I don’t have much to say as far as self promoting. In any case, I did have a a lot of short stories published on the internet about 20 years ago. Those publications disappeared but one of them is on the archives at Orchard Press Mysteries. It’s called Film at 11. Feel free to read it if you have nothing to do. I had a couple of stories there and got paid $25 each time. I know that my writing is much stronger now. I didn’t get paid for my very first story called The Confession which was on a site called Plots with Guns but I was very happy with that one because Victor Gischler was the editor at that time before he became a big name with some great books like Stay and my all time favorite, Suicide Squeeze, which is about a baseball card. If you’re a fan of Elmore Leonard, then you will love that book. Victor is a great guy so I will always promote him. We lost touch over the years but I will always keep this In mind as a great moment even though my story is no longer there after 20 years. I spoke to a friend Tina a few months ago and she said are you writing short stories. I said I am and I just submitted one. I said this could be the one until it gets rejected. We laughed. Then I move on to the next one and told her about this great class I’m in. I don’t have much to say about my novels. If I’m lucky enough to get some short stories published, then I will look at them again. It takes a while for some inspiration to come to me for a short story to write. I have a lot of short story collections to read. One story is from a collection of Golf Stories called The Year of Getting To Know US by Ethan Canin. This one helped and I have to say that being in this class has helped me in getting a lot out of short stories that I read. The same with the Jilting of Granny Weatherall. If anything, I really enjoy reading short stories more than ever. I read Honolulu by Somerset Maugham today. My New Yorker subscription is always up to date along with my reading. My final thought that this class has helped me in getting more out of the short stories I read now along with A Swim In A Pond In The Rain.
I’m Patrick. Based in London (England not Ontario). Mostly, I write at home at my dining table under a big poster that says, “It’s OK.” It helps! Great to be here amongst like-minded souls.
A long time ago I nearly got a drama writing career off the ground - conversations with agents, writers’s room tryout on a dodgy soap, ongoing vague mentor/mentee situation with a fairly successful TV producer. I was close but before anything happened I ran out of steam, exhausted trying to juggle the writing hustle with a full-time job and young family. I gave up.
Fast-forward more years than I care to mention and I’ve switched to fiction. I recently completed the Curtis Brown 3 Month Novel Writing Course. (The same one Bonnie Garmus did so I’m hoping some of her magic may have lingered in the classroom air.) The third redraft is taking longer than expected for all sorts of boring, life-gets-in-the-way reasons but at least I’m progressing. Hoping to have that completed in the next month or so.
Can’t wait for the In Writing book and the next season of the podcast: the interviews over the last couple of years have been hugely encouraging, inspiring and insightful. They’ve been an almost constant source of support as I’ve fumbled my way into fiction writing. So a big "Thank you" to Hattie :-)
In the meantime, I’m tempted by the idea of a Sunday writing session.
Hi Patrick. I think I saw you at the writing session yesterday – thanks so much for joining us and for your very kind words about the book and podcast! I completely understand that 'running out of steam' feeling, and admire you for coming back to it. Congratulations on being so close to having a finished manuscript!
Hi l am Erica and have been published in anthologies since 1980's. I became a full time freelance poet and writer in 2021. I launched my first solo poetry collection : Searching for an Oasis- in 2021 after testing articles and poems that were published and self- published and in my blog just- saying,expanding my social media connections. It meant that l was invited to blog globally and was founded on the success of those items that were published. Great to be offered hybrid contracts ,but l chose to self publish my second collection ': Beginning to Grow' in 2023 as l was presenting talks using poetry ifrom this collection. Currently,l write alot,publish less and am constantly seeking support or an agent or marketing so that l can concentrate on what l do best- creating and presenting.!
I'm Lisa from Ottawa, Canada. I've known that I was a writer since I was a child. Unfortunately, I forget at regular intervals, and have to remind myself I'm not just a hack. I usually write sitting on my lumpy, scratched brown leather couch (acquired on Kijiji for a modest sum). This contributes to my terrible posture. At my right is a window onto my back garden, which is bursting into its last eye-searing flares of oranges and reds before it dies down to wintry browns and blacks. In front of me and to my left is my cluttered living room, furnished in dark blue, rich brown, and burgundy. I write essays, short stories, memoir, and the occasional song or poem. I have some fledgling ideas for a couple of novels that I need to nurture into something full-blown. I've won a few very tiny prizes and been published in some very local papers, but need to be more courageous about sending my stuff out into the world.
