Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Writers' Show - Writers’ Show - 16 - Anne DeGrace
Treading Water, Anne DeGrace's first book, sold so well it had to be reprinted. Wind Tails, her second novel, was published by McArthur & Co in September 2007. On this show Anne DeGrace reads from the new book, still in manuscript, and talks about its form and how her writing practice has had to change.
Topics: the difficulties in writing a novel commpared to stories; self-publishing, considerations; the editor Verna Relkoff; agent Morty Mint; where the idea for the new novel originated; about covers, where they come from; reads from her manuscript entitled Wind Tails.
Download MP3 of this EpisodeThursday, March 15, 2007
The Writers' Show - Writers’ Show - 15 - Adam Lewis Schroeder
Empress of Asia, nominated for this year's Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, was a work-in-progress for several years and has been sold to Picador in the U.S. Its second draft was 800 pages long. About the role of his agent, Anne McDermid, in the book's success: "She gave me some very good feedback. All her suggestions made so much sense. Some of the stuff was hard to hear. You work on your draft for a year or two and then you hear the hardest one. She didn't think the readers would enjoy the narrative voice...it means changing pretty much every word... " His two books are Kingdom of Monkeys and Empress of Asia.
Topics: Anne McDermid; the agent's role in the editorial process; Madeleine Thien; the story idea notebook; drafts of the manuscript, rewriting; submitting to literary journals, promoting your career in writing.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
The Writers' Show - Writers’ Show - 14 - Kathy Page
Kathy Page is noted for complex characters and compelling narrative, as well as suspense, both psychological and existential. Quotes from the show about work on her novel, Alphabet: "I found the manuscript a year later and could see instantly where it had gone wrong. I had made the book too complicated and it was kind of diluting itself into all these other lives." Her Last two novels are Alphabet and Story of My Face. Kathy Page is from Britain and has won many awards for her writing. She is a faculty member, fiction and narrative prose, at the Banff Wired Writing Studio, 2007-2008.
Topics: Rewriting, with emphasis on point of view, including close third person & changing the point of view to gain perspective on the work. Writing characters whose lives are completely different from yours. Hear her reading on AuthorsAloud.
Listen