The thing her graduate school professor told her when she was halfway through writing her first novel and having a crisis of confidence

- The two things that can happen after her inner critic has told her the stuff she’s writing is no good

- How she views her first novel, looking back

- The “toxic narrative” about how you have to suffer for your art

- Continually working to be OK with resting (especially as an about-to-be mother)

- Antonia’s plug for therapy

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Antonia Angress, Practical Matters]: The self-doubt that never goes away, and how to keep writing despite it Ep 1164 Nov 25, 2024

This week I am talking to writer Antonia Angress. Antonia is the author of "Sirens & Muses," which starts off as a campus novel set at a New England art school, but then blooms into an exploration of the intersection of home and belonging versus individualism and seeking to stand out, set in the New York City art scene during the Occupy Wall Street era.

"Sirens & Muses" was named one of the best books of the year by Glamour Magazine and won the Minnesota Book Award, and Antonia was recently named one of the NEA's 2024 Creative Writing Fellows. I loved the book and I love that I get to ask Antonia my list of mildly invasive questions about why and how she does her particular creative work.

(Note–this episode is a replay. We’ll be back to new episodes next week, yay!)

We covered:

- The advice she gives about the stuff you write that you end up deleting

- The fact that publishing a book “really doesn’t change your life”

- The importance of that feeling of being alone with your work

- The daily writing goal that keeps Antonia going (spoiler: it’s very small)

- How she manages her ‘internet junk food’ diet

- The practice that gets her ready to write

- What motivational phrase is on the Post-It note above her computer

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Nada Samih-Rotondo, part 3]: The joy of going down a research wormhole, a preview of her second memoir ) + matcha latte mustaches Ep 1163 Nov 22, 2024

In this final part of my interview with Palestinian-American, award-nominated memoirist, Nada Samih-Rotondo, we covered:

- A preview of her second memoir, which has a central theme of earthquakes, both the geological variety and the personal kind (it sounds amazing I cannot wait)

- The allure of folk tales and fairy tales

- The joy of going down a research wormhole

- Nada’s current obsessions–turtle migration, and early African-American history in Rhode Island

- Getting over the very human desire for external validation

- Nada’s beautiful vision of a free Palestine

- The YA novels Nada can’t put down

- Oat milk matcha lattes (and why Nada hope they give her a green mustache at the coffeeshop)

- The perfection of a Sunday morning and navigating the kitchen when you’re the only parent home

- Nada’s favorite Palestinian dish (come to full show notes on Substack for a link)

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Nada Samih-Rotondo, part 2]: Reader feedback as creative rocketfuel, being the only Arab-American kid around + astrology talk! Ep 1162 Nov 20, 2024

In this episode I'm talking with Nada about what I call inner stuff, the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including:

- How her least favorite part of writing (sharing her work) becoming her most favorite part

- The type of reader feedback that fills her heart and lights her up and fuels her to create

- Feeling out of step with the world–and being OK with that

- Being the only Arab kid around in the 90s

- Nada’s plea–that we wake up from the collective illusion of separateness

- Finding points of connection, particularly with people you disagree with

- Astrology talk! (She’s an Aries sun with a Pisces moon–equal parts ready to charge into a fight and to contemplate quantum physics.)

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Nada Samih-Rotondo, part 1]: Writing by feeling vs. knowing, pandemic productivity, + the importance of getting out of the house Ep 1161 Nov 18, 2024

My guest this week is Nada Samih-Rotondo, a multi-genre Palestinian-American writer, teacher, and mother, who recently published her first book, a memoir called All Water Has Perfect Memory, which has been shortlisted for the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing.

Born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, Nada immigrated to the U.S. at the age of six to Rhode Island. Her work has been published in the The Master's Review, Squat! Birth Journal, and Gulfstream Literary Magazine.

We talk about:

- How Nada started writing her novel during the pandemic while teaching from home and homeschooling three kids

- Developing patience with the publishing process

- Reading as a vital part of feeding your creativity

- Writing in coffee shops (especially when you have kids)

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Paulette Perhach, what’s coming up]: Letting go of steady client work to focus on your own writing and offerings Ep 1160 Nov 15, 2024

Warning–there’s at least one swear word in today’s episode and it’s coming up quick. If you’re listening with sensitive ears--either yours or someone else’s--within earshot, this is your heads up.

My guest this week is award-winning journalist and author, Paulette Perhach. Paulette has written two essays that have gone viral, including “A Story of a Fuck Off Fund,” which was included in the anthology Freshman Year of Life.

Paulette is also the author of the book “Welcome to the Writer’s Life,” host of a virtual writing salon that’s called A Very Important Meeting, and a one-on-one writing coach.

We talked about:

- Her semi-famous roommate in NYC (where she moved two months ago)

- Why people who are making their way outside the corporate world are her heroes

- Why she’s planning to quit ghostwriting and make all her money from her own writing and programs

- The gift she received from a client that has her rethinking her revenue streams

- Dealing with the loss that can accompany transformation

- How practical jokes relate to her desire to earn more money

- The series she’s re-watching

- The best sound in the world

Connect with Paulette at pauletteperhach.com or on Instagram @paulettejperhach.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Paulette Perhach, inner stuff]: Motivating yourself with self-love vs. self-flagellation + writing with ADHD Ep 1159 Nov 13, 2024

My guest this week is award-winning journalist and author of the book “Welcome to the Writer’s Life,” Paulette Perhach. Paulett’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, and Slate, among many other places. She also hosts a virtual writing salon called A Very Important Meeting, teaches many online writing classes, and works with folks one-on-one as a writing coach.

We talked about:

- How being a Peace Corps volunteer is like being the village idiot, and why that’s a good thing

- Acclimating yourself to the vulnerability of writing (sometimes very) personal stories

- Thinking about the long tail of having your work findable on the Internet and the possible ramifications of that

- The link between ADHD and financial (mis)management

- Getting over the idea that if you don’t have a degree in English literature, you’re not qualified to be a writer

- Getting more stuff done when you approach your work with self-love rather than self-flagellation

- The website that’s like eBay for businesses that reminds her life could still go in a lot of different directions

- Why she thinks the shows Californication and Sex and the City are harmful to wannabe writers

- The wild story of how she figured out she had ADHD, and how that diagnosis has changed her reality

- Her class for writers with ADHD

Connect with Paulette at pauletteperhach.com or on Instagram @paulettejperhach.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Paulette Perhach, practical matters]: Setting deadlines for yourself that you’ll actually honor + continuing to dream bigger as a writer Ep 1158 Nov 11, 2024

My guest this week is award-winning journalist and author, Paulette Perhach. Paulett’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, and Slate, among other places, and she’s written two essays that have gone viral, including “A Story of a Fuck-Off Fund,” which was included in the anthology Freshman Year of Life.

Paulette helps others make their way as writers, with her book about writing, called Welcome to the Writer’s Life; her five-time-a-week virtual writing salon that’s called A Very Important Meeting; various online writing classes; and as a one-on-one writing coach.

Fun fact, Paulette keeps a running list of her rejections NOT receive her MFA from Iowa, Columbia or Syracuse.

We covered:

- Balancing being a writing teacher and coach with also being a working writer

- The writer’s software she created as a direct response to having ADHD

- How joining the Peace Corps shaped her as a writer

- Continuing to dream bigger

- What it’s like to have an essay go viral

- The software she developed to help writers get organized

- Her tips and tricks for making sure you do your writing–and more importantly, finish your writing

- How she outsmarts her fear

- The importance of tracking your writing metrics

- The trick to setting deadlines for yourself that you’ll actually honor

- Why Paulette might be the next Weird Al

- The writer’s conference Paulette never misses (I had never heard of it! Meet you there?)

- A rundown of all the writing tools she uses, from software to notebooks

Connect with Paulette at pauletteperhach.com or on Instagram @paulettejperhach.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kenneth C. Davis: what’s coming up]: Amazing story of how learning something new can profoundly change your life Ep 1157 Nov 08, 2024

Welcome to the final installment of my talk with historian Kenneth C. Davis, New York Times bestselling author of “America’s Hidden History,” “Don’t Know Much About History,” a whole series of “Don’t Know Much About” books. As part of his mission to get more people to read more books, Kenneth has just published THE WORLD IN BOOKS: 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction – a curated journey through fifty-two of the most significant short nonfiction works ever penned, from ancient times to the present day.

We talked about:

- What determines whether Ken has had a good day or a bad day

- Learning Italian with his wife, and the many, many doors it has opened in their lives

- The well-known historical author who taught Ken that history is about humanity, and not just dates and battles

- Why Italy plays such a big role in his plans for the future

- The HBO series he and his wife can’t stop binge watching

- Ken’s recipe for the perfect cup of coffee (Italian roast, of course)

Connect with Ken at https://dontknowmuch.com/.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kenneth C. Davis, inner stuff]: A chills-inducing pep talk for reading + taking aim at American exceptionalism Ep 1156 Nov 06, 2024

Welcome to part 2 of my interview with Kenneth C. Davis, author of the brand new book THE WORLD IN BOOKS: 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction – a curated journey through fifty-two of the most significant short nonfiction works ever penned, from ancient times to the present day.

Kenneth is also the author of Don’t Know Much About® History, which spent 35 consecutive weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and gave rise to the Don’t Know Much About® series of books and audios, which has a combined in-print total of some 4.7-million copies.

We covered:

- How the editing process reminds him of the myth of Sisyphus

- Why his inner critic sounds a lot like Joseph Conrad and E.B. White

- A chills-inducing pep talk for reading

- The harm caused by the idea of American exceptionalism

- Re-examining American’s history through a lens of equity

- Comparing our current political climate to 1968 and drawing parallels

Connect with Ken at https://dontknowmuch.com/.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kenneth C. Davis, practical matters]: How to make history come alive + an incredible pick-up line (that worked!) Ep 1155 Nov 04, 2024

Today my guest is historian Kenneth C. Davis, New York Times bestselling author of “America’s Hidden History,” “Don’t Know Much About History,” and a whole series of “Don’t Know Much About” books, proving that Americans don’t hate history — they just hate the dull version they slept through in class.

As part of his mission to get more people to read more books, Kenneth has just published THE WORLD IN BOOKS: 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction – a curated journey through fifty-two of the most significant short nonfiction works ever penned, from ancient times to the present day.

We covered:

- A quick history of the paperback–how did I not know this??

- The amazing line a bookstore co-worker told him that changed his life

- The family roadtrips to historical places he took as a kid that made history come alive for him, and how he strives to do the same thing for others in her books

- Great, succinct reason why books matter

- The morning routine that launches him into writing each day

- A peek at what it’s like for a writer to be married to an editor

Connect with Ken at https://dontknowmuch.com/.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Jeremy Dauber: What’s coming up]: How to save the humanities (or at least try) + why he’s obsessed with the 80s Ep 1154 Nov 01, 2024

Welcome back to part 3 of my interview with Jeremey Dauber, a processor of Jewish literature and American studies at Columbia University and the author of the new book "American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond,” which chronicles the rise and enduring grip of fear and horror throughout American culture and American history.

As “J.A. Dauber,” he is also the author of the YA novel "Mayhem and Madness: Chronicles of a Teenaged Supervillain," and his new middle grade novel, currently titled "Press 1 For 1nvasion," is coming out in 2025.

In this final installment, we talked about:

- The seminar he’s teaching in the spring that’s giving him a great excuse to watch shows and movies set in the 1980s (with lots of recommendations)

- The two Stephens whose bodies of work inspire him

- His thoughts on how to “re-enchant” students and the world on the humanities

- The BBC show and his wife can’t stop watching once they start

- The niche music genre he listens to when he wants to get psyched up

- The gameshow mash-up he’d like to see

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Jeremy Dauber, Inner stuff]: Taking aim at the myth of the difficult genius + frank talk about how fatherhood impacts productivity Ep 1153 Oct 30, 2024

Welcome back to my interview with cultural historian and Columbia professor Jeremy Dauber, author of the newly released book "American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond."

As “J.A. Dauber,” he is also the author of the YA novel "Mayhem and Madness: Chronicles of a Teenaged Supervillain," and a new middle grade novel, currently titled "Press 1 For 1nvasion," that will come out next year.

Today I’m talking with Jeremy about what I call inner stuff–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you’re not fully conscious of it.

We covered:

- Finding the right balance of being comprehensive and not overwhelming–or boring–the reader

- The parts of publishing a book that get easier the more you do it

- The privilege of working in a field where you can keep getting better and better (as opposed to, say, baseball, where your performance will peak)

- Some frank talk about how parenting impacts your work (loved hearing this from a man!)

- A plug for offering babysitting at conferences and not holding events during the dinner hour

- Taking aim at the myth of the creative genius, and that good work just flows

- And while we’re at it, debunking the myth of the difficult genius

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Jeremy Dauber, Practical matters]: Reframing failure as a lack of success + career advice from the former head of DC comics Ep 1152 Oct 28, 2024

Jeremy Dauber, author of the newly released book "American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond” and professor of Jewish literature and American studies at Columbia University.

As “J.A. Dauber,” he is also the author of the YA novel "Mayhem and Madness: Chronicles of a Teenaged Supervillain," and his new middle grade novel, currently titled "Press 1 For 1nvasion," will be published next year.