I love this description Lisa. It sounds like a very lovely space that you write in. Congratulations on the prizes and the publications (nothing tiny about those achievements)! And thanks for being here.
Writing is my favorite way to procrastinate. I'd like to get better at it. My desk is a desk, mine from childhood. I hated to write from it then. It helps that I replaced the old florescent lamp that used to sit on it with a computer monitor. It also helps that I've seen enough of life to have an opinion. Someday, I hope to write something that people want to read, something longer than an essay, though a collection of them does come to mind.
May 21, 2023·edited May 21, 2023Liked by Hattie Crisell
Above my writing desk there are a couple of shelves. A small yellow Post-it taped to the edge of the lower shelf says 'Everything happens so much.' Another Post-it contains my mantra left from the pandemic. It says 'I'm all right / right now,' which in 2020 I repeated constantly.
On the lower shelf, there's a greeting card from my wife showing a big cow licking the face of another cow. Inside it says, 'I'll love you for heifer.'
Behind the card is a small blue bowl my son made in grade school. The bowl holds two teeth from an elk my dad shot in the late1950's when I was about 11. There's small arrowhead down inside the bowl with a few shells and pebbles. A large tuft of mountain goat wool sticks out from the top of the bowl. The tuft is made up the wisps of wool I gathered from the bushes along a trail in the mountains of the Olympic National Forest.
Across the front of the lower shelf, there's a foldout of small postcards that show 'The Floating Heads' by Sophie Cave from the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. Each bald 'heed' has a different expression. I have the foldout there in front of my own face to remind me that there is more than just one expression, one emotion.
Near the foldout there's a heart shaped frame with small pictures of my adult son and daughter from the time when they were babies. There are also log cabin, tepee, and totem pole, childhood souvenirs of mine. The log cabin is from the Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield Illinois. The totem pole is from a souvenir store on the Makah Reservation near Neah Bay. The tepee holds several small fossils with leaf imprints that I found in a creek near where I once lived.
The top shelf holds a clock my daughter made in middle school wood shop and a wood carving my son brought back from Thailand that bestows good fortune.
To the left of my desk, a west-facing window looks out on a gravel path to the garden and in the background I can see Bellingham Bay with a view of Hale Passage and the San Juan Islands.
I write a substack called “Pieces” https://ckyle.substack.com/. I haven’t posted since March, but once the rainy season arrives again, I plan to write about two books. The first book is a compilation of essays entitled ‘Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden.’ The second book is by Carletta Carrington Wilson and is entitled ‘Poem of Stone & Bone: The Iconography of James W. Washington Jr. in Fourteen Stanzas and Thirty-One Days.’
I enjoyed reading this so much – thanks Charlie. I loved all the details – the elk teeth, the mountain-goat wool, the small blue bowl made by your son. 'I'm all right / right now' is a sentiment I find very useful in anxious times too.
Hi Hattie and everyone. I've thoroughly enjoyed the podcasts - usually on headphones while walking to my local Greggs for a Belgian bun... I live in south-east London, and have published three non-fiction books on cycling, a novel, and I have a biography of a Tour de France winner coming out in May '24 with Quercus. But fiction is my first love, and I still don't really feel I've really nailed a novel (does anyone?). Today I handed the biog in to my editor, so I have a blank page - literal and figurative - ahead of me, to get stuck into a novel idea that has been circling my brain for about 3 years. So all tips, thoughts, hacks, moral support gratefully absorbed...
