(Writing Fiction Based On Your Life: A Chat With Jessica Berg)

In this episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” editor Michael Woodson sits down with Robert to discuss his new book American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives (on sale today), how he infuses literary sensibilities to his historical nonfiction, and more.

About the Author

Robert W. Fieseler is a journalist investigating marginalized groups and a scholar excavating forgotten histories. A National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Journalist of the Year and recipient of the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, his debut book Tinderbox won seven awards, including the Edgar Award, and his reporting has appeared in Slate, Commonweal, and River Teeth, among others. Fieseler graduated co-valedictorian from the Columbia Journalism School and is pursuing a PhD at Tulane University as a Mellon Fellow. He lives with his husband on the gayest street in New Orleans.

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From the Episode

On Choosing What to Write About: “It’s a lot like falling in love, but from a horrific standpoint, because you’re dealing with history. It’s typically something that engages me intellectually while simultaneously taking this side door into my heart in a way where I can’t stop obsessing about it.“

“I have this problem that I’ve had since I was very little where I want to know the story that others don’t want me to know. That’s the juicy stuff! That’s the gay gossip!”

On Incorporating Fiction Craft Practices In Literary Nonfiction: “I love nonfiction that can employ literary and aesthetic sensibilities, where they have respect for the line, for the musicality of language, where they have a respect for and an understanding of mood and atmosphere, which is very difficult to communicate to an academic historian, but I think it matters. I also love plotting, set-up and pay-off, introducing threads and paying them off later. And I like the way that literature allows for revelation—where there’s just moments where you feel like you’re entire body’s lit up.”

Listen To The Episode

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(How To Be More Media-Savvy: A Chat With Paula Rizzo)

In this episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” editor Michael Woodson sits down with author and literary agent Jessica Berg about how to write fiction based on your life, how you can find inspiration everywhere, how to mine your life for story ideas in real time, and more.

About Jessica Berg

Jessica Berg is a literary agent, author, and the founder of Rosecliff Literary, where she champions bold, emotionally resonant fiction with unforgettable characters, strong stakes, and a sense of urgency.

She is especially drawn to literary, upmarket, historical, and supernatural suspense, with a soft spot for haunting atmosphere, richly layered relationships, and characters who carry deep emotional wounds.

A multi-nominated writer with an MFA from Spalding University, Jessica brings a sharp editorial eye and a hands-on, strategic approach to agenting. She is a member of AALA and EFA and provides developmental feedback for Writer’s Digest. Represented by Amy Collins at Talcott Notch, she splits her time between crafting her own stories and guiding her clients through every stage of their publishing careers.

From The Episode

On How Much Fiction to Put Into Our Life On the Page: “I think part of what we do as authors is cathartic. We’re working through our own Big-T Trauma, little-t trauma, to understand why we act the way we do. So, how much do we put in? I think we take the juiciest bits and then we twist them and we fictionalize them and dramatize them so that they feel familiar because they’re lived experiences, but they’re not so thinly veiled that our friends and family will be able to say, ‘Oh actually, I remember it differently.'” – Jessica Berg

On Having Enough Curiosity to Find Story Everywhere: “I was on a girl’s trip with a bunch of author and publishing pals. We’re on the train, and we see one shoe. It’s a group of four women, and we see one shoe, and we all are in publishing and writing in some way, and immediately we start telling a story. ‘Oh well this happened and then this happened,’ right? Because that’s what we do as humans. Now, the person who lost the shoe, they’re probably like, ‘Oh, I lost a shoe.’ It’s not a most significant moment, but to us it was this really fun experience to say, ‘What happened and how did it happen?’ and we were able to construct narrative around it. So, when we look at how our lives might not be ‘dramatic enough’ or full enough or have experiences worth telling, I have to say that’s not true. Because that example reinforced to me the fact that all you need is a little bit of curiosity, and then you can talk about anything.” – Jessica Berg

On A Feeling Being A Truth From Life for Our Fiction: “The concept of something can also be truth from our lives. I was asked to write a story about the coming out experience. I was then interviewed about it, and they asked, ‘Is this true? Did this actually happen?’ And no. Nothing in this story happened, but the feeling that this gives me is true. I decided to run with no event in my life, but the feeling of all of these things—melancholy or nostalgia or something—bring up a truth in me that then was so much easier to fictionalize and put into scenes. I think authors understandably are like, ‘I don’t have a lived experience that I can pull from.’ But how did this thing make you feel? Fictionalize the truth of that feeling.” – Michael Woodson

Listen to “Writing Fiction Based On Your Life” Here

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(The Art of Writing Whatever You Want: A Chat With Hilary Leichter)

The first job of a writer is to actually write their book. The next is to promote it. But getting in front of a camera or microphone and talking to a live audience isn’t as easy at it may sound, and authors who are used to having thousands of words in a book to lean on may need to come up with just a few minutes of sound bites to help them get their point across.