We covered:

- The childhood obsession with aliens and ghost stories that never went away

- The key career advice he got from the former head of DC Comics

- Approaching your career as if you were cross-training at the gym

- How teaching helps him as a writer

- Why he loves writing YA more than contemporary adult fiction

- How he’s come to embrace the revision process

- Reframing failure as a lack of success

- Why he’s in the “write every day” camp

- The nicest compliment he got from an editor

- Why he tries to stop writing for the day in the middle of a scene or a thought, and not at the end

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Vanessa Lillie: What’s coming up]: So many great recs for books, shows, and movies by Indigenous creators + a recipe for bomster scallops Ep 1151 Oct 25, 2024

Welcome back to the Finding the Throughline interview with Vanessa Lillie, whose books include “Little Voices”, “For the Best,” and her newest book “Blood Sisters” and co-author Young Rich Widows as well as its sequel which is coming out next year, Desperate Deadly Widows.

In this final installment of our interview, we talk about where her current throughline is leading her next.

Why she’s so excited about Indigenous storytelling right now

Many recommendations for books, shows, and movies by Indigenous creators

A preview of her sequel to “Blood Sisters”

Her forays into screenwriting

How you get more rejection once you’re in the door

Keeping an open mind and being very open to failing

The Netflix feminist thriller she stayed up too late watching

A recipe for bomster scallops that I will be trying

Connect with Vanessa on Instagram @vanessalillie

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Vanessa Lillie, inner stuff]: The thrill–and total fear of getting it wrong–that comes from writing about your cultural history Ep 1150 Oct 23, 2024

Welcome back to Finding the Throughline: Conversations about the Creative Process where today’s guest is thriller author Vanessa Lillie, whose books include “Little Voices”, “For the Best,” and her newest book “Blood Sisters,” a thriller about two missing Indigenous women and the Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is searching for them which was a Good Morning America Buzz Pick and USA Today national bestseller. She’s also the co-author of a fun 80s mystery romp “Young Rich Widows” as well as its sequel which is coming out next year, “Desperate Deadly Widows.”

An Oklahoma native, Vanessa is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma living on Narragansett land in Rhode Island.

Today I’m talking with Vanessa about the mindset side of writing, or what I call inner stuff–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you’re not fully conscious of it, including:

- Fighting erasure by weaving her family’s story into her books

- The thrill and the total fear of writing about your culture and worrying about getting it wrong

- How Vanessa steadies herself when that anxiety crops up

- Embracing the challenge of writing a page turner

- Dealing with the fear that your current work isn’t as good as your previous work

- Seeing ideas as a butterfly that come and sit on your shoulder (from Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Big Magic”

- Why it’s so vital to get clear on why you are the right person to tell this story

- Why being in her 40s feels like such a relief

- Some frank talk about early motherhood–and why it was a theme in her first novel

- Letting go of the idea that your success is within your control

Connect with Vanessa on Instagram @vanessalillie

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Vanessa Lillie, practical matters]: Basically a masterclass in how to evolve your mindset (seriously, don’t miss this!) Ep 1149 Oct 21, 2024

This week I’m talking with the author of numerous thrillers, Vanessa Lilly, whose books include “Little Voices,” “For the Best,” and her newest book “Blood Sisters,” a thriller about two missing Indigenous women and the Cherokee archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs who is searching for them, which was a Good Morning America buzz pick and a USA Today national bestseller. Vanessa is also the co-author of a fun 80s mystery romp called “Young Rich Widows,” as well as its sequel, which is coming out next year, called “Desperately Deadly Widows.”

Vanessa is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma living on Narragansett land in Rhode Island.

We covered:

- Making up stories as a form of escape

- How a nagging sense of unhappiness in her 20s and 30s drove her to keep questioning what she should ‘do with her life’

- The trip to the airport bookstore that awakened her desire to be an author

- The joy–and terror–of having a dream

- Using restlessness as a force for creative good

- Channeling your childhood and your family history into fiction

- The privilege of sharing stories with people who are interested

- Why it’s so easy to get into a lack mentality as an author

- How Vanessa ended up back at square one–no publisher, no agent–after her second book came out

- Finding the story you’re meant to tell so that you’re not “turning yourself into a pretzel to fit inside the system”

- The tools that helped her get out of that lack mentality

- Embracing chaos as a creative and honoring your particular process

- Stepping out the capitalistic narrative that if you’re not working 9-to-5, or really, 9-to-9, you’re a slacker

Connect with Vanessa on Instagram @vanessalillie.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[A.J. Jacobs, what’s coming up]: The benefit of sharing your ideas with people while you’re still working on them + baking for democracy Ep 1148 Oct 18, 2024

Welcome to the final installment of my interview with A.J. Jacobs, who is a multiple New York Times bestselling author of books that chronicle his attempts to live differently and share what he's learned from his experiments.

A.J.'s latest book is “The Year of Living Constitutionally,” where he attempts to understand our country better by adopting the mindset and technology of our founding fathers. Fun fact: A.J. wrote “The Year of Living Constitutionally” with a goose quill pen and a pot of ink while wearing a tricorn hat.

We covered:

- His Election Cake Project–what it’s about and how you can take part (I mean, cake!)

- The Oxford University professor whose work inspires him

- How a song from “The King and I” reminds him of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy–and inspired a recent article

- Why he now doesn’t hesitate to tell people about an idea he’s still thinking about or working on–when he used to keep those closely guarded until he had finished creating them

- Why he wants to get back to time blocking

- The idea he’d love to implement after his kids go off to college

- Why his morning cup of coffee only contains 40% coffee (and what makes up the other 60%)

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[A.J. Jacobs, inner stuff]: Replacing the pursuit of success with something more meaningful–and more doable + a great reframe for problems he learned from Quincy Jones Ep 1147 Oct 16, 2024

In part two of my interview with writer, podcaster, multiple New York Times bestselling author, and human guinea pig, A.J. Jacobs, we talk about the thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes that go into writing.

As a reminder, A.J.'s books include “The Year of Living Biblically,” “Drop Dead Healthy,” “Thanks a Thousand,” and his most recent, “The Year of Living Constitutionally,” which chronicled his attempts to adopt the mindset and technology of our founding fathers, including quill pens, muskets, and tricorn hats. A.J. is also a host of the daily podcast, “The Puzzler,” the creator of the Experimental Living Substack, and a frequent contributor to NPR's weekend edition.

Things we talked about include:

- The specifics of his book-writing process (I learned some things I can’t wait to try)

- The tip he learned from a Quincy Jones quote that helps him reframe his problems

- The thing he tells himself that helps quiet his inner critic

- Why he rejects the idea that there is such a thing as an objectively great piece of art, whether it’s a book, painting, or what have you

- His goal for his work and as a human

- What drives him now, 20+ years in, and how that has changed since he first started writing

- Why he doesn’t like astrology

- The therapeutic modality he credits for helping him re-write unhelpful thoughts

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[A.J. Jacobs, practical matters]: Is it possible to schedule when you’ll get your next ideas? Multiple bestselling author A.J. Jacobs says yes Ep 1146 Oct 14, 2024

This week I’m talking with the hilarious and sweet writer, podcaster, multiple New York Times-bestselling author, and human guinea pig, A.J. Jacobs. A.J.'s books are a mix of memoir, science, humor, with a smidge of self-help. They include “The Year of Living Constitutionally,” “The Year of Living Biblically,” “Drop Dead Healthy,” and “The Know-It-All,” which chronicled the year and a half A.J. spent reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z.

He also hosts “The Puzzler” daily podcast, which just debuted its second season, and he's a frequent contributor to NPR's Weekend Edition.

In this first part of our interview, we covered the practical side of his writing career, including:

The very sensible reason he sticks to “method writing”

His amazing origin story that involved impersonating an Oscar-nominated actor—at the Oscars

The daily practice he uses to generate ideas

His viral Facebook post about biblical math

The habit he adopted from Benjamin Franklin after writing his book “The Year of Living Constitutionally”

Why he is a devotee of ‘eating the frog’

The tech gadget he uses to capture his ideas in longhand (and then remember them later because it makes them searchable)

The health tips he’s retained since writing a book about trying to become the healthiest person in the world

The ingenious way he remembers to do push-ups every day

Connect with A.J. at his Experimental Living newsletter on Substack: https://experimentalliving.substack.com/

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Jacquelyn Mitchard, what's next]: Owning your jealousy of other writers + gobs of amazing book recommendations Ep 1145 Oct 11, 2024

In part three of my conversation with multiple New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of "A Very Inconvenient Scandal" and "The Deep End of the Ocean," among many other titles, we talk about how having writer friends is so important, even if you "jealous them", the vision of the future that's fueling her to keep writing, and the recent books that made her swoon.

This week’s episodes are replays. I have a ton of interviews on the books for the next few weeks so never fear–fresh content is on its way! In the meantime, enjoy this re-visiting of a conversation with a fiction legend.

- The writers--and books--that make Jacquelyn jealous (a word that she uses as a verb, as in, "I'm jealousing her."

- Her love for British crime shows, including the ones that are currently keeping her up way too late

- The BBC podcast she's addicted to

- The beauty of enjoying nature--through a window

- The saying on the mug that she brought home from the Erma Bombeck conference that is her current motto

- The songs Jacquelyn listens to when she needs a pick-me-up

- The meal "that's probably 2,000 calories per bite" that she would ask for if someone said they would make her anything she wanted

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

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[Jacquelyn Mitchard, inner stuff]: Cultivating the relationship between author and reader when "every sentence is a struggle" Ep 1144 Oct 09, 2024

In this second part of my interview with the brilliant and hilarious Jacquelyn Mitchard, we talk about the squishier side of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including:

- The specific reader Jacquelyn imagines as she writes

- Why she's devoted to social media, and why she thinks of it like having a hamster

- How some of her books have 'missed the mark' (but she's not going to tell you which ones)

- The pep talk that gets her through those moments of feeling like a pretender

- The small rewards Jacquelyn uses to congratulate herself for getting another few good sentences down on paper

- The John Prine lyric that sums up her views on aging

- What she learned from growing up on the West side of Chicago (and the viewpoint of her father's that she outright rejects)

This week’s episodes are replays. I’m replaying because Jacquelyn was my first VERY big name guest and honestly I’m reliving the high. Come relive it with me!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Jacquelyn Mitchard, practical matters]: On deleting Oprah Winfrey's VMs + writing a book, one sentence at a time Ep 1143 Oct 07, 2024

This week I am thrilled to be talking with Jacquelyn Mitchard, the New York Times bestselling author of 23 novels for adults and teenagers. Her newest novel is "A Very Inconvenient Scandal," and her first novel, "The Deep End of the Ocean" was the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey book club and has sold more than 3 million copies and been translated into 34 languages.

This week’s episodes are replays. I’m replaying because Jacquelyn was my first VERY big name guest and honestly I’m reliving the high. Come relive it with me!

We covered:

- How losing her husband in her late thirties put her on a quest to publish a novel "to prove that I could have a second act"

- How, when Oprah called, she deleted the messages because she felt it must have been a friend pranking her

- How she would most definitely NOT write even if she didn't get paid

- How the hardest part of the work is coming up with the idea

- How Jacquelyn's dreams help her write her books

- How she writes her book one sentence at a time, from start to finish, like building a skyscraper

- The realities of being chronically sleep deprived

- The difference between copying and stealing

- Living on the Cape, yet hating the beach

- Why she only ever has one cup of coffee

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Christopher Brown: What’s coming up]: Seeking the intersection of “nature’s cosmic majesty and the banality of everyday life” + several recommendations of recent books that play with form Ep 1142 Oct 04, 2024

In this final installment of my interview with Christopher Brown, author of “A Natural History of Empty Lots”--a blend of nature writing, memoir and literary nonfiction that's also a manifesto for rewilding our cities and ourselves–we talk about what’s getting his creative ears perked up these days, where his throughline is leading him next, and his answers to my final fast five questions.

We covered:

- The full moon he saw hovering just over a McDonald’s glowing arches that reminded him of nature’s cosmic majesty amid the banality of everyday life

- A string of great book recommendations, including the so called ‘anti-memoir’ he read last year that is giving him ideas about how write without following any rules

- Figuring out what comes after you’ve made a big creative pivot

- The habit he gave up in order to have more time to write

- The California stoner rock band he listens to when he’s “trying to get going” and the Bach song he’s learning to play on guitar that helps him get centered

- The time of day and year that offers him “maximum tranquility”

Visit Christopher at https://christopherbrown.com/ and sign up for his Field Notes newsletter at https://fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Christopher Brown, inner stuff]: Making sure your writing “bites into the copper wire” of your story–despite not knowing how to do that, exactly Ep 1141 Oct 02, 2024

Welcome to Part 2 of my talk with Christopher Brown, author of the brand new book, “A Natural History of Empty Lots,” as well as the science fiction novel, “Tropic of Kansas” and the legal thrillers “Rule of Capture” and “Failed State.”

- How there were “not a lot of huggers” in his family, and how that relates to his desire to get better at engaging emotionally in his writing, versus just telling a good story

- Using a regular newsletter to write your way into a longer work

- The challenge of weaving together different genres in one body of work–in his case, memoir, nature writing, and literary nonfiction

- The challenge in outlining what your book will be about in a book proposal and actually writing a book that matches that outline

- How the voice you’ve used in short form pieces doesn’t wholly translate to long-form (i.e., the medium is the message)

- When things you read 40 years ago pop up to influence your current work (i.e., another plug for reading widely)

- A common reality in modern publishing–your editor leaves in the middle of your book getting published, and how to navigate that

- Figuring out how to turn a narrative of colonization–something we’ve all been so exposed to its part of our collective subconscious fabric–into a narrative of decolonization

- The questions Christopher asks himself when he’s worried he’s not getting something exactly right

Visit Christopher at https://christopherbrown.com/ and sign up for his Field Notes newsletter at https://fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Christopher Brown, practical matters]: Resisting “society’s pressure to specialize” + why retirement is for suckers + an ingenious hack for creating the time to write + stopping to notice the places where nature and civilization overlap Ep 1140 Sep 30, 2024

This week I am talking with Christopher Brown, author of the brand new book, “A Natural History of Empty Lots: Field Notes from Urban Edgelands, Back Alleys, and Other Wild Places,” a blend of nature writing, literary nonfiction, and memoir that is also a manifesto for rewilding our urban spaces as well as ourselves.