Hello Hattie and writers! I'm a lapsed songwriter and journal writer looking to take some time off hauling boulders around my off grid property in Arizona to rest my body and feed my mind. I've been a free subscriber to In Writing for about a year now and upgraded to paid to get in on that writers hour. I need a little accountability and thought it would be fun to just sit with other writers from around the globe and think together. I used to do a writers group in Hollywood every week for a couple years and the camaraderie and friendships formed there are cherished to this day. Also my writing improved A LOT. So looking forward to the next one. Maybe I'll see you there! XXSM
Hi. I have just discovered you. I have been told most of my life that I should write, that I am a good writer. My English comp 101 professor said I had “spontaneous overflow”. And she did not seem to say it in a way that was complimentary. :). I journal. Sometimes. Mostly when struggling. I took an online writing class a few months ago and while I had a good start, an injury kept me from participating in the third of four sessions and the last session was to read what we’d written. Class ended, and I’ve not taken the time to continue. I enjoy writing with pen/paper (journal) but my thoughts are more easily expressed when my fingers are flying over my iPad keyboard. I have struggled with what subject I would want to write about, if I did indeed write. Seems like family stories are the most likely. I love personal history and stories and tell them often to people who will listen. Most of the time I am sitting on my couch with my legs curled up. My geriatric pup curled up next to me. And always a chance of interruption from sweet neighbors. So that is pretty much where I am with writing. I’m looking forward to exploring your work here. (And now you can see what that English professor was referring to with: spontaneous overflow. :)
I love the idea of 'spontaneous overflow'! I'd say keep journalling, keep writing about whatever is on your mind, and see where your obsessions lead you. Thanks so much for saying hello – great to have you here.
Thank you so much for your suggestions and encouragement. it’s nice to have a general direction to start. And to know I’ve started. I’m happy to be here.
Love your pods and newsletters :) I'm a writer living in London (born in Paris and came to UK when I was 5yrs old). Am a freelance features writer and have had short stories published too though would love to complete a novel - complete being the key word!!
When it's warm and sunny I will sometimes write at a table outside the library café near my house feeling very much the main character with my coffee, headphones in and a nice dress on. Most of the time, however, I write features/ fiction on the floor of my kids' room against the radiator dressed in fleece joggers as it is the warmest, brightest spot in the house. I try not to write in bed but let's face it, we are all writing in bed...!
Love this Yas. Thanks for saying hello. I have done that main character cafe writing from time to time! But most of my writing is done at home, in totally unpresentable clothing, feeling like a little goblin x
Hi Hattie! Thank you for the space to introduce ourselves. My writing CV is not that impressive but I have somehow managed to make a living all my life with a degree in English! I’ve been a journalist for small papers, newsmagazines, and a ghost opinion writer. I’ve blogged on and off for years. I started a Substack to chronicle our move from Montana to Portugal. I have a novel that has not been published and a bunch of ideas for creative projects. I love memoir and essays. Writing is my happy place. https://janelleholden.substack.com.
That’s wonderful. And making a living as a writer is impressive on its own. It sounds like you’re very creative - so glad you’re getting pleasure from your writing.
Hi there - I am an Australian writer and academic living on Turrbal / Jagera country in what is also known as Brisbane, Australia. I currently write Angle of Arrival - my e-newsletter about what happens when women write, read, wander and wonder in the world. It's a way to try to make sense of the research I do, with the need to be moving in the world as a method of thinking and understanding. We are currently living through in a major heat-wave here, so the time outside is being kept to a minimum! You can check out my work and subscribe here: https://angleofarrival.substack.com/
Mar 6, 2023·edited Mar 6, 2023Liked by Hattie Crisell
Thank you, Hattie.
I am a recovering TV showrunner. I created and executive-produced the HBO series CARNIVÀLE and Nickelodeon’s THE ASTRONAUTS. I’ve served as a writer-producer or showrunner on a number of popular series, including SPARTACUS BLOOD AND SAND, SUPERNATURAL, NBC’s DRACULA and THE BLACKLIST.
Mar 3, 2023·edited Mar 3, 2023Liked by Hattie Crisell
Hey ya'll. I'm in Oklahoma. I've written seven novels and lots of other writing (I used to be a singer/songwriter). But I've been working with "WriteWay" with my scifi novel that I'm going to pitch to an agent in about a week with the help of Joe Tower. It's been a long road getting here and this year has had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But I've survived and am still doing what I love - writing. I can actually write anywhere (with my earbuds) but my favorite place is to curl up in my cozy bed and write. I love acting, singing, reading, fishing, gardening, and loving my spouse. I've used a few different names in my writing, some legally, some pseudonyms, but all of my future writing will be under Williams. Wish me luck on my agent search.
Hi Holli! So great to have you here and congratulations on getting your sci-fi novel to this exciting point. Wishing you so much luck – keep us posted.