In this episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” content editor Michael Woodson chats with media coach and author Paula Rizzo about why it’s important for writers to learn to be media-savvy, the different kinds of media that can help them promote their work, and how to have every possible answer ready in their back pocket.

About Paula Rizzo

Paula Rizzo is an Emmy Award-winning television producer, bestselling author of Listful Thinking & Listful Living, media-training coach, speaker, LinkedIn Learning Instructor, host of the live-stream show “Inside Scoop,” and creator of the popular online training Media-Ready Author. Grab Paula’s free guide, 10 Media Questions Every Author Needs to Answer, to create buzz for your book.

Listen Now

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(Getting Started In Screenwriting: A Chat With Script Magazine’s Sadie Dean)

In this episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” content editor Michael Woodson chats with author Hilary Leichter, author of Temporary and Terrace Story, about ignoring craft rules, not thinking about your readers, and when to ask yourself what you’re afraid of.

About the Author

Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, and her work in Harper’s Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. Terrace Story has been named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. Hilary teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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From the Episode

“I have something controversial to say, which is that I don’t think about my readers at all. And I mean that from a place of deep, deep respect. I think that for any book, the only two people that exist on the page are the author and the reader. The characters are not characters. They’re words. There’s no one in a book. There’s just text and paper. If we’re talking about fiction, there’s no one with real feelings. There’s no one with real experiences. The only real with a capital R people are me and whoever is on the other side reading it. And I don’t want the reader to be thinking about me. I want then to be thinking about the book. And so, for the same reason, I don’t think about the reader. And what that looks like in terms of writing is making every decision about what the experience of reading the book would be for a person, but not thinking about the person who’s reading it. And frankly, not thinking about if anyone will ever read it. If it’s liberating for anyone listening to not care about the reader, but to love them. That’s how I feel.”

“I think there is an idea that we are suppose to write about what we know and write about the world that we live in. But the world we live in is constantly changing. And the person you are when your book comes out is five people past the person you were when you wrote it. I think my books are always kind of this arrow shot into the future. I’m always thinking about things that I don’t have or haven’t experienced or am wondering about.”

“I think if you’re worrying about craft rules, or if you’re worrying about anything that isn’t in the world of the thing you’re writing, then I think it’s worth sitting back and asking yourself what you’re afraid of. I think when those voices come in—like, Oh, I can’t write this, or I can’t write something this short, or I can’t write something this long, or This is took much like this other thing that already exists, or anything like that, that’s not really about the thing. you’re writing. I think it’s a signal that youa re circling the red-hot center of whatever you’re writing, and it’s terrifying you. Shifting to like, Well, what am I so afraid of putting on the page? Then the answer to that question is what your book is about a lot of the time.”

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(The Intersection of Personal History and Historical Fiction: A Chat With Sharon Short)

In the first episode of season four of the “Writer’s Digest Presents” podcast, content editor Michael Woodson sits down with Script magazine’s editor-in-chief Sadie Dean to help writers get started in screenwriting.

Listen to Podcast Here

Watch the Podcast Here

Other Resources For Screenwriting

Script Magazine

Script University

SimplyScripts

Script Reader Pro

The Internet Movie Script Database

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(How Fight Scenes Can Reveal Character)

In the final episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” editor-in-chief Amy Jones and content editor Michael Woodson chat with author Sharon Short about her new novel, Trouble Island, how she fictionalizes real events, her love of weather in fiction, and more.

About Sharon Short

Sharon Short is the author of 16 published books. She is a contributing editor to Writer’s Digest, for which she writes the column, “Level Up Your Writing (Life)” and teaches for Writer’s Digest University. She is a frequent, in-demand speaker at libraries, book clubs, and writing groups.

Under the pen name Jess Montgomery, she is also the author of the award-winning Kinship Historical Mysteries set in 1920s Appalachia and inspired by Ohio’s true first female sheriff.