Christopher’s other books include the legal thrillers, “Rule of Capture” and “Failed State,” and his debut science fiction novel “Tropic of Kansas.” Christopher also writes the popular urban nature newsletter Field Notes.

Also a lawyer and a naturalist, Christopher has worked on two Supreme Court confirmations, rehabilitated a brownfield, built an eco bunker, protected government whistleblowers, taken two companies public, restored a small prairie, raised two amazing kids and trained a few good dogs. And that's just the shortlist.

We covered:

- Resisting “society’s pressure to specialize”

- Balancing multiple careers

- How a gig at his college newspaper spawned a path that has led to some pretty varied–and cool–places, such as having lunch with a retired German prime minister, playing pool with Frank Conroy, and working at two Supreme Court confirmation hearings

- Managing your own expectations for how successful you think you ought to be, and by what age

- Rule number one for staying inspired as a writer

- The ingenious way he taught himself to “carve out the time from a busy life of work and family to write novels that didn't suck”

- How to create the conditions where you accumulate the raw material of the work

- The origins of his “Field Notes” Substack

Visit Christopher at https://christopherbrown.com/ and sign up for his Field Notes newsletter at https://fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Christine Chitnis: What’s coming up]: Visualizing ways to make more money AND take more time off, and how she’s making the visions come true Ep 1139 Sep 27, 2024

In the final installment of my conversation with Christine Chitnis, travel writer, photographer, and author of the books, East Coasting, Patterns of Portugal and Patterns of India, we get a sneak peek at what’s up to next and hear about the big-picture ideas that are guiding her work these days. And she answers my fast final five questions about favorite foods, books, and music.

We covered:

- Her upcoming trips (one with a group to Portugal, and another to Oaxaca to take photographs for a book)

- The artist whose studio she visited this summer, and how that work is inspiring her

- The power of taking long walks with good friends

- Why her two guiding words for this year are “collaborate” and “scale”

- The book writing class she’s launching next year

- Setting up her work life to both make more money and be able to take more time off

- The books and music she can’t get enough of, and the meal she would really love it if someone made for her.

Follow Christine on Instagram @chritine.chitnis.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Christine Chitnis, inner stuff]: Dealing with the fear of aging out of your career + getting over mom guilt Ep 1138 Sep 25, 2024

In this second part of my conversation with Christine Chitnis, bestselling author of “East Coasting,” “Patterns of Portugal,” and “Patterns of India”, photographer, and travel writer, we get in to the squishier side of writing–the thoughts and beliefs that go into creating and sharing work.

We talked about:

- How to get more comfortable with sharing your work–because you can’t just “write it and they will come”

- How a negative review of “Patterns of India” changed the way she approached “Patterns of Portugal”

- The thing she tells herself when she’s feeling daunted by the revision process

- Writing about big topics in articles with short word counts

- Dealing with the fear of aging out of your career

- Feeling like everyone else at the conference is a lot younger than you are

- Being a travel writer with three young kids

- Reworking the ingrained idea that a mom shouldn’t leave her kids

- Her very best tool for feeling like a well-balanced human in the midst of working and caretaking

Follow Christine on Instagram @chritine.chitnis.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Christine Chitnis, practical matters]: Marrying business and creativity + when the only routine thing about your morning is chaos Ep 1137 Sep 23, 2024

This week I am talking with Christine Chitnis, bestselling author of “East Coasting,” “Patterns of Portugal,” and “Patterns of India.” Her travel writing has appeared in publications including “The New York Times,” “Vogue,” and “Travel and Leisure.” Christine also helps other writers create winning book proposals and book marketing strategies. And she's a great follow on Instagram where her photos of gorgeous places and nature provide a welcome break in your scrolling.

We covered:

- The path from grant writing, to writing for small local publications, to writing for “The New York Times” and “Vogue”

- The power of having different kinds of projects going simultaneously

- Her biggest limiting factor: childcare

- Transitioning from writing about lifestyle to writing about travel

- Why it’s crucial to think of writing as a business, and not just a creative endeavor

- The kinds of things she does to “restore my creativity”

- How her morning routine is actually chaos

- How she blocks off time for writing, and where it happens

Follow Christine on Instagram @chritine.chitnis.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thank you for listening!

And thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Leigh Medeiros, what's next]: Expanding your capacity + the podcasts and social media accounts giving Leigh life Ep 1136 Sep 20, 2024

In this final installment with Leigh Medeiros--who is like a personified pep talk for pursuing your creative work--we talk about her most delightful visions for the future and exactly what happens in her cacao ceremonies, as well as:

- Why Leigh finds many social media videos incredibly inspirational (reframing what you might otherwise consider 'mindless scrolling')

- The importance of expanding your creative capacity

- Why she loves learning from drag queens

- Which social media videos are giving her hope--and getting her to take notes

- Why she's a huge fan of January

- And we have a little love fest for condiment-heavy cuisines.

For detailed show notes, with links to everything we discuss--plus bonus photos!--visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Leigh Medeiros, inner stuff]: A hilarious--and relatable--story about second-guessing your work + the pep talk for making art I didn't know I needed Ep1135 Sep 18, 2024

In this second part of my interview with "The One-Minute Writer" author and screenwriter Leigh Medeiros, we dive in to the squishier parts of writing and being creating, including:

- Why it's crucial that you share your work without disclaiming it

- The screen play she almost gave up on because her inner critic was going bananas--a hilarious and so relatable store

- Why it matters that you pursue your art (prepare for goosebumps)

For detailed show notes, with links to everything we discuss--plus bonus photos!--visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Leigh Medeiros, practical matters]: The power of figuring out your own Venn diagram of interests + some pretty awesome focus hacks Ep1134 Sep 16, 2024

Leigh Medeiros is an award-winning screenwriter, author, and all-around creative who, when she isn't making her own work, is help others make theirs. Leigh is the author of "The One-Minute Writer: 396 Micro Prompts to Spark Creativity and Recharge Your Writing." She also write a column for Script Magazine called "The Climate Screenwriter," is the co-producer of the Writing Climate Pitch Fest, and founded the Linden Place Writer's Residency in Bristol, Rhode Island (where, full disclosure, I was a resident last year). Leigh is the kind of person who recharges your batteries--she's funny, feisty, thoughtful, and generous beyond measure.

In this first part of her interview, we unpack:

- How screenwriting is like a bad boyfriend

- How her focus on writing screenplays with a climate angle is the perfect intersection of her own personal Venn diagram

- Using fellowships to spur new ideas (whether you actually get them or not)

- The podcasts that list a fire under Leigh's butt to start writing about climate

- How "merging your siloes" uplevels your work and your being

- Leigh's morning cacao ceremony and the unexpected beings she shares it with

- The hacks she uses to stay focused when actually try to, you know, write

- Superheroes have capes--writers should have a talisman, too

For detailed show notes, with links to everything we discuss--plus bonus photos!--visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Katy Bowman: What’s coming up]: Can clearing clutter create space for creative work? + moving into covering new topics Ep 1133 Sep 13, 2024

In this third and final part of my interview with Katy Bowman, a biomechanist and leader of the “movement” movement, we get a peek at her next project, the life changes she’s envisioning, and what she learns from birds.

- A sneak peek at her next project, which involves a lot of psychology

- The author who inspired Katy to think about living life differently

- Her desire to write a more beautiful book

- The connection between clutter and creativity, and why she’s staring to work on getting rid of physical things and clear obligations out of her schedule, too

-Why clutter is a hindrance to creative work

- Her family’s mission statement

- The recent book she picked up in an airport and ended up staying up until 4am to finish

- Exactly what goes in her morning beverage and exactly when she drinks it

- Why 5:30 am is her favorite time of day

- A plug for checking out the "dawn chorus", i.e., listening to birds in the morning and learning a little bit about what those early morning songs are communicating

Visit Katy at nutritiousmovement.com or follow her on Instagram @nutritiousmovement

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Katy Bowman, inner stuff]: The similarities between non-constructive feedback and farts + the impact of age on her creative drive Ep 1132 Sep 11, 2024

This week’s guest, biomechanist Katie Bowman, is the author of 11 books on movement, including the bestselling “Move Your DNA” and her most recent book, “My Perfect Movement Plan.” Katy is also the founder of Uphill Press, an independent publishing company that has sold more than 300 ,000 copies of its books and had them published in 16 languages.

Today we're talking about all the inner stuff that goes into Katy's writing, the thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, likes, dislikes, resistance, et cetera, including:

- Why she’d rather start a new project than promote a project that is already finished

- How remembering that writing books is an opportunity for her to process her knowledge helps her not get too wrapped up in how well a book is received

- The similarities between non-constructive feedback and farts

- What she tells herself when her inner critic is chiming in

- Unhitching your age from how you feel in your body

- How getting older has impacted her creative urgency and output

- The self-care approach that helps her choose what to eat, understand the way her mind works, and even introduced her to her husband

Visit Katy at nutritiousmovement.com or follow her on Instagram @nutritiousmovement.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Katy Bowman, practical matters]: Finding the kind of writing that feels like a downhill flow instead of an uphill slog + making writing less sedentary Ep 1131 Sep 09, 2024

This week my guest is biomechanist Katy Bowman, author of eleven–count ‘em, eleven–books that explore how to improve health and boost well-being through movement, including the best-selling “Move Your DNA,” as well as her newest, “My Perfect Movement Plan.” Her back catalog includes “Rethink Your Position,” “Movement Matters,” “Dynamic Aging,” “Grow Wild,” “Simple Steps to Foot Pain Relief,” “Diastasis Recti,” “Don't Just Sit There,” “Whole Body Barefoot,” and “Alignment Matters.” In fact, Katy has published so many books that she founded her own independent press, Uphill Books.

She has also been named one of Maria Shriver's Architects of Change for her work to change the way we move and understand our need for movement, and is the founder of the movement education company Nutritious Movement, based in Washington state, where she lives.

We covered:

- How writing a book is really an exercise in processing everything she’s learned for herself (in addition to being a way to communicate information)

- Finding the kind of writing that feels like a downhill flow instead of an uphill slog

- Matching your output to your phase of life

- How to find the quiet you need to write in a noisy world

- Balancing the necessity and allure of technology with a hunger for real-world, in person, nourishing experiences (what she calls “nutrient-dense” experiences)

- How she works movement into her writing process

- How walking boosts creativity

- How she makes the most of her mornings (and why she doesn’t have coffee until she’s done this one thing each morning)

Visit Katy at nutritiousmovement.com or follow her on Instagram @nutritiousmovement.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Chelsey Goodan, part 3: Owning your weird self as a way to find your people and your path] Ep 1130 Sep 06, 2024

In this final installment of my talk with Chelsey Goodan,* author of Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, we talk a lot about the many, many perks of embracing your particular brand of weirdness, as well as:

- The power of friends to keep you inspired

- What teens AND adults can do to find their people and make meaningful friendships

- The payoff that comes from paying attention to what in your life needs to change

- Using a milestone birthday–even one that’s a ways off–as fuel

- Chelsey’s current favorite book on creativity

- The Netflix show you should watch with your teen

* This episode is a re-play that originally aired in March.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Chelsey Goodan, part 2: Balancing ambition with knowing you’re already enough + a super helpful skill-assessment tool] Ep 1129 Sep 04, 2024

In part 2 of my interview with Chelsey Goodan, author of Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls, we really break down the inner parts of writing, including how to be OK with the fact that people may misunderstand you.

(If this sounds familiar, it’s because this week’s episodes are replays–I figured, since it’s back to school season re-airing an interview with an author who extols the power of teenage girls made a lot of sense!)

Other things we cover:

- The mistake most well-intentioned parents make

- How Chelsey deals with her biggest fear about her work–being misunderstood

- Dealing with a perfectionistic inner critic

- Chelsey’s “intense” relationship to time

- The one cultural belief Chesley would like to vaporize

- The truth that Chelsey’s had to model for the teen girls in her life

- The book and online personality assessment Chelsey swears by (and uses with the teens in her life, too)

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Chelsey Goodan, part 1: What teens really need from adults + keeping track of inspired ideas + the most delightful way to meditate] Ep 1128 Sep 02, 2024

This week I’m talking with Chelsey Goodan, keynote speaker, screenwriter, and author of Underestimated: The Wisdom and Power of Teenage Girls. As the mom of a 16-year-old girl, I just didn’t even think twice about inviting Chelsey on to Finding the Throughline. I literally read the title of her book and was like YES.

This week’s episodes are replays–I’m airing them again now because my kids are back to school this week and a) I need a little bit more time in my schedule to shift into this different schedule and b) it just seemed timely given the subject of Chelsey’s book.

In this first part of our interview, we unpack:

- The seeds of self-doubt, impostor syndrome, and people pleasing that are sown during the teenage years

- Chelsey’s recipe for connecting with teenage girls

- The difference between being truthful and being blunt

- What helps teens (giving them space to feel their feelings) and what doesn’t (trying to fix)

- How Chelsey makes meditation doable, even delightful

- How to listen for inspiration

- How to keep track of those inspirations so they don’t fly away

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kimothy Joy: what’s coming up]: Drawing inspiration from the stories of women who were “not afraid to fail out loud” + dreaming up a new chapter Ep 1127 Aug 30, 2024

By the end of this final installment of my interview with Kimothy Joy, author of “Extraordinary Wing Women: True Stories of Life-Altering, World-Changing Sisterhood,” “Focus Pocus: A 90-Day Guided Journal,” and “That's What She Said: Wise Words from Influential Women,” my cheeks were hurting from smiling. So many exciting ideas in here!