Thank you so much. I have a zoom meeting this week with my editor. I'm so excited. Now - it's hard to juggle all the writing I want to do with all the gardening I want to do. ha Happy Spring
Heya! My name’s Christian and I grew up in Tiny Township, which is a real place in Ontario, Canada. Currently, live in Berlin. I studied journalism in Toronto and have been essentially writing for others ever since.
You know how there's this lingering, urgent, essential thing you need to do while you're doing all these other things? That's what writing in my own voice was for me. My newsletter, lol/sos (https://lolsos.substack.com), is that essential thing brought to life.
I've described love as when you mourn someone while they're still alive. I've described someone in a story as a "left-handed sketch of Vin Diesel. For different reasons, both descriptions have left readers in tears. I love feedback like this, but I'd still be writing if my audience were nothing but the void.
Thank you, Hattie, for all the great insights you put out there. Your enthusiasm for writing is invaluable.
Hi, my name is Liberty and I have a been a life-long avid reader, a trait inherited from my Mum. I am from the Peak District but now live in Highgate... and yes I get the irony of becoming a writer as soon as I moved to the leafy N6 postcode.
In a period of illness last year, in some strange nytol-fuelled crazed dreams, I came up with the idea for a book. I started writing ("just to see", "as a joke"...) and I haven't stopped since. I'm on 90,000 words and just wrapping up my first draft. I have also started my second book, but will continue properly with that once the first is done.
I have enjoyed doing something creative just for me. Writing has made me a more patient reader. I don't think I will ever stop and who knows what the end goal is. For now I am just enjoying seeing how the pages pan out.
I don’t have much to say as far as self promoting. In any case, I did have a a lot of short stories published on the internet about 20 years ago. Those publications disappeared but one of them is on the archives at Orchard Press Mysteries. It’s called Film at 11. Feel free to read it if you have nothing to do. I had a couple of stories there and got paid $25 each time. I know that my writing is much stronger now. I didn’t get paid for my very first story called The Confession which was on a site called Plots with Guns but I was very happy with that one because Victor Gischler was the editor at that time before he became a big name with some great books like Stay and my all time favorite, Suicide Squeeze, which is about a baseball card. If you’re a fan of Elmore Leonard, then you will love that book. Victor is a great guy so I will always promote him. We lost touch over the years but I will always keep this In mind as a great moment even though my story is no longer there after 20 years. I spoke to a friend Tina a few months ago and she said are you writing short stories. I said I am and I just submitted one. I said this could be the one until it gets rejected. We laughed. Then I move on to the next one and told her about this great class I’m in. I don’t have much to say about my novels. If I’m lucky enough to get some short stories published, then I will look at them again. It takes a while for some inspiration to come to me for a short story to write. I have a lot of short story collections to read. One story is from a collection of Golf Stories called The Year of Getting To Know US by Ethan Canin. This one helped and I have to say that being in this class has helped me in getting a lot out of short stories that I read. The same with the Jilting of Granny Weatherall. If anything, I really enjoy reading short stories more than ever. I read Honolulu by Somerset Maugham today. My New Yorker subscription is always up to date along with my reading. My final thought that this class has helped me in getting more out of the short stories I read now along with A Swim In A Pond In The Rain.
Hi, everyone.
I’m Patrick. Based in London (England not Ontario). Mostly, I write at home at my dining table under a big poster that says, “It’s OK.” It helps! Great to be here amongst like-minded souls.
A long time ago I nearly got a drama writing career off the ground - conversations with agents, writers’s room tryout on a dodgy soap, ongoing vague mentor/mentee situation with a fairly successful TV producer. I was close but before anything happened I ran out of steam, exhausted trying to juggle the writing hustle with a full-time job and young family. I gave up.
Fast-forward more years than I care to mention and I’ve switched to fiction. I recently completed the Curtis Brown 3 Month Novel Writing Course. (The same one Bonnie Garmus did so I’m hoping some of her magic may have lingered in the classroom air.) The third redraft is taking longer than expected for all sorts of boring, life-gets-in-the-way reasons but at least I’m progressing. Hoping to have that completed in the next month or so.
Can’t wait for the In Writing book and the next season of the podcast: the interviews over the last couple of years have been hugely encouraging, inspiring and insightful. They’ve been an almost constant source of support as I’ve fumbled my way into fiction writing. So a big "Thank you" to Hattie :-)
In the meantime, I’m tempted by the idea of a Sunday writing session.
