Finding the Throughline with Kate Hanley

Latest Episodes:

[Sari Botton: what's next]: The magic combination of reverence and irreverence Ep 1076 May 03, 2024

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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

[Sari Botton, practical matters]: The power of curiosity + to-do list trickery Ep 1074 Apr 29, 2024

Show notes

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.

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

[Sonya Huber: What’s coming up]: Ep 1073 Apr 26, 2024

Show notes

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

Show notes

[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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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

[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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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 1067 Apr 12, 2024

Show notes

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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