We talked about:

- Why Kimothy is absorbing everything she can about AI right now, and the very cool ideas about how we might be able to use it and why women and moms need to be involved in its development (this part of our conversation gave me the good kind of goosebumps and I am really resistant to the idea of AI)

- Letting the example of the women Kimothy writes about (women like Maya Angelou and Coco Chanel) inspire her to be open to reinventing herself

- The podcast that’s inspiring her right now (aside from this one, naturally)

- Prepping for her 50s, 60s, and 70s even though she’s only (about to be) 40

- Sensing that you are in a ‘completion phase’ and that a whole new iteration is headed your way

- The show she can’t stop thinking about

- Why she puts butter in her morning cup of coffee

- The band she just say at Red Rocks whose songs she belts out when she needs a lift

- How she’s planning to celebrate her 40th birthday in September

Visit Kimothy at kimothyjoy.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kimothy Joy, inner stuff]: Getting over people pleasing and how to honor your own internal rhythms of productivity and creativity Ep 1126 Aug 28, 2024

In this second part of my interview with Kimothy Joy, author of “Extraordinary Wing Women: True Stories of Life-Altering, World-Changing Sisterhood,” “Focus Pocus: A 90-Day Guided Journal,” and “That's What She Said: Wise Words from Influential Women,” I asked about the mindset side of writing and how Kimothy’s thoughts and beliefs impact her work and her life.

(By the way, if you are ever needing a hit of inspiration, either from others or from within, I can't recommend these books highly enough. They're not only helpful and inspiring and informative, but they're also beautiful because they're filled with Kimothy’s illustrations.)

We talked about:

- Finding the right balance of working to promote your work and detaching from outcomes and not burning yourself out

- The difference between promoting your work and sharing your work and finding a way to do it without feeling like you’re being pushy

- Using your Instagram stories like a blog

- How publishing a book is like having a child leave the nest

- Using journaling and self-mothering as a way to understand and get past the inner critic

- Repatterning beliefs that have come in through society and culture

- The two major doubts she repeatedly has

- Talking yourself like a loving mother would talk to you–or like Glinda the good witch

- Getting past the expectation that you should be able to do all the things and have all the things all the time

- Unraveling the beliefs that, as a woman, it’s your job to make sure everyone else is cared for and comfortable, and that the world isn’t as safe for you as it is for men

Visit Kimothy at kimothyjoy.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kimothy Joy, practical matters]: How being creative is like brushing your teeth + untying your sense of self-worth from how much you produce Ep 1125 Aug 26, 2024

This week I am talking with Kimothy Joy, the author of “Extraordinary Wing Women: True Stories of Life-Altering, World-Changing Sisterhood,” “Focus Pocus: A 90-Day Guided Journal,” and “That's What She Said: Wise Words from Influential Women.” A Denver-based artist and author who combines watercolor and hand lettering to create artwork that uplifts and inspires women worldwide, Kimothy has collaborated with the Women's March on Washington, the US Women's National Soccer Team, Gucci and Melinda Gates, just to name a few.

We covered:

- How following her curiosity into painting watercolors in her journal went took her from “just a person painting my feeling” to “a career”

- How motherhood impacted her creative process

- How her creativity ebbs and flows, and how she learned to accept those ebbs and flows because “the more I resist, the more painful it is”

- Learning how to untie her sense of self-worth from how much she was producing on any given day

- How time spent outside sparks both mindfulness and creativity

- The inspiration for her Focus Pocus 90-day journal

- The concept of creative hygiene

- The tools she uses to catch her creative ideas when they come

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lisa See, what’s coming up]: Dealing with the upset of putting your characters through tough times + an awesome mini class on tea Ep 1124 Aug 23, 2024

In this final installment of my talk with Lisa See–bestselling author of so! many! beloved books, including “Lady Tan's Circle of Women” and “The Island of Sea Women’’--we find out what Lisa is currently working on bringing into existence and what she knows at this moment about where her personal through line is leading her next. Plus my final fast five questions.

- How being at the Aspen Music Festival is helping her deal with the upset of writing her characters through a massively disastrous event

- The superstars who inspire Lisa by their example of “effortless and imperfect perfection”

- The daily habit she picked up from her mother (I totally want to steal this)

- The change she and her husband are in the process of making

- A really cool vantage on seeking to create generational memories as a grandparent

- The book that made her get out of bed and go to another room so she could finish it

- Paging all tea lovers! Lisa gave an awesome mini class on pu er, her favorite kind of tea

- A peek at some of the albums (current and vintage) that she plays on her turntable

- The meal she’s currently craving

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lisa See, inner stuff]: “When I get edits back from my editor, it’s just like, ‘Please kill me now’” Ep 1123 Aug 21, 2024

In the second part of my conversation with hugely successful and popular (and oh my God, did this really happen??) Lisa See, author of Lady Tan's Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, and more, we talked about the interior side of writing–things like dealing with your inner critic and dealing with the parts you would really rather not do, thank you very much, including:

- The fascinating tidbit of information her research taught her about Los Angeles

- How the Chinese public discourse about protection against smallpox epidemics 500 years ago are eerily similar to the controversy over Covid vaccines we recently experienced

- The predictable emotional rollercoaster she rides each time during the revision process

- Why writers should start celebrating good sentences the way Olympians celebrate an important point

- The ninja trick of agreeing with your inner critic

- A potential peril of becoming an internationally bestselling author

- How the inevitable losses we experience with age can deepen your writing

- The things she says no to now that she’s the age that she is

- Some of the beliefs and attitudes passed down through the Chinese side of her family she really had to work to cast off (and how her mother, who is not Chinese, helped)

- Why reading fiction is her go-to personal development tool

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lisa See, practical matters]: The fun little family research project that turned into a “New York Times” notable book + telling stories that have been hidden Ep 1122 Aug 19, 2024

I'm talking with Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of so many beloved books, including Lady Tan's Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women, Snow Flower and the Secret Ban, Shanghai Girls, and Dreams of Joy. Lisa's books often center the experience of women across time and cultures, particularly stories that have been lost, forgotten, or deliberately covered up.

Lisa talked with me while she was on vacation and I'm so thankful that she carved out some time for us.

We covered:

- How her mother and grandfather were both writers, so she, naturally, vowed never to become one… and how that all changed when she was bumming around Europe on $5 a day after college

- The atrocious 1970s TV miniseries that was so poorly written, it inspired her to try writing fiction (under the pen name Monica Highland)

- How she started researching the Chinese side of her family thinking that she’d include a short letter about it in that year’s holiday card, and how that grew into “On Gold Mountain,” her first book written under her own name, as well as a national bestseller and New York Times notable book

- What’s been easy and what’s been hard about her work as a novelist

- A peek into her (fascinating) research process

- The routine she follows every morning routine (that involves waiting for her husband to get done exercising)

- Why she doesn’t worry about keeping her tea hot

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Minda Honey, what's next]: Embracing the strengths of being a Black writer + braided essays + MANY awesome book and music recs Ep 1121 Aug 16, 2024

(Note, this episode is a replay that originally aired in February.)

In this final installment of my talk with author and essayist Minda Honey, we cover:

* The insights–on double consciousness, omniscience, and overlapping timelines–she got at a recent conference

* How Andre 3000’s new flute album is cracking open possibilities in her mind

* The concept of a braided essay, and how it’s like making a charcuterie board

* The book Minda could not put down (and that made her cry)

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Minda Honey, inner stuff]: Avoiding “self-exploitation” + countering the voices, external and internal, that criticize your work Ep 1120 Aug 14, 2024

In part 2 of my interview with essayist and author of the memoir "The Heartbreak Years," Minda Honey, we really break down the inner parts of writing, including how to stay focused on the impact your work is having when all some people want to do is complain.

(Note, this episode is a replay that originally aired in February.)

Other things we cover:

* How an earlier school of personal essays bordered into too personal, or what Minda referred to as “self-exploitation”, and how to make sure you’re not doing that in your own personal writing

* How even when you tell people what your book is about with a very clear title, some people are going to be upset by what you include in your book

* How people are dismissive of women writing truthfully about all parts of their lives–and how she deals with the haters

* Why doing the art that speaks to your soul is the only way to go

* Her genius approach to dealing with the inner critic (preview: she proves it’s a liar)

* Why not every day is a day for writing

* Why Minda had to start doing her own taxes at age 17

* Learning to cry

* How Minda uses tools like human design and tarot in work and life

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Minda Honey, practical matters]: Answering the call to write + the right beverages are everything Ep 1119 Aug 12, 2024

Minda Honey is the author of "The Heartbreak Years," a hilarious and intimate memoir of a Black woman finding who she is and who she wants to be, one bad date at a time.

Minda's essays on politics and relationships have appeared in all kinds of amazing places, including Harper's Bazaar, the Los Angeles Review of Books, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Teen Vogue, and Longreads. She is also the editor of Black Joy at Reckon, an online outlet where she also helms a newsletter that has nearly 60,000 subscribers.

Honestly there were SO MANY quotes I wanted to pull from this interview–just go ahead and press play right now.

(Note, this episode is a replay that originally aired in February.)

But here’s the synopsis:

* How Minda–the daughter of a postal worker and a computer programmer–did the “get good grades, get a scholarship, join corporate America” thing and realized, it wasn’t for her

* Squaring all the “Davids and Jonathans”--the typical authors taught in MFA programs–with the Tonis and Zoras Minda revered

* The financial move that helped Minda launch her freelance career

* The many daily parts of life that count as ‘writing’

* Why you NEED to find your writing community

* Minda’s recipe for sitting down to write: Lofi music + a trio of beverages and four hours blocked off

* The satisfying clickety clack of a specific type of keyboard

* Why Minda was doing our interview from Mexico (it involves “skipping winter”, but there’s a lot more to it than that)

* Giving up drinking and moving away from home

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AquaTru.com. Use promo code KATE to save 20% off a reverse osmosis water filter and support this podcast!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lucas Mann, what’s coming up]: Which reality TV show he gladly gives up sleep to watch + book recommendations galore Ep 1118 Aug 09, 2024

In this final installment of my conversation with author and bookstore co-owner Lucas Mann, we talk about the books, writers, TV shows, music, and even dinners that are getting his wheels turning, including:

The book he recently read with his book club that got him excited about writing in new ways and that he couldn’t stop talking about

Why a long walk or bike ride can solve most problems

The two writers whose work and ways of being inspire him

The reality TV show he would forego sleep for weeks at a time if he could

The dad music he has embraced, the morning beverage he drinks until he feels ill, the recent book that kept him awake, and his favorite sushi restaurant

Visit Lucas at www.lucasmann.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lucas Mann, inner stuff]: Getting around an inner critic devoted to making sure you sound smart + releasing the desire to blow people away with your genius Ep 117 Aug 07, 2024

In this second part of my conversation with Lucas Mann, author of Attachments, Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances and co-owner (with his wife, Ottavia) of the fabulous Riff Raff Bookstore and Bar in Providence, Rhode Island, we really got into the evolution of his thinking about what it means–and what it takes–to be a ‘successful’ writer, and what the even means.

Specifically, we talked about:

The hardest part of writing for Lucas–namely, discipline–and why writing an article feels so much harder than writing a book

How his inner critic is obsessed with making sure he sounds smart, and not like he’s just writing about feelings–and how it’s always wrong

How getting older has helped him be less precious about his writing

How being a competitive, jock-y kid fed into his writing path

How teaching creative writing (which he does at U. Mass Dartmouth) has changed since he was an MFA student at the University of Iowa

Releasing the idea that the only way to be good at something is to be maniacally devoted to it

Why he loves the Enneagram

Visit Lucas at www.lucasmann.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lucas Mann, practical matters]: Weaving in a new strand to the braid of your writing career + getting over the idea that writing is a solitary profession Ep 1116 Aug 05, 2024

This week I’m talking with Lucas Mann, author of multiple non-fiction books, including his latest, Attachments: Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances, Captive Audience: On Love and Reality Television, Lord Fear: a Memoir, and Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere. In addition to writing books, Lucas has written essays that have appeared in a long list of top tier publications, including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate, The Rumpus, and Buzzfeed.

Lucas teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and he and his wife, Ottavia, own Riff Raff Bookstore and Bar in Providence, Rhode Island, an amazing hub of community for folks who love to write and or love to read and or both.

In this episode we talked about the nuts and bolts of how he got to where he is today and how he gets his work done, including:

The realities of running a bookstore alongside having your own writing career

A peek into the author talk/event planning side of the book business

Weaving in a new strand to the braid of your writing career

Getting over the idea that writing is a solitary profession

The value of a hyperlocal writing community, and how to tap into one

The emotional intricacies of writing memoir and how to navigate them

Why he walks across town to write

Visit Lucas at www.lucasmann.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Justice Ameer: What’s coming up]: What zombies have to do with the trans feminine experience + why an iced chai latte might be the perfect beverage Ep 1115 Aug 02, 2024

In this third installment of my interview with poet and slam champion Justice Ameer, we talked about:

The book that has opened a new vein of creativity for Justice

Working to create more time for restoration, fellowship and connection to nature

Writing about the trans feminine experience by using a zombie motif

The anime series xe has been watching for 10 years, the beverage that fuels xyr’s writing, the lunch dish xe would eat everyday

Visit Justice at justiceameerpoetry.com

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Justice Ameer, inner stuff]: How being a mega-fan of whatever nerdy thing you love makes you a better writer + when your inner critic tells you you’re boring Ep 1114 Jul 31, 2024

In this second part of my interview with poet and slam champion, Justice Ameer, We talk about the mindset side of writing, including:

The factoid about moths that inspired a recent poem

Building up the revision muscle

How not to get bored with your primary theme or subject matter

Dealing with the admin side of writing as someone with ADHD

When your inner critic tells you “this is boring “

Dealing with the internal question “are you even a writer?“

Why experimenting with ideas that will likely never see the light of day is vital

How being a fan of Pokémon, video games, and vampire movies provide Justice with inspiration

Visit Justice at justiceameerpoetry.com

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Justice Ameer, practical matters]: how to find your writing community + developing consistency as an artist—especially woth ADHD Ep 1113 Jul 29, 2024

This week I am talking with Justice Ameer, whom. Boston public radio station WBUR called “one of the most recognized trans poets of color on the local and national poetry scene.”

