Mystery Writer Anthony Horowitz on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Anthony Horowitz might be the most prolific and successful author living in the U.K. today. He’s murdered more characters, fictionally, than any other living writer. Creator of the Alex Rider series, commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate to write two new Sherlock Holmes mysteries and the Ian Fleming estate to write a James Bond novel, Horowitz has penned over 50 books. He’s also written for television and screen.

Horowitz joins Marrie Stone to talk about the second in his latest series, Moonflower Murders. He was on the show in 2017 to talk about the first, Magpie Murders. In addition to exploring Horowitz’s obsessive writing personality, they chat about magic, the inspiration of art, and the problems with the recent HBO series The Undoing. They also talk about our current socio-cultural climate and the unseen traps writers can fall into without warning. For mystery writers, Anthony’s insights and advice are invaluable. For fans of his fiction, you’ll enjoy stepping behind the pages to see how the magic is made.

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(Broadcast date: December 30, 2020)

Essayist Michele Morano on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Unrequited love and unconsummated romance is the subject of Michele Morano’s latest memoir-in-essays, Like Love. These fourteen essays explore romantic friendships, dangerous crushes, familial infatuations, and the complicated emotions surrounding parental love. Morano’s essays feel at once daring, vulnerable, insightful, and full of familiar emotions most of us dare not name. She joins Marrie Stone to talk about love, longing, and desire, but also about craft, technique, and the art of writing an effective essay.

 

What separates an essay from an anecdote? What’s the difference between therapeutic writing and art? What are some effective techniques for accessing old memories? What’s the sign that you’re stumbling into something worthwhile to write about? Morano talks about all this and more.  

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(Broadcast date: December 16, 2020)

Literary agent Betsy Amster on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Literary agent Betsy Amster talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about publishing.

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(Broadcast date: Dec. 9, 2020)

Musical intro/outro/interludes by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify and Soundcloud.

Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles, author of A Gentleman in Moscow and The Rules of Civility, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about his novels, short stories, and the art, craft, and business of writing. 

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(Broadcast date: Nov. 25, 2020)

Musical intro, outro, and interludes by Travis Barrett. You can find him on Spotify and Soundcloud.

Nicole Krauss on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Nicole Krauss may be best known for her novels, which include Man Walks into a Room, History of Love, Forest Dark, and Great House. But several of her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, the Atlantic, and elsewhere. For the first time, she's published a collection of her stories and joins Marrie Stone to talk about them. To Be a Man explores issues of gender in its many forms—parenthood, childhood, romantic partnerships, and friendships. The men in her stories are fathers, sons, soldiers, artists, and lovers with human fallibility and the desire for redemption.

Krauss talks about how motherhood changed her perspective on gender issues, how films and other art forms inform her work, the reasons she's reluctant to teach writing, and so much more.

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(Broadcast date: December 2, 2020)

(Record date: October 14, 2020)

Phil Klay on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

In 2014, Phil Klay shocked the literary world with his National Book Award winning visceral short story collection, Redeployment, a multi-dimensional account of the Iraq war based on his four years of service there.

 

Six years later he’s returned with his debut novel, Missionaries, a sensitive and meticulously researched exploration of America’s involvement in foreign wars (notably Columbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq). Following four main characters—two Americans and two Columbians—the novel details the price of war from every angle and every point of view.

 

Klay joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book. He shares his research process, his organizational tools, and how he came to understand each of his characters.  War buffs, literary fiction enthusiasts, and aspiring and established writers alike should find something useful and inspiring in Klay’s conversation. 

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(Record date: October 26, 2020)

(Broadcast date: November 18, 2020)

Merrill Markoe on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Merrill Markoe, author of the graphic memoir, We Saw Scenery, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about the art, craft, and business of writing. They laugh a lot, too. 

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Musical intro, outro, and interludes by Travis Barrett. Find more of his music on Spotify.

(Broadcast date: Nov. 11, 2020)

Sharon Harrigan on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Trained young as a poet, Sharon Harrigan came later in life to the novel and the memoir. Her debut novel, Half, emerged from an award-winning short story. Sharon joins Marrie Stone to talk about the novel, as well as her circuitous writing path, getting an MFA later in life, and finding the confidence to play with an unconventional point of view. She shares a wealth of writing advice she's received along the way, the advantages of publishing with a university press, and how she discovered the novel's through-line after she finished writing it. She also talks about how studying movies and television series can teach plot and structure, and so much more.

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(Record date: October 20, 2020)

Novelist Shari La Pena on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Novelist and writer of domestic thrillers, Shari La Pena, author of The End of Her, discusses her latest novel with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett.

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This show is a straight-to-podcast interview. 

Musical intro and outro by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify.

Memoirist Nick Flynn on Writers on Writing

Nick Flynn, author of This is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire, talks with Barbara DeMarco-Barrett about his new memoir, and the art, craft, and business of writing.

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(Broadcast date: October 14, 2020)

Musical intro and outro by Travis Barrett. Find him on Spotify.

Rumaan Alam on Writers on Writing, KUCI-FM

Rumaan Alam’s latest novel, Leave the World Behind, became a finalist for the National Book Award before it was even released. Exploring themes of race, class, climate change, gender politics, geopolitical turmoil, and more—all under the sunny guise of a summer vacation on Long Island—Alam’s novel begins as one kind of story and soon turns into another.

 

Alam joins Marrie Stone to talk about the book, his unconventional path to becoming a novelist, and about writing the white American experience as an Indian man. He shares how Twitter helped him write the novel, how an editor’s insights made him rethink the novel’s point of view, and the many books that helped him along the way (including Stephen King’s Pet Sematary). There’s mounds of wonderful advice for writers, and fantastic backstory for avid readers.

 

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(Broadcast date: November 4, 2020)

(Record date: October 30, 2020)