Might see some of you at the next one.
Patrick
Hi Patrick. I think I saw you at the writing session yesterday – thanks so much for joining us and for your very kind words about the book and podcast! I completely understand that 'running out of steam' feeling, and admire you for coming back to it. Congratulations on being so close to having a finished manuscript!
Yes! It set me up nicely for the day. Looking forward to the next one!
Hi l am Erica and have been published in anthologies since 1980's. I became a full time freelance poet and writer in 2021. I launched my first solo poetry collection : Searching for an Oasis- in 2021 after testing articles and poems that were published and self- published and in my blog just- saying,expanding my social media connections. It meant that l was invited to blog globally and was founded on the success of those items that were published. Great to be offered hybrid contracts ,but l chose to self publish my second collection ': Beginning to Grow' in 2023 as l was presenting talks using poetry ifrom this collection. Currently,l write alot,publish less and am constantly seeking support or an agent or marketing so that l can concentrate on what l do best- creating and presenting.!
What a great journey Erica! I love that you've made writing your full-time job. Lovely to have you here.
I'm Lisa from Ottawa, Canada. I've known that I was a writer since I was a child. Unfortunately, I forget at regular intervals, and have to remind myself I'm not just a hack. I usually write sitting on my lumpy, scratched brown leather couch (acquired on Kijiji for a modest sum). This contributes to my terrible posture. At my right is a window onto my back garden, which is bursting into its last eye-searing flares of oranges and reds before it dies down to wintry browns and blacks. In front of me and to my left is my cluttered living room, furnished in dark blue, rich brown, and burgundy. I write essays, short stories, memoir, and the occasional song or poem. I have some fledgling ideas for a couple of novels that I need to nurture into something full-blown. I've won a few very tiny prizes and been published in some very local papers, but need to be more courageous about sending my stuff out into the world.
I love this description Lisa. It sounds like a very lovely space that you write in. Congratulations on the prizes and the publications (nothing tiny about those achievements)! And thanks for being here.
Writing is my favorite way to procrastinate. I'd like to get better at it. My desk is a desk, mine from childhood. I hated to write from it then. It helps that I replaced the old florescent lamp that used to sit on it with a computer monitor. It also helps that I've seen enough of life to have an opinion. Someday, I hope to write something that people want to read, something longer than an essay, though a collection of them does come to mind.
That's wonderful Ken. Keep going!
Above my writing desk there are a couple of shelves. A small yellow Post-it taped to the edge of the lower shelf says 'Everything happens so much.' Another Post-it contains my mantra left from the pandemic. It says 'I'm all right / right now,' which in 2020 I repeated constantly.
On the lower shelf, there's a greeting card from my wife showing a big cow licking the face of another cow. Inside it says, 'I'll love you for heifer.'
Behind the card is a small blue bowl my son made in grade school. The bowl holds two teeth from an elk my dad shot in the late1950's when I was about 11. There's small arrowhead down inside the bowl with a few shells and pebbles. A large tuft of mountain goat wool sticks out from the top of the bowl. The tuft is made up the wisps of wool I gathered from the bushes along a trail in the mountains of the Olympic National Forest.
Across the front of the lower shelf, there's a foldout of small postcards that show 'The Floating Heads' by Sophie Cave from the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow. Each bald 'heed' has a different expression. I have the foldout there in front of my own face to remind me that there is more than just one expression, one emotion.
Near the foldout there's a heart shaped frame with small pictures of my adult son and daughter from the time when they were babies. There are also log cabin, tepee, and totem pole, childhood souvenirs of mine. The log cabin is from the Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield Illinois. The totem pole is from a souvenir store on the Makah Reservation near Neah Bay. The tepee holds several small fossils with leaf imprints that I found in a creek near where I once lived.
The top shelf holds a clock my daughter made in middle school wood shop and a wood carving my son brought back from Thailand that bestows good fortune.
To the left of my desk, a west-facing window looks out on a gravel path to the garden and in the background I can see Bellingham Bay with a view of Hale Passage and the San Juan Islands.