Justice is a Feminine Empowerment Movement Slam Champion, and two -time Providence Grand Slam Champion,l. Justice describes xyr work as a practice in becoming unapologetic and unafraid, and has been published in Glass Poetry Press, Poetry Magazine, and the Breakbeat Poets, Volume 2, Black Girl Magic Anthology.

We covered:

How poetry is like therapy.

How xe writes to imagine a better world and process what’s upsetting about this world

Tips for finding a riding community—-both in person and online.

How to use that community to get useful feedback

The value of having a day per week blocked off for writing

Finding a consistent artist practice with ADHD.

How to decide on what to work on when you do sit down to write

Letting an idea take you where it’s meant to go

Visit Justice at justiceameerpoetry.com

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Octavia Randolph: What’s coming up]: Why Taylor Swift is a model for her + a glimpse of a big shift that’s brewing Ep 1112 Jul 26, 2024

In this final installment of my interview with Octavia Randolph, author of the hugely popular Circle of Ceridwen saga, a meticulously researched series of 11 books set in 9th century England and scandinavia, we get a sneak peek in her 12th book in the saga,and what she knows at this moment about where her personal throughline is leading her next.

She shared:

- The absolutely incredible sounding retreat she hosted for readers last year in Gotland, where she now lives and where many of her novels are set

- The ninth century style feast–wherever everyone was in period costume–that was the cherry on top of that retreat

- Why she looks to Taylor Swift as a creative role model

- The big shift she can sense is coming, although she can’t say more, but she did mentioned “a possibility of a television series” – and what she’s doing to stay grounded as it continues to unfold

- The Henry James novel she re-reads each summer

- How three cups of coffee is the perfect number of cups of coffee

- The lunch she has had nearly every day for nearly 40 years

Visit Octavia at octavia.net, or on the Circle of Ceridwen Saga private Facebook group.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Octavia Randolph, inner stuff]: Dealing with professional envy + an absolute master class on building a community of readers Ep 1111 Jul 24, 2024

This is the second part of my interview with Octavia Randolph, author of the hugely popular Circle of Ceridwen saga, a meticulously researched series of 11 books set in 9th century England and scandinavia. Octavia joined me from her home on Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Sweden that played a prominent role in Viking history and in several of her books.

Today we covered the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you’re not fully conscious of it.

- How identifying with your characters is great, until you need to write scenes where they face hardship

- Octavia gives a gosh-darn masterclass on building a community of readers NOT TO BE MISSED

- The testy letter she received from a reader and how she responded

- The critical importance of defining success for yourself, and not by looking at what other people have achieved

- How writing her books has made her a better person

- How she uses runes to stay connected to her characters and consider possibilities in her own life

Visit Octavia at octavia.net, or on the Circle of Ceridwen Saga private Facebook group.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Octavia Randolph, practical matters]: An amazing writing process that starts outside at 6 am + Independent publishing vs. self-publishing Ep 1110 Jul 22, 2024

This week I’m talking with Octavia Randoplh, a prolific and wildly successful author of historical novels and essays. She’s best known for her Circle of Ceridwen saga, a meticulously researched series of 11–soon to be 12–books set in 9th century England and scandinavia.

Octavia now makes her home on Gotland, a small island off the coast of Sweden in the Baltic Sea where some of her novels are set and which was an important way station for the Vikings as the traveled East and West from Scandinavia.

She is also a devoted needleworker and mosaic artist, and an unabashed cat person.

We covered:

- Why ‘Viking’ isn’t really the right word to describe the people from Scandinavia who explored far and wide a millennia and a half ago

- How a fascination with physical artifacts from England’s early history put her on the path to be a historical fiction author

- How she found her way to massive publishing success despite having great agents and getting only rejections from traditional publishing houses

- The difference between self-publishing and independent publishing–and a peek inside the cast of folks who make it possible for Octavia to edit and publish her books

- How a daily morning walk forms the basis of how she gets her writing done–that, and talking to herself as she writes

Visit Octavia at octavia.net, or on the Circle of Ceridwen Saga private Facebook group.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Hayley Krischer: What’s coming up]: What she’s recently learned about understanding her character’s psyches + the incredible allure of hot tubs Ep 1109 Jul 19, 2024

In this final part of my interview with Hayley Krischer, journalist and author of the just-released “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”--the juiciest beach read of the year about a missing Hollywood starlet on the cusp of Y2K and the obsessed journalist determined to find here--we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions.

** This week's episodes are a replay. **

We talked about:

- The incredible allure of hot tubs

- How re-watching “The Actor’s Studio with James Lipton” was a key part of her research process for “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”

- What she learned from studying actors about getting in to the psychology of her characters

- The Instagram influencer who’s helping Hayley understand her perimenopausal body and learning how to take care of herself

- Thinking ahead to when her youngest child is out of the house

- A preview of both her YA novel that’s coming out in 2025 (think Charles Manson meets Goop meets teenage girls) and the adult novel she’s writing next

- The 620-page novel Hayley read in four days because she couldn’t put it down

- The exact morning beverage that fuels Hayley, and the (dark) song that gets her fired up when she needs a kick in the pants

Follow Hayley on Instagram and Threads @haylerkrischer

Follow Hayley on TikTok @hayleykrischerauthor

Hayley’s website: hayleykrischer.net

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Hayley Krischer, inner stuff]: True confessions about how “horrible” writing can feel + why–and how–she wrote her next novel in longhand Ep 1108 Jul 17, 2024

In this episode I'm talking with Hayley Krischer--author of the upcoming “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”, which dropped yesterday, July 16th, and is poised to be the beach read of the summer--about the squishier side of creativity, including:

** This week's episodes are a replay. **

- The steps Hayley takes–and the tools she uses–to immerse herself in the world of her novels and inside her characters’ psyches

- What she does when she’s feeling stuck

- How good it feels when you connect with someone who loved your work in the real world

- The YA author Hayley fan-girled all over when she realized he was also an audience member at a reading she was attending

- How writing and editing can feel “horrible,” “like torture”--and the parts that make Hayley feel like jumping for joy

- How her inner critic loves to tell her she should be able to write a novel while also taking five-mile hikes every day

- How the months between when you’re done working on a manuscript and the book is published is a tough time, mentally–and how to navigate it

- The self-care practices helping Hayley through (the journaling practice, the supplements, the breathing exercise that helps her sleep)

- Busting the myth that writers make a lot of money and how hard it is to make a bestseller list

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Hayley Krischer, Practical Matters]: The power of just keeping going + how to capture those great ideas that come when you’re not at your desk Ep 1107 Jul 15, 2024

This week I am talking with journalist and novelist Hayley Krischer whose brand new novel drops this week, "Where Are You, Echo Blue?," which is about a journalist's obsessive search for Hollywood's hottest starlet who goes missing on the eve of Y2K.

Hayley has profiled celebrities like Tatum O'Neill, Celine Dion, and Gabrielle Union for places like The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, and Elle.

Hayley's first two novels were for young adults: “Something Happened to Allie Greenleaf” and “The Falling Girls” and they were awesome, about friendship among not necessarily likeable characters.

I for one am very pumped about "Where Are You, Echo Blue?", I think it will be the perfect beach read, like Us Magazine meets Daisy Jones and the Six meets mystery novel.

** This week's episodes are a replay. **

We covered:

- Which former child actor/celebrities Hayley obsessively researched for her upcoming book, “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”

- How she found herself working at the Boston Globe in college and found all the journalists “these grimy, sexy, fascinating people”

- The brilliant wisdom she tells her kids about power of just keeping going.

- The circular editorial career that led her to being an author

- The “pure insanity” that keeps her coming back to the page

- The writing program Hayley signed up for that took the story she’d been working on for 20 years and could never sell and helped her revise it into a form that sold to a major publisher in four days (her first YA novel, “Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf”

- The exact mechanical pencil she used to write her upcoming YA novel that’s coming out in 2025

- The author who inspired Hayley to write a novel in longhand

- Why you should never trust yourself to remember that great idea and the myriad ways Hayley captures those ideas, wherever they may happen

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Mark Cecil: What’s coming up]: The iconic filmmaker who's a master myth maker + being honest about how much time you have for all the various parts of life Ep 1106 Jul 12, 2024

Welcome back to the Finding the Throughline interview with Mark Cecil, author of BUNYAN AND HENRY, OR, THE BEAUTIFUL DESTINY, a re-telling of the folk tales of Paul Bunyan and John Henry that Publisher’s Weekly called “a fun romp with substance.” Mark is also the host of the Thoughtful Bro podcast where he interviews authors in what he calls “Like Inside the Actor’s Studio, but for storytellers.”

In this episode, we find out what Mark is currently working on bringing into existence and what he knows at this moment about where his personal throughline is leading him next. Plus I always end with ask my guests my fast, final five questions about what they’re currently reading and the songs that get them fired up.

We talked about:

- Why he’s crazy for Charlie Chaplin movies

- How to tell if an author loves people or not

- Looking to George Lucas as a model of modern mythmaking

- Being honest about how much time you have for all the various parts of life–like exercise and friendship–and dealing with that reality

- The 12-year-old who made one of Mark’s lifelong dreams come true

- The challenge of writing a book that appeals to a wide range of people

- The “very dark, very twisted” Netflix series he just binged, the song that always makes him smile (it’s now on the “Proven Pick-me-ups from Finding the Throughline playlist on Spotify–look for it!), why September is the best month, and the brunch dish that Mark uses as a bellwether for whether or not a restaurant is good.

Visit Mark at markcecilauthor.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Mark Cecil, inner stuff]: Why getting feedback on your work is like open-heart surgery + opting for the twisty path vs. the straight path to ‘success’ Ep 1105 Jul 10, 2024

In this second part of my interview with Mark Cecil, author of BUNYAN AND HENRY, OR, THE BEAUTIFUL DESTINY we cover the squishier side of writing–the thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs that influence the work, including:

Why he considers getting feedback to be like open heart surgery–absolutely vital, yet painful–and ultimately, a time-saver

And, ironically, how devastated he gets by a bad review

How his inner critic loves to tell him, “If you were any good, you’d be successful by now,” and how he deals with that

How making his debut at 46 motivates him

Taking the twisty path instead of the straight path (if that even exists)to what he calls “the beautiful destiny”

In other news, Mark is also the host of “The Thoughtful Bro” podcast where he interviews authors about their latest book. If you’re digging “Finding the Throughline,” you are also going to dig “The Thoughtful Bro,” so go check it out!

Visit Mark at markcecilauthor.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Mark Cecil, practical matters]: On writing multiple books before writing the one that got published + the genius trick that kept him going Ep 1104 Jul 08, 2024

This week I’m talking with author and journalist Mark Cecil. Mark’s debut novel BUNYAN AND HENRY, OR, THE BEAUTIFUL DESTINY, a retelling of the folk tales of Paul Bunyan and John Henry, has just come out. (The book was named one of the most anticipated books of 2024 from Goodreads, while Publishers Weekly called it “boisterous and a fun romp with plenty of substance.”) Mark’s articles have been published in LitHub and Writer’s Digest and he’s taught classes on writing and publishing for Grub Street and the Writer’s Loft.

Despite these accolades, Mark had a long, tough road to publishing and he’s learned some really valuable lessons along the way, which he generously shares in a very inspiring way.

We covered:

How Mark is inspired by trying to contribute to a mythology that is uniquely American, and what that means

The six other manuscripts Mark wrote that didn’t end up getting published, and how he dealt with that long road

How he knew he had stumbled on the right idea at last

The genius thing he told himself that helped him keep going despite multiple rejections

How a very frustrating question from an editor launched him on an odyssey of learning the art of storytelling that ultimately led him to the idea of his debut novel

Why he seeks to write every damn day, despite how he’s feeling about himself and his work

How he’ll write anywhere, despite the external–and internal!, conditions he finds himself in

How sports, whether he’s playing, coaching, or watching, helps keep him mentally healthy

Visit Mark at markcecilauthor.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Finding the Throughline ep. 25: It's our six month-iversary! A quick review of the surprises, the insights, and ways my thinking about writing has changed as a result Ep 1101 Jul 01, 2024

Since this week is both the podcast’s half-birthday and the Fourth of July week--which means you’re more likely to be at a BBQ or the beach and not listening to podcasts--I thought I’d switch things up this week and do one episode where I do a little review of what I've learned and what has stuck with me after the 24 conversations with writers I’ve had thus far.