She is a three-time recipient of the Individual Excellence Award in Literary Arts from Ohio Arts Council, a two-time recipient of the Montgomery County (Ohio) Arts & Cultural District Individual Artist Fellowship, and has been a John E. Nance Writer in Residence at Thurber House (Columbus, Ohio).

Sharon attended Wright State University (Dayton, Ohio), where she earned a B.A. in English with Honors and a French minor, and Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio), where she earned an M.A. in English with a specialization in Technical Communication.

Sharon lives in southern Ohio with her husband and their three spoiled cats. She and her husband are also the proud parents of two adult daughters. In her spare time, Sharon enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, swimming, watching good TV and films, and hiking.

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(Transition From Self Publishing to Traditional Publishing: A Chat With Zenda Walker)

In this episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” trained fighter and author Carla Hoch shares all of her knowledge about writing fight scenes—why writing fight scenes is a good writing skill to have, how fight scenes can reveal character, and more.

About Carla Hoch

Carla Hoch is the award-winning blogger of FightWrite® and author of the Writer’s Digest book Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes. She is a WDU instructor who regularly teaches on the craft of writing fight scenes, action, and violence as well as the mechanics of fighting for writers. Carla is a world champion jiujitsu player and has experience in almost a dozen fighting styles. She lives and trains outside Houston, Texas.

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(The Impact of Book Influencers on the Publishing Industry)

Editor-in-chief Amy Jones and content editor Michael Woodson sit down with Zenda to discuss transitioning from self-publishing author to traditionally published author, what she has coming up next, and more!

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(Designing the Best Book Cover)

In the eighth episode of season three of the Writer’s Digest Presents podcast, content editor Michael Woodson interviews three book influencers about their place in the publishing industry.

From the Episode

“At the end of the day, reviews are for readers, they’re not for authors. So, authors don’t need to be in those review spaces, and I think publishers need to understand that people are embracing honesty. They’re not just going to buy into—one of my least favorite phrases is “over-hyped,” because to me, how would I describe what that is? Because what’s over hyped for someone may be just the right amount of hype to get them to buy it. But, it’s not going to be for everyone, and that’s OK. As long as you’re honest and respectful in your reviews without inviting the author into that space where they could potentially get offended or have their feelings hurt for a moment, that should be celebrated and championed.”—Chip Pons, @booksovrbros

“There are a lot of times where publishers create these deadlines or they’re asking for reviews on things, and it’s just like, I’m doing this for free. I’m doing this for fun. Why are you putting all this pressure on me as if it doesn’t require time and effort for me to really read and enjoy a book? Allow readers the opportunity to really enjoy the books that they’re sending them without all this added pressure and deadlines for things that I’m doing willingly.—Dawnshaeé Reid, @introtoeclecticism

“Just because we didn’t like [a book], it doesn’t mean it was inherently bad or what we’re going to say about it is ‘negative.’ I do think that’s a little bit of a harsh term. It is a really interesting space and I wonder if we all consume bookstagram in a different way from someone who isn’t super involved in the industry. Because we probably all follow a lot of publishers and bookstagrammers exclusively, so I feel like I a lot of times see a lot of the same titles, especially around Tuesdays on pub days. And that kind of thing and that influx can influence the types of books that I might be picking up.”—Janelle Li, @janandthings

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In this episode of “Writer’s Digest Presents,” editor-in-chief Amy Jones and content editor Michael Woodson are joined by designer Charlotte Strick and writer Zachary Petit to discuss all things book design and book covers!

About Our Guests

Zachary Petit is an independent journalist and editor. Previously, he served as the content director of the HOW+PRINT brands, editor-in-chief of the National Magazine Award–winning publication PRINT, managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine, and executive editor of several related newsstand titles.

Petit works above a Victorian bowling alley turned illegal gambling hall turned punk club turned cab company turned brewery. His book about Modest Mouse’s The Moon & Antarctica for the 33 1/3 series will be available this fall.

Charlotte Strick is the Founding Designer and Creative Director at Bindery Books. For 14 years prior, she ran Strick&Williams—an award-winning, women-led, Brooklyn, NY-based design firm, which helped brand publishers such as Catapult and Spiegel & Grau, as well as an award-winning rebrand of The Paris Review magazine and website; Strick also served as the magazine’s Art Editor and designer for over a decade. Her work has been recognized by AIGA; The Art Directors Club; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; the New York Times; Print and Communication Arts; It’s Nice That; The Type Directors Club; as well as many print and digital surveys on memorable book covers. Her writings on art and design have been published by The Paris Review, The Atlantic, and The Huffington Post.

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