I write a substack called “Pieces” https://ckyle.substack.com/. I haven’t posted since March, but once the rainy season arrives again, I plan to write about two books. The first book is a compilation of essays entitled ‘Spirited Stone: Lessons from Kubota’s Garden.’ The second book is by Carletta Carrington Wilson and is entitled ‘Poem of Stone & Bone: The Iconography of James W. Washington Jr. in Fourteen Stanzas and Thirty-One Days.’
I enjoyed reading this so much – thanks Charlie. I loved all the details – the elk teeth, the mountain-goat wool, the small blue bowl made by your son. 'I'm all right / right now' is a sentiment I find very useful in anxious times too.
Hi Hattie and everyone. I've thoroughly enjoyed the podcasts - usually on headphones while walking to my local Greggs for a Belgian bun... I live in south-east London, and have published three non-fiction books on cycling, a novel, and I have a biography of a Tour de France winner coming out in May '24 with Quercus. But fiction is my first love, and I still don't really feel I've really nailed a novel (does anyone?). Today I handed the biog in to my editor, so I have a blank page - literal and figurative - ahead of me, to get stuck into a novel idea that has been circling my brain for about 3 years. So all tips, thoughts, hacks, moral support gratefully absorbed...
Lovely to have you here Paul, thank you! Very exciting to have space now to explore that idea – you'll have to keep us posted as it emerges...
Hello Hattie and writers! I'm a lapsed songwriter and journal writer looking to take some time off hauling boulders around my off grid property in Arizona to rest my body and feed my mind. I've been a free subscriber to In Writing for about a year now and upgraded to paid to get in on that writers hour. I need a little accountability and thought it would be fun to just sit with other writers from around the globe and think together. I used to do a writers group in Hollywood every week for a couple years and the camaraderie and friendships formed there are cherished to this day. Also my writing improved A LOT. So looking forward to the next one. Maybe I'll see you there! XXSM
Love this, SM – thank you so much for upgrading, and I hope the writers' hour is fun!
Hi. I have just discovered you. I have been told most of my life that I should write, that I am a good writer. My English comp 101 professor said I had “spontaneous overflow”. And she did not seem to say it in a way that was complimentary. :). I journal. Sometimes. Mostly when struggling. I took an online writing class a few months ago and while I had a good start, an injury kept me from participating in the third of four sessions and the last session was to read what we’d written. Class ended, and I’ve not taken the time to continue. I enjoy writing with pen/paper (journal) but my thoughts are more easily expressed when my fingers are flying over my iPad keyboard. I have struggled with what subject I would want to write about, if I did indeed write. Seems like family stories are the most likely. I love personal history and stories and tell them often to people who will listen. Most of the time I am sitting on my couch with my legs curled up. My geriatric pup curled up next to me. And always a chance of interruption from sweet neighbors. So that is pretty much where I am with writing. I’m looking forward to exploring your work here. (And now you can see what that English professor was referring to with: spontaneous overflow. :)
I love the idea of 'spontaneous overflow'! I'd say keep journalling, keep writing about whatever is on your mind, and see where your obsessions lead you. Thanks so much for saying hello – great to have you here.
Thank you so much for your suggestions and encouragement. it’s nice to have a general direction to start. And to know I’ve started. I’m happy to be here.
And I am from Alabama,USA.
Hi Hattie!
Love your pods and newsletters :) I'm a writer living in London (born in Paris and came to UK when I was 5yrs old). Am a freelance features writer and have had short stories published too though would love to complete a novel - complete being the key word!!
When it's warm and sunny I will sometimes write at a table outside the library café near my house feeling very much the main character with my coffee, headphones in and a nice dress on. Most of the time, however, I write features/ fiction on the floor of my kids' room against the radiator dressed in fleece joggers as it is the warmest, brightest spot in the house. I try not to write in bed but let's face it, we are all writing in bed...!
Yas x
Love this Yas. Thanks for saying hello. I have done that main character cafe writing from time to time! But most of my writing is done at home, in totally unpresentable clothing, feeling like a little goblin x
Hi Hattie! Thank you for the space to introduce ourselves. My writing CV is not that impressive but I have somehow managed to make a living all my life with a degree in English! I’ve been a journalist for small papers, newsmagazines, and a ghost opinion writer. I’ve blogged on and off for years. I started a Substack to chronicle our move from Montana to Portugal. I have a novel that has not been published and a bunch of ideas for creative projects. I love memoir and essays. Writing is my happy place. https://janelleholden.substack.com.