Thank you for listening! And be sure to check out our sponsor at airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off a new air purifier and get a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

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[Julie Gerstenblatt: what’s coming up]: How to approach writing about something you have little firsthand experience of + the magic of a Disney soundtrack, Ep 1100 Jun 28, 2024

In this final installment of interview with “Daughters of Nantucket” author Julie Gerstenblatt, we get a peek at her next novel and the very clever, and fun-sounding, way she’s dealing with the nerves that are cropping up as she writes about something she has very little firsthand experience with.

We talked about:

All the places she’s researching maritime history as she works on her next book, which involves a sailing trip to China
Her favorite books on writing and creativity
Creating structure for herself now that her kids are out of the house
Trying to figure out how to spend more time in her happy place, AKA Nantucket
The show and the books that are keeping her up too late because they’re just so good
Why she’s still listening to Disney soundtracks even though her kids are grown and flown

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Julie Gerstenblatt, inner stuff]: A ninja mind trick for making a daily writing goal seem easy + why you should show *and* tell, Ep 1099 Jun 26, 2024

In this second part of my interview with Julie Gerstenblat, author of “The Daughters of Nantucket,” I talk with Julie about the mindset side of writing.

We talked about:

How she’s convinced herself that her daily word count goal is much easier than it actually is (this is a cool Jedi mind trick) and the pep talks she gives herself

The part of writing her next book that is really freaking her out–and how she’s dealing with it

How her writing group is structured (I totally want to steal this)

The absolute mind trip of becoming an empty nester

Why she thinks the writing advice to “show don’t tell” is overrated and misinterpreted

How her Myers-Briggs personality plays out in her home life and work life

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Julie Gerstenblatt, practical matters]: On writing novels that will never be published + stepping out into a new genre Ep 1098 Jun 24, 2024

This week I am talking with Julie Gerstenblatt, whose debut novel, “Daughters of Nantucket,” came out last year and was included in several most anticipated lists for 2023. Prior to writing novels, Julie was a middle school English teacher and earned her PhD so that she could teach at the college level, but she ended up leaving teaching because she wanted to be a novelist. (Her story of how she admitted this desire to herself–and her advisors–during her PhD dissertation is incredible!)

We covered:

The many contemporary novel manuscripts she wrote but could not sell

How combining something new (historical fiction) with something she knew well and loved (Nantucket) led to selling her book to a publisher

How she kept writing “Daughters of Nantucket” even after her agent broke up with her

Making time to write amidst teaching middle school, writing a PhD dissertation, and having three young kids

The specifics of her morning routine and how she gets warmed up to write

How she gets herself to leave the house

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lisa Tener: what’s coming up]: The simple shift that “makes life juicier” + a recipe for Lisa’s all-time favorite tea Ep 1097 Jun 21, 2024

In this final installment of my conversation with award-winning book coach (who has helped dozens and dozens and dozens of experts get five- and six-figure book deals) and author of the brand-new book “Breathe. Write. Breathe.” Lisa Tener, we get a look at what’s coming up for her, and she answers my fast five final questions.

Wa talked about:

The trippy experience of re-reading something you first encountered years ago and having a completely new and different take on it

How discovering Sark’s books felt like a gift from the universe

Using Human Design as a tool to help you figure out what to do next

Manifesting teaching a retreat at place like Kripalu, Omega, or Esalen

The shift she’s working that “makes life juicier”

Why she’s feeling drawn to write more poetry

Lisa’s recipe for her all-time favorite tea

Her favorite dish at her favorite restaurant that sounds so good it inspired us to make a dinner date to go get it

Visit Lisa at listener.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lisa Tener, inner stuff]: Practical ways to get out of the fear of not making enough money + embracing surrender Ep 1096 Jun 19, 2024

In this second part of my interview with Lisa Tener–award-winning book coach and author of the brand-new “Breath. Write. Breathe.”--we get into the squishier parts of writing.

Warning, this part of our conversation is super juicy! Not in a sexy way, but in a “wow I’m really thinking differently about stuff that’s been plaguing me forever” kind of way.

You’ll learn:

Her least favorite part about promoting her work, and how she works with that resistance

Finding the right balance between taking on work for clients to pay the bills and saving time and energy for your own work

Practical ways to get out of the fear of not making or having enough money

Tipping your internal scale to be more weighted toward surrender, and less weight toward trying to control everything

Her ninja trick for dealing with difficult people

How she’s used Family Systems Constellation Work to work through blockages both in life and in her mind

Visit Lisa at listener.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Lisa Tener, practical matters]: The tools that help Lisa get her writing done + an easy and fun physical exercise that gets you in the flow Ep 1095 Jun 17, 2024

This week I am talking with award-winning book coach and award-winning author–of the books The Joy of Writing Journal and the brand-new Breathe.Write. Breathe.--Lisa Tener.

Lisa served on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School’s continuing education course on writing and publishing books for over a dozen years. And she has helped hundreds of experts and thought leaders write and publish their books and secure five and six figure book deals.

I was so happy and honored to write the foreword for Lisa's new book, which draws a lot on Lisa's in-depth studies and practice of qigong. And if you've been with me since the “How to Be a Better Person” days, you may remember Lisa when she came on as a guest and walked me through her “meet your muse” exercise, which helps you get in touch with your intuition and receive messages from your subconscious that can help you move forward in your creative work or get insight into anything you may be facing, where you could use a little guidance.

And lest you think Lisa is all about the woo, she also, I just found out while researching her for this episode, has her bachelor's and master's degree from MIT.

We covered:

How getting sick put her on the path to becoming a writer

How writing down her dreams helps fuel her writing

Working with the difficulty of earning a living from your writing

A peek inside the small village of people it takes to publish a book

The easy but powerful qigong move Lisa teaches to get you loosened up and ready to write

A look at the tools, places, and times of day that help Lisa get her writing done.

Visit Lisa at listener.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Donna Russo, what’s coming up]: How to keep writing fresh (11 books in) + a love song to lobster Ep 1094 Jun 14, 2024

In this third and final installment of my interview with Donna Russo, author of “Vincent's Women, the Untold Story of the Loves of Vincent Van Gogh,” as well as 10 other award-winning and internationally bestselling historical novels, we get a peek at what’s coming up next for her and she answers my fast five questions about what she’s stayed up too late reading and watching.

How she’s feeling now that she’s on the verge of becoming a grandmother

A sneak peek at her next book, which is already in the works–as well as how she’s challenging herself in new ways with this project

The great authors she learned the importance of descriptive settings from

The screen play she wrote that got tabled by COVID and the writer’s strike, despite winning awards

The music that gets her going when she needs a boost

Visit Donna at donnarusso.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter, and get a free 3-year warranty (and $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Donna Russo, inner stuff]: How to get yourself psyched to start a new project + stay steady through the pre-release nerves Ep 1093 Jun 12, 2024

In this second part of my conversation with Donna Russo, author of “Vincent's Women: the Untold Story of the Loves of Vincent van Gogh, as well as 10 other award winning and internationally best selling historical novels, we explore the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that influence her work.

We talked about:

Why the time period just before your book comes out is the most nerve-wracking, “like walking out naked and the world gets to comment”

The thrill of being in the same room as a group of your readers

How she takes her mind off the anxiety that comes pre-book release

Her biggest fears as a writer

Why being 66 is an asset to her writing

Her best advice for young writers

How historical fiction reminds us that there are always multiple points of view to every story

Visit Donna at donnarusso.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter, and get a free 3-year warranty (and $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Donna Russo, practical matters]: Writing through trauma + taking yourself seriously as a writer in a culture that doesn’t value artists Ep 1092 Jun 10, 2024

Up this week is Donna Russo, an internationally best-selling author of 11 multiple award winning historical novels, including “Gilded Dreams” and “Gilded Summers”, a trio of books about Leonardo da Vinci, including “Portrait of a Conspiracy,” “The Competition,” and “The Flames of Florence.” Her newest book, “Vincent’s Women” is just out, and tells the story of everyone's favorite tortured artist through the lens of the women in his life.

(I have to point out Vincent's women managed to get 4. 3 stars on Goodreads, which is not easy to do. Goodreads readers are very sparing with their five star ratings.)

Donna is also an award winning screenwriter, a ghostwriter, and an editor. And she's an actor who appeared in Martin Scorsese's “The Departed,” as well as Showtime's “Brotherhood.” And, she's a painter” I’m so thankful she joined us, because she clearly has a lot of things that take up her time!

We covered:

How reading “Gone with the Wind” and “The Thorn Birds” as a kid sparked a devotion to historical fiction

How a ‘grand pity party’ after yet another bad date led to the idea for “Vincent’s Women”

How meeting Diana Gabaldon (author of The Outlander series and historical fiction OG!) at a conference spurred Donna on

Her first gig as a writer–that happened in sixth grade

How she sold her first book quickly and easily–and pretty much everything since then has been a struggle

The truth about why she does so many different things

The brass tacks of how she writes her book, from which chapter she writes first to how she lays out her computer monitor so that her research is always right at hand

How she wrote her friends into one of her books

The food and drink the fuels her writing

Visit Donna at donnarusso.com.

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter, and get a free 3-year warranty (and $84 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Marlon Weems, what's next]: Manifesting an appearance on "Good Morning America" + the two wildly different songs that get Marlon moving Ep 1091 Jun 07, 2024

In part three of my interview with Marlon Weems, author of the prize-winning essay "How Starting an Investment Business Almost Landed Me in Federal Prison" and founder of The Journeyman Substack, where he covers American culture and anti-Black racism, we get a peek at where his throughline is leading him next.

I had to leave out the meandering and enlightening and fun conversation we had about the upcoming presidential election, but now we're thinking about starting a separate podcast on that! Who knows if anything will come of it, but all I can say for sure is, I loved chatting with Marlon and know you will love hearing him, too.

We covered:

- Marlon's unexpected detour into becoming a voice actor in his 60s

- Being your own role model

- Manifesting an appearance on "Good Morning America"

- The AMC TV series Marlon's currently bingeing, based on books by one of his favorite authors (that he listens to as audiobooks because they are read by his favorite voice actor)

- The two songs from wildly different genres that get Marlon going when he needs a pick-me-up

Visit Marlon at thejourneyman.substack.com.

Thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter and get a free 3-year warranty ($84 value).

For full show notes, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Marlon Weems, inner stuff]: Turns out growing up Black in the South in the 60s is excellent training for writing about topics that tend to invite trolls Ep 1090 Jun 05, 2024

In this second part of my interview with Marlon Weems, founder of The Journeyman newsletter on Substack, where he covers American culture, anti-Black racism, and growing up Black in the Deep South, we talk about the mindset side of writing, including:

- The best place to look for your closing paragraph

- How having to make cold calls for a living is excellent training for dealing with (read: ignoring) trolls

- The story of how he almost went to federal prison after getting entangled with some primo money launderers

- The story of how THAT story became one of Medium's best articles of the year (and has inspired Marlon to start writing a book)

- Why he has 50+ drafts of articles in his Notes app at any given time, and how he decides it's time for a particular article to see the light of day

- Writing to leave a legacy, and hearing the clock ticking as a motivator to keep going

- The myth that if you just work hard enough, anything is possible

- The difference between anti-Black racism in the North and in the South

Visit Marlon at thejourneyman.substack.com.

Thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter and get a free 3-year warranty ($84 value).

For full show notes, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Marlon Weems, practical matters]: Writing in odd places, at odd times, using only your phone Ep 1089 Jun 05, 2024

This week I am talking with Marlon Weems, a former Wall Street trader who started his career in finance in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he founded the first Black-owned asset management firm and the first Black-owned venture capital firm in the state.

Since leaving the industry in 2012, Marlon has transitioned to writing. His essay, "How Starting an Investment Firm Almost Landed Me in Federal Prison, was named one of the best stories of 2023 on Medium.

Marlon now writes about American culture, anti Black racism, and growing up Black in the Deep South in The Journeyman, his Substack newsletter, which is where I discovered him. He is currently writing a memoir about his experiences in finance and, fun fact, Marlon recently made his theatrical debut in the role of Uncle Ben in a local production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

We covered:

- How he made the transition from Wall Street trader to full-time writer

- The freedom in being close enough to retirement that you're not worried that something you write might prevent you from getting another job

- Being friends with people whose political views differ from your own

- How most of his articles he writes on his phone at 3 am--the others he writes either in his car or at a bar

Visit Marlon at thejourneyman.substack.com.

Thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save up to 30% off an amazing indoor air filter and get a free 3-year warranty ($84 value).

For full show notes, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Shannon Watts, what's next]: Being OK with not exactly knowing what's coming up next + the recipe for the perfect cup of coffee Ep 1088 May 31, 2024

In this final part of my interview with Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts, we get a look at what's coming up for her--and how that might not involve being in the public eye at all after 11 years of being 'the tip of the spear' as a common sense gun law advocate. I also ask her what's she's reading, watching, listening to, drinking in her morning cup, and what she'd have for dinner tonight if she could have anything in the world.

We talked about:

- Her voracious love of podcasts (including a shortlist of her faves)

- Knowing that it's time to shift into a different way of being, but not yet knowing exactly what that looks like

- The reality show she watches until the wee hours whenever her husband is out of town

Visit Shannon at shannonwatts.substack.com.

For full show notes (including bonus photos!) visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Shannon Watts, inner stuff]: When your inner critic is terrified you'll come off as corny or woo-woo + taking aim at mom guilt Ep 1087 May 29, 2024

In the second part of my interview with Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, author of "Fight Like a Mother, and host of the Substack newsletter "Playing with Fire" (where she addresses overlooked topics head on, such as ADHD in women and girls and the benefits of hormone therapy for relief of menopause symptoms), we get into the mindset side of writing.

We covered:

- Reckoning with the enormity of needing to produce 60,000+ words for a book

- The "small miracle" or crystallizing a thought in a way you hadn't been able to articulate before

- How getting reiki helps her write

- Shifting out of perfectionism and into flow

- The huge difference in the lived experience between Gen X women and their mothers

- Taking aim at mom guilt

- The woo woo retreat that almost made her run for the door, but turned out to be a much-needed entryway to being playful

Visit Shannon at shannonwatts.substack.com.

For full show notes (including bonus photos!) visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Shannon Watts, practical matters]: The Facebook post heard 'round the world, the upsides of ADHD, and a standing desk fail Ep 1086 May 27, 2024

This week I am talking with badass advocate, author, Substacker, and "summoner of women's audacity," Shannon Watts.

Shannon is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the grassroots movement for common sense gun reform that grew to include more than 10 million members who have helped pass over 500 gun safety laws across the country. She's also the author of "Fight Like a Mother", and her opinion pieces have been published in the Washington Post, Elle, Time, and more.

Shannon has also been named Glamour's Woman of the Year and one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. And she's working on a new book about women in leadership that'll be out in the summer of 2025.

It was an honor to talk with her and we really broke it down, covering:

- Knowing when it's time to transition out of what you've been doing

- ADHD and how its effects have changed as she's gotten older

- Switching gears from being a very public person who had to keep her private life private (to not feed the trolls) to a private person who talks about private things (menopause, ADHD) publicly

- Honoring the desire to have more information (and to share that information once you find it)

- The incredible origin story of Moms Demand Action (or what I call, "the Facebook post heard 'round the world)

- Her standing desk fail

Visit Shannon at shannonwatts.substack.com.

For full show notes (including bonus photos!) visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Eric Jay Dolin, part 3: what's next]: Visualizing selling 500,000 copies + why chicken parm is the perfect food Ep 1085 May 24, 2024

In the final part of my interview with maritime history author Eric Jay Dolin, we get a tantalizing look at his next book, which he's working on now, about a shipwreck in the Pacific that involves a clash of East and West.

We also covered:

- Why his kids hate going to museums with him

- Using a desire to travel as motivation for selling more books

- The PBS show Eric considers comfort viewing

- Why Friday is the perfect day

- The bachelor meal he makes whenever his wife is out of town

Visit Eric at ericjaydolin.com.

For full show notes, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Eric Jay Dolin, part 2: inner stuff]: Riding that balance of being grateful for the audience you have, while also hoping to grow it Ep 1084 May 22, 2024

In the second part of my conversation with Eric Jay Dolin, (author of "Left for Dead," a true story about a captain of a sealing ship who was marooned on the Falkland Islands for 18 months in the early 1800s), we talk about the squishier side of writing, including dealing with your inner critic, getting through the parts of sharing your work that you'd really rather avoid, and managing your own expectations for how many copies your book will sell while also doing what you can to sell as many as possible.

We talked about:

- Getting geared up for giving talks as an introvert who grew up painfully shy (and the speaking tip that helps)

- The appeal of writing a book that will still be relevant in 30, 40, or more years

- How being in his 60s has affected his writing schedule, and his stress levels

- How being a writer can put you out of step with your friends once they start to hit retirement age, and you are still plugging along

- Taking aim at the belief that if you work hard, everything will work out

- The mystery and serendipity that impact how well your book sells

- The difference between wanting your book to sell well and expecting it to

Visit Eric at ericjaydolin.com.

For full show notes, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Eric Jay Dolin, part 1: practical matters]: A path to writing that is lined with sea shells and diplomas Ep 1083 May 20, 2024

Calling all lovers of true tales about the sea! This week I'm talking with Eric J. Dolin, bestselling author of numerous books that explore some aspect of American history, generally as it relates to the sea. His latest book is "Left for Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World." Eric has a really interesting through line that started with him studying to be a marine biologist, then morphed into studying environmental policy, and includes a big list of cool, interesting jobs, including curatorial assistant in the mollusk department at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

We covered:

- Eric's winding path to writing, which started with wanting to be Jacques Costeau as a kid, wended through getting three degrees in marine biologist, and ended with him working in government jobs (managing a fishery, for example) while saving up to make the leap to writing full-time

- How winning awards can keep you going, even when you're not selling as many books as you'd like

- HOT TIP: Eric's new book, "Left for Dead," would make a great Father's Day gift!

- How "people are overly impressed with writers", and that recognition can also keep you going

- The skills he developed as a student that help him write books

- How researching his current book generally leads to the idea for his next book

- The secret cove in Marblehead where Eric gets his reading done during the summer

- How reading books from the 1800s and early 1900s (as part of his research) changes his language

Visit Eric at ericjaydolin.com.

For full show notes, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kate Schapira, what's next]: Finding ways to share your work with more people that feel good, helpful, and nourishing (not like selling or marketing) Ep 1082 May 17, 2024

In this final section of my conversation with "Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth," Kate Schapira, we cover:

- Finding ways to bring her work to groups that are already gathering for another reason (hint: need to a professional development speaker or workshop leader to talk on working with climate anxiety?)

- Using the concept of cross-pollenization as a guiding principle

- The writers whose work has changed Kate's life

- The books, beverage, and songs that Kate can't get enough of

For full show notes, with links to everything Kate and I discuss, visit katehanley.substack.com. And to get each interview in one ad-free episode delivered straight to your inbox or podcast feed, visit katehanley.substack.com and become a paid subscriber.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kate Schapira, inner stuff]: Getting comfortable with the vulnerability of "telling the truth and showing your butt" in your writing Ep 1081 May 15, 2024

In this second part of my conversation with Kate Schapira, author of "Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth," we cover the squishier parts of writing, including:

- The process of deciding just how vulnerable to be in your writing

- The emotional difference between writing poetry and writing prescriptive non-fiction

- How her inner critic is a salty SOB

- How a writing group holds you accountable to write despite what your inner critic is telling you

- A peek inside the mechanics and beauties of Kate's writing group

- The illusion of innocence (WOW this really blew my mind open)

- Trying to be a good person vs. trying to have a good effect

For full show notes, with links to everything Kate and I discuss, visit katehanley.substack.com. And to get each interview in one ad-free episode delivered straight to your inbox or podcast feed, visit katehanley.substack.com and become a paid subscriber.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Kate Schapira, practical matters]: How one act of inspiration (mixed with desperation) turned in to a book + dealing with climate anxiety Ep 1080 May 13, 2024

This week I'm talking with Kate Schapira, author of "Lessons from the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth," which takes readers through the practical skills and emotional shifts needed to navigate our way to a more livable future.

Kate is also the author of six books of poetry, and her prose has appeared in The Rumpus, The Toast, and other places. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where she teaches nonfiction writing at Brown University. And fun fact about Kate, she has never met a tide pool that she didn't like.

In this episode we covered:

- How her grief over climate change inspired her to set up a table at a park in downtown Providence with a sign that said "Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth" and start talking to folks

- How that act of inspiration/desperation became a book

- The kinds of things people talked to her about at the booth

- Why she consciously chose NOT to pursue writing as a career path (it's her...side hustle? side passion that sometimes pays a little?)

- How to create a little more space when it feels like the walls of worry about the future are closing in

- The four-word mantra that helps her stay creative

- The genius (and new-to-me) concept of 'productive dissociation'

For full show notes, with links to everything Kate and I discuss, visit katehanley.substack.com. And to get each interview in one ad-free episode delivered straight to your inbox or podcast feed, visit katehanley.substack.com and become a paid subscriber.

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[Jacquelyn Mitchard, what's next]: Owning your jealousy of other writers + gobs of amazing book recommendations Ep 1079 May 10, 2024

In part three of my conversation with multiple New York Times bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of "A Very Inconvenient Scandal" and "The Deep End of the Ocean," among many other titles, we talk about how having writer friends is so important, even if you "jealous them", the vision of the future that's fueling her to keep writing, and the recent books that made her swoon.

- The writers--and books--that make Jacquelyn jealous (a word that she uses as a verb, as in, "I'm jealousing her."

- Her love for British crime shows, including the ones that are currently keeping her up way too late

- The BBC podcast she's addicted to

- The beauty of enjoying nature--through a window

- The saying on the mug that she brought home from the Erma Bombeck conference that is her current motto

- The songs Jacquelyn listens to when she needs a pick-me-up

- The meal "that's probably 2,000 calories per bite" that she would ask for if someone said they would make her anything she wanted

For full show notes, with links to everything Jacquelyn and I discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. And if you'd like to receive these episodes ad-free, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com.

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[Jacquelyn Mitchard, inner stuff]: Cultivating the relationship between author and reader when "every sentence is a struggle" Ep 1078 May 08, 2024

In this second part of my interview with the brilliant and hilarious Jacquelyn Mitchard, we talk about the squishier side of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including:

- The specific reader Jacquelyn imagines as she writes

- Why she's devoted to social media, and why she thinks of it like having a hamster

- How some of her books have 'missed the mark' (but she's not going to tell you which ones)

- The pep talk that gets her through those moments of feeling like a pretender

- The small rewards Jacquelyn uses to congratulate herself for getting another few good sentences down on paper

- The John Prine lyric that sums up her views on aging

- What she learned from growing up on the West side of Chicago (and the viewpoint of her father's that she outright rejects)

For full show notes, with links to everything Jacquelyn and I discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. And if you'd like to receive these episodes ad-free, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com.

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[Jacquelyn Mitchard, practical matters]: On deleting Oprah Winfrey's VMs + writing a book, one sentence at a time Ep 1077 May 06, 2024

This week I am thrilled to be talking with Jacquelyn Mitchard, the New York Times bestselling author of 23 novels for adults and teenagers. Her newest novel is "A Very Inconvenient Scandal," and her first novel, "The Deep End of the Ocean" was the first selection of the Oprah Winfrey book club and has sold more than 3 million copies and been translated into 34 languages.

We covered:

- How losing her husband in her late thirties put her on a quest to publish a novel "to prove that I could have a second act"

- How, when Oprah called, she deleted the messages because she felt it must have been a friend pranking her

- How she would most definitely NOT write even if she didn't get paid

- How the hardest part of the work is coming up with the idea

- How Jacquelyn's dreams help her write her books

- How she writes her book one sentence at a time, from start to finish, like building a skyscraper

- The realities of being chronically sleep deprived

- The difference between copying and stealing

- Living on the Cape, yet hating the beach

- Why she only ever has one cup of coffee

For full show notes, with links to everything Jacquelyn and I discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. And if you'd like to receive these episodes ad-free, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com.

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[Sari Botton: what's next]: The magic combination of reverence and irreverence Ep 1076 May 03, 2024

In the final installment of my interview with generous and prolific writing goddess Sari Botton (she publishes Oldster Magazine, Memoir Land, and Adventures in Journalism on Substack, authored And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming Gen X Weirdo, Goodbye to All That, and Never Can Say Goodbye, and was the essays editor at Longreads), we talk about what's coming up next for her, as well as her favorite shows, books, songs, time, and food.

- What projects she’s dreaming about creating next

- The two things she knows she needs to shift (including a great tip for folks with Sephardic Jewish heritage!)

- Plus, Sari’s favorite show, the last book she devoured, her go-to karaoke song, and her ideal dinner (hint: it’s shellfish heavy)

If you want to hear these interviews in one, ad-free episode, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com. Full show notes available there, too.

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[Sari Botton, inner stuff]: Bucket lists, the subconscious desire for permission, and clogs Ep 1075 May 01, 2024

In part two of my interview with Sari Botton, founder of Oldster Magazine and author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Gen X Weirdo, we dive deep into the inner stuff, including:

- Her favorite part of sharing her work with the world

- How she navigates the ethics of including other people in her personal writing

- How her inner critic loves to tell her she doesn’t haven’t permission to write about what she wants to write about—and how she gets past it

- How getting older, and developing arthritis, is making her re-think some things, including her beloved wooden clog collection

- Her personal role models

- That thing that just won’t remove itself from Sari’s bucket list, even though she’s trying to move past it

If you want to hear these interviews in one, ad-free episode, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com. Full show notes available there, too.

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[Sari Botton, practical matters]: The power of curiosity + to-do list trickery Ep 1074 Apr 29, 2024

Sari Botton is the author of And You May Find Yourself: Confessions of a Late-Blooming, Gen-X Weirdo and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. She's also the creator of Oldster, a Substack newsletter devoted to exploring the joys of getting older. (Her Oldster questionnaire was a direct inspiration for my starting this podcast.)

Sari was my first ever guest on Finding the Throughline--I'm replaying her episodes this week.

- The continuing ed class she took as a 20-something that lead to her personal writing career

- The thing her uncle told her when she was 10 that sparked a lifelong fascination with growing older

- Why she loves Substack—as both a writer and a reader

- The thing about trusting your instincts that Shalom Auslander first told her in 2010 that it took her 10+ years to believe

- The incredible power of writing annoying, non-work stuff down on your to-do list (even if you’re already done it)

- What she does to cheer herself up and clear her head

- Her morning routine (including what exactly goes in her mug)

If you want to hear these interviews in one, ad-free episode, become a paid subscriber at katehanley.substack.com. Full show notes available there, too.

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[Sonya Huber: What’s coming up]: Ep 1073 Apr 26, 2024

In this final part of my interview with Sonya Huber, professor at Fairfield University and author of Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto, we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions.

We talked about:

Her beautiful vision of the future include a possible memoir of living with anxiety and… goat writing retreats!