That’s wonderful. And making a living as a writer is impressive on its own. It sounds like you’re very creative - so glad you’re getting pleasure from your writing.
Hi there - I am an Australian writer and academic living on Turrbal / Jagera country in what is also known as Brisbane, Australia. I currently write Angle of Arrival - my e-newsletter about what happens when women write, read, wander and wonder in the world. It's a way to try to make sense of the research I do, with the need to be moving in the world as a method of thinking and understanding. We are currently living through in a major heat-wave here, so the time outside is being kept to a minimum! You can check out my work and subscribe here: https://angleofarrival.substack.com/
Great to have you here Renee – your work sounds fascinating. I hope the heatwave has passed.
Thank you, Hattie.
I am a recovering TV showrunner. I created and executive-produced the HBO series CARNIVÀLE and Nickelodeon’s THE ASTRONAUTS. I’ve served as a writer-producer or showrunner on a number of popular series, including SPARTACUS BLOOD AND SAND, SUPERNATURAL, NBC’s DRACULA and THE BLACKLIST.
Currently, I am utterly devoted to my original Substack serial, GINGERLAND, a Christmas fantasy inspired by the work of Raold Dahl, CS Lewis and other masters. You can check it out and subscribe here: https://open.substack.com/pub/gingerland/p/the-innocence-project?r=2091rm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
It's wonderful to have you here Daniel! What a CV – and Gingerland sounds great.
On Sunday nights at 7:00 PST, I host a subscriber chat to answer questions and discuss writing for film and television. I’d love to have you join us! Deets here: https://open.substack.com/pub/gingerland/p/sunday-gingerland-chat?r=2091rm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Hey ya'll. I'm in Oklahoma. I've written seven novels and lots of other writing (I used to be a singer/songwriter). But I've been working with "WriteWay" with my scifi novel that I'm going to pitch to an agent in about a week with the help of Joe Tower. It's been a long road getting here and this year has had the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. But I've survived and am still doing what I love - writing. I can actually write anywhere (with my earbuds) but my favorite place is to curl up in my cozy bed and write. I love acting, singing, reading, fishing, gardening, and loving my spouse. I've used a few different names in my writing, some legally, some pseudonyms, but all of my future writing will be under Williams. Wish me luck on my agent search.
Hi Holli! So great to have you here and congratulations on getting your sci-fi novel to this exciting point. Wishing you so much luck – keep us posted.
Thank you so much. I have a zoom meeting this week with my editor. I'm so excited. Now - it's hard to juggle all the writing I want to do with all the gardening I want to do. ha Happy Spring
Heya! My name’s Christian and I grew up in Tiny Township, which is a real place in Ontario, Canada. Currently, live in Berlin. I studied journalism in Toronto and have been essentially writing for others ever since.
You know how there's this lingering, urgent, essential thing you need to do while you're doing all these other things? That's what writing in my own voice was for me. My newsletter, lol/sos (https://lolsos.substack.com), is that essential thing brought to life.
I've described love as when you mourn someone while they're still alive. I've described someone in a story as a "left-handed sketch of Vin Diesel. For different reasons, both descriptions have left readers in tears. I love feedback like this, but I'd still be writing if my audience were nothing but the void.
Thank you, Hattie, for all the great insights you put out there. Your enthusiasm for writing is invaluable.
Thanks so much Christian, what a lovely thing to say. I also laughed at 'left-handed sketch of Vin Diesel'!
Hi, my name is Liberty and I have a been a life-long avid reader, a trait inherited from my Mum. I am from the Peak District but now live in Highgate... and yes I get the irony of becoming a writer as soon as I moved to the leafy N6 postcode.
In a period of illness last year, in some strange nytol-fuelled crazed dreams, I came up with the idea for a book. I started writing ("just to see", "as a joke"...) and I haven't stopped since. I'm on 90,000 words and just wrapping up my first draft. I have also started my second book, but will continue properly with that once the first is done.
I have enjoyed doing something creative just for me. Writing has made me a more patient reader. I don't think I will ever stop and who knows what the end goal is. For now I am just enjoying seeing how the pages pan out.
Thanks for doing what you do! xx
That's incredible – very inspiring! Thanks for joining us here and keep us posted on that book.