Sonya’s four aunts who were nuns and role models for living a joyous, industrious life

The classic short stories Sonya reads and re-reads for inspiration

The insanely awesome sounding “coffee smoothie” she makes each morning

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Sonya Huber, inner stuff]: How your personal writing can deepen your relationships + how not to hate writing Ep 1072 Apr 24, 2024

[Sonya Huber, inner stuff]: How your personal writing can deepen your relationships + how not to hate writing

In this episode I'm talking with Sonya Huber, author of eight books including Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto and professor in the low-residency MFA at Fairfield University about the mindset piece of writing–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including:

Ways to handle the anxiety that comes when in the months before your book is published

How to deal with the fear that you’re personal writing will hurt someone in your life, or get it ‘wrong’

How writing about your own life can deepen relationships with people close to you

“Sometimes books really matter to people in ways you don't even imagine they will”

How getting long Covid inspired Sonya to write three books in three years

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Sonya Huber, practical matters]: Secrets to having a healthy relationship with writing Ep 1071 Apr 22, 2024

This week I am interviewing Sonia Huber, a prolific and award winning writer in many genres, but primarily in creative nonfiction. Her book of essays on chronic pain, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System was named a best book of 2018 by The New Statesman. Her other books include Love and Industry (2023), Voice First: A Writer's Manifesto (2022) and Supremely Tiny Acts (2021). Her essays have been included in the Best American Essays series numerous times. And she is a professor in the department of English at Fairfield university and in the Fairfield low residency MFA program. Despite all these places where Sonya's work has appeared, I found her on Substack, where she publishes a newsletter called Nuts and Bolts with Sonya.

We covered:

Why and how Sonya works on multiple books at one time (“maybe because I’m super distractible”)

Not being afraid to follow a tangent

Having zero expectations for your writing output, and just having fun exploring the things you’re curious about or mulling over

How much “tiny steps add up to bigger works”

How farm-sitting goats pays as much or better than writing

The book about writing that was written in 1938 that played a huge role in Sonya’s approach to writing

Sitting down for one hour in the mornings even if you’re bored or uninspired to “unsnarl one tiny knot I’ve made for myself”

Strategies for keeping your various ideas accessible, if not exactly organized

Using writing as a tool for dealing with chronic pain

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Joanne McNeil: What’s coming up]: “I just want to make writing part of my life throughout my life” Ep 1070 Apr 19, 2024

In this final part of my interview with Joanne McNeill, author of Wrong Way (a novel set in the near future at a company that manages driverless cars) and Lurking (a non-fiction look at the history of the internet from a user’s perspective), we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions.

We talked about:

The novel The Lodgers by Holly Pester, about the housing crisis, and how it hurts a little bit every time she has to put it down because it’s so good

Joanne’s sci-fi inspirations, including Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, Ursula Le Guin, and Octavia Butler, and what specifically about their work fuels her writing

How avant garde sci fi novels used to sell hundreds of thousands of copies–and how this hunger for challenging work is still present, even if you’re not a fancy city elite

A tiny sneak peek at the new book she’s working on. OK, not really, but she does share how she’s trying to write this one differently and push back on the ideas she’s created about how she writes best

Joanne’s answers to the fast 5 questions–a book she was stunned by, where she gets her coffee beans, the Kate Bush song she finds so meaningful that she only listens to it a couple of times a year so it doesn’t lose its power, her favorite season, and the perfect wrap sandwich she would ask for if someone offered to make or buy absolutely anything she wanted.

Joanne’s website: https://www.joannemcneil.com/

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Joanne McNeil, inner stuff]: Owning your outsider status + “doing what I can do with with the tools that I have” Ep 1069 Apr 17, 2024

In this episode I'm talking with Joanne McNeil, author of Wrong Way (a novel set in the near future at a company that manages driverless cars) and Lurking (a non-fiction look at the history of the internet from a user’s perspective), about the inner workings of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that either help you do your work, or get in the way.

Warning, there’s a tiny bit of cursing and a mention of sexual harassment in the workplace–not a specific story, but just the topic in general, so take care while listening.

We talked about:

The thrill of writing an op ed and indulging that desire to be right…

…. compared to writing something more personal (fiction or nonfiction) and being more reflective and offering more of yourself

Reckoning with the fact that since her novel, Wrong Way, happens at work and the main character is female, she’d need to include scenes of sexual harassment in order for it be authentic–and really not wanting to go there (“I kind of wrote them in a flurry”)

Resisting the urge to overcompensate for the fact that she doesn’t have the ‘right’ writer’s resume

Why she still considers herself to be an emerging writer

How having writers who come from outside the traditional writing pipeline is so important for the future of writing…

…and how those writers will naturally take longer to develop (so please don’t tell yourself it’s ‘too late’ or ‘taking too long’!)

A mini rant about the use of AI to create art, and being the cheesy romantic who says “humanity is important”

Joanne’s website: https://www.joannemcneil.com/

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Joanne McNeil, practical matters]: On finding your ambition and building your own opportunities + a Trader Joe’s shopping list for fueling your writing Ep 1068 Apr 15, 2024

This week I am talking with journalist, essayist, and novelist, Joanne McNeil. Joanne's first novel Wrong Way came out in 2023. It's a sci-fi novel set in the near future that takes a look at the intersection of the gig economy and big tech and is both satirical and touching–it also made a lot of lists of the best books of 2023 and The New Yorker called it “a literary sneak attack on the very idea of 'the future.'” Joanne's first book, Lurking, is a nonfiction look at the history of the internet from a user's perspective. Joanne is also an important tech critic and has been writing professionally for 20 years.

We covered:

How posting on message boards in the early days of the Internet led Joanne, a kid from a working-class Massachusetts town, to pursue writing

Getting strategic about your career, especially when you don’t come from the traditional path of Ivy League undergraduate degree and top tier MFA

The often slow but vital work of building a diverse community

How residencies are like gift cards–and how to create your own residency if need be

Joanne’s list of must-have supplies for a writing residency: bulletin board, push pins, Post-It notes, and a detailed list of what to get at Trader Joe’s

Acknowledging the fact that one hour to yourself can serve as a residency when you need it to

Joanne’s website: https://www.joannemcneil.com/

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Hayley Krischer: What’s coming up]: What she’s recently learned about understanding her character’s psyches + the incredible allure of hot tubs Ep 1067 Apr 12, 2024

In this final part of my interview with Hayley Krischer, journalist and author of the soon-to-be-released “Where Are You, Echo Blue?” we peek at what’s coming around the bend for her and I get her answers to my fast five questions.

We talked about:

The incredible allure of hot tubs

How re-watching “The Actor’s Studio with James Lipton” was a key part of her research process for “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”

What she learned from studying actors about getting in to the psychology of her characters

The Instagram influencer who’s helping Hayley understand her perimenopausal body and learning how to take care of herself (Health with Holland)

Thinking ahead to when her youngest child is out of the house

A preview of both her YA novel that’s coming out in 2025 (think Charles Manson meets Goop meets teenage girls) and the adult novel she’s writing next

The 620-page novel Hayley read in four days because she couldn’t put it down

The exact morning beverage (my second guest who swears by Peet’s Coffee Major Dickinson blend) the fuels Hayley, and the (dark) song that gets her fired up when she needs a kick in the pants

Hayley on Instagram and Threads: @haylerkrischer

Hayley on TikTok: @hayleykrischerauthor

Hayley’s website: hayleykrischer.net

Hayley’s Substack:

Hayley’s upcoming book (pre-order it now so that you have it for as much of the summer as possible, it’s gonna be the best juiciest beach read of the year): Where Are You, Echo Blue?

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

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[Hayley Krischer, inner stuff]: True confessions about how “horrible” writing can feel + why–and how–she wrote her next novel in longhand Ep 1066 Apr 10, 2024

In this episode I'm talking with Hayley Krischer, author of the upcoming “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”, which is poised to be the beach read of the summer, about the squishier side of creativity– including:

The steps Hayley takes–and the tools she uses–to immerse herself in the world of her novels and inside her characters’ psyches

What she does when she’s feeling stuck

How good it feels when you connect with someone who loved your work in the real world

The YA author Hayley fan-girled all over when she realized he was also an audience member at a reading she was attending

How writing and editing can feel “horrible,” “like torture”--and the parts that make Hayley feel like jumping for joy

How her inner critic loves to tell her she should be able to write a novel while also taking five-mile hikes every day

How the months between when you’re done working on a manuscript and the book is published is a tough time, mentally–and how to navigate it

The self-care practices helping Hayley through (the journaling practice, the supplements, the breathing exercise that helps her sleep)

Busting the myth that writers make a lot of money and how hard it is to make a bestseller list

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

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[Hayley Krischer, Practical Matters]: The power of just keeping going + how to capture those great ideas that come when you’re not at your desk Ep 1065 Apr 08, 2024

This week I am talking with journalist and novelist Haley Krischer. Haley's journalism has won awards and appeared in the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, and Elle, among other places. She has profiled celebrities like Tatum O'Neill and Celine Dion and Gabrielle Union, and she's reported on trends through a feminist lens. Haley's first two novels were for young adults: “Something Happened to Allie Greenleaf” and “The Falling Girls.” This summer, her first adult novel is coming out: “Where Are You, Echo Blue?” It's about a journalist's obsessive search for a missing Hollywood starlet. And I for one am so looking forward to packing that on my summer vacation.

We covered:

Which former child actor/celebrities Hayley obsessively researched for her upcoming book, “Where Are You, Echo Blue?”

How she found herself working at the Boston Globe in college and found all the journalists “these grimy, sexy, fascinating people”

The brilliant wisdom she tells her kids about power of just keeping going.

The circular editorial career that led her to being an author

The “pure insanity” that keeps her coming back to the page

The writing program Hayley signed up for that took the story she’d been working on for 20 years and could never sell and helped her revise it into a form that sold to a major publisher in four days (her first YA novel, “Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf”

The exact mechanical pencil she used to write her upcoming YA novel that’s coming out in 2025

The author that inspired Hayley to write a novel in longhand

Why you should never trust yourself to remember that great idea and the myriad ways Hayley captures those ideas, wherever they may happen

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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[Jennifer Fink: What’s coming up]: The lure of leaving it all behind and becoming a flight attendant + the Post-It note sayings that light the path Ep 1064 Apr 05, 2024

In part three of my conversation with author of Building Boys, Jennifer Fink, we talk about the mind trip that is beginning to envision retirement.

I have to point out that this is the third interview in a row where my guest mentions that they have a phrase written on a Post-It note hanging above their computer monitor. In addition to sharing what she’s written on her Post-It notes (plural–there are two), Jennifer shares some of her go to shows, snacks, and songs.

The lure of leaving it all behind and becoming a flight attendant: “After raising teenagers, unruly passengers? Cinch”

The Building Boys Book Club Jennifer is currently dreaming up

What’s written on the Post-It note above her computer (there are two of them, actually)

Finding ways to connect more directly with the people who value your skills and expertise

Thinking about retirement, and having more regular access to scuba diving

Envisioning being able to work only on the things closest to your heart and having plenty of time for relationships

The Netflix show the world went crazy over a couple years ago that Jennifer just discovered

The secret to making movie-theater-caliber popcorn

Her go-to Pandora station

Why December 23rd is the best day of her year, hands down

Connect with Jennifer:

At her website: buildingboys.net

At her Substack (email newsletter): buildingboys.substack.com

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

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[Jennifer Fink, inner stuff]: Dealing with internalized trolls + aqua aerobics! Ep 1063 Apr 03, 2024

In this episode I'm talking with Jennifer about the squishier side of creativity–the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work, even if you're not fully conscious of it, including:

Finding the inspiration to write about controversial subjects in today’s age of nasty comments and trolling

Jennifer’s trick for keeping herself accountable and not avoiding writing about the hard stuff

The power of talking to other writers

The things her inner critic says, and how it gets louder when she’s doing the work that’s closest to her heart

The trick for getting things down on the page–and how that seeming blather transforms into ‘readable chapters’

The beauties and drawbacks of living in a rural area

The dichotomy of having a virtual job with a big network while living in a small, somewhat isolated town

Becoming a cliche as you grow older: “I started aqua aerobics recently”

Continuing to work when your body may have other plans

The caregiving sandwich

Dealing with the claustrophobia of being in a transitional period, or what Jennifer calls a hallway

Her list of three collective illusions Jennifer wishes we’d wake up from

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

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[Jennifer Fink, Practical Matters]: Writing what you know + the book she found at the library that launched her writing career EP 1062 Apr 01, 2024

Today I am talking with Jennifer Fink, an award winning freelance writer who covers parenting, education, and health for magazines and websites. started her career as a registered nurse, but shortly after her oldest son, and as you'll find out, she has four boys, pivoted to writing full time. Her most recent book is called Building Boys, Raising Great Guys in a World that Misunderstands Males. She is also the co host of the podcast “On Boys,” which covers, you guessed it, real talk about parenting, teaching, and reaching tomorrow's men. Although Jennifer's writing career is clearly going great, she does maintain her nursing license just in case.

Jennifer’s start as a nurse

How taking her baby to story time at the public library ended up launching her writing career

The book that showed her how to start freelance writing

How it started/how it’s going in terms of why she started writing about boys vs. why she does it now

A quick look into why boys are struggling lately

How an unexpected divorce launched her writing business to the next level (“failure was not an option”)

In praise of morning pages (a practice Jennifer learned in Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”)

Her focus and productivity hacks

Why she gets outside every day–even during a Wisconsin winter

A rumor about coffee with cream in it that Jennifer is choosing to ignore

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

Big thanks to our sponsor, AirDoctorPro. Use promo code KATE at airdoctorpro.com to save up to $300 off an air purifier and receive a free 3-year warranty (an $87 value).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

[Antonia Angress: What’s coming up]: “I aspire to get to a place where I can be a hermit and let my work stand on its own” Ep 1061 Mar 29, 2024