Writer's Digest

Welcome to Writers Digest Presents.

Hosted by the editors of Writers Digest, this monthly podcast features conversations with writing and publishing experts whose insights will help ignite your creative vision, hone your skills, build your platform, and get your work out into the world.

Hello everyone, I'm Michael Woodson, and welcome to Writer's Digest Presents.

This month, we are talking all about poetry, which is something we haven't talked about in the podcast in years, probably.

And then poetry, a lot of times you're playing around with sounds, you're playing around with images, metaphors, and that can be very useful in fiction.

Not to replace the story, because story is... super uh you know it's it's often the game i mean there are you know exceptions to everything but uh uh adding in that uh language and thinking about metaphors that you can incorporate along with the stories just adds like an extra richness totally uh that at least for me like like you'll you'll pull you'll rope me in when i'm reading me too if you if you have that yeah for sure as an extra bonus

yeah robert thanks so much i was um hoping you mentioned a little bit but like tell listeners where on writers digest where can they find all things poetry and when

Yeah, so on writersdigest.com, every Wednesday we have Wednesday poetry prompts.

Many of the interviews I've read and seen with him involve questions about whether he sits down with the idea in his head that he's going to write a series or write a standalone novel.

I'm summarizing very broadly here, but in a Writer's Digest interview, he talks about having to make that decision near the end of novels when you ask yourself whether, quote, there is any juice left in the characters.

You want to spend more time with them, in other words.

I mean, in addition to that, I wonder whether this is relevant to the sampler I read, where he extended this to talk about any fear he might have of repeating himself when he comes to series.

But before we move on to the questions I had reading this sampler...

I want to add that like the Cleaves interviews that I watched and read, there are a lot out there and Baldacci has given a number of interviews where he's very happy to share not only his experiences as a writer and his background, but his process as a writer, just like Cleaves.

And I've shared the Writer's Digest and an interview with David Perel in the description, even though I haven't really quoted it here.

As he goes through in some detail his process and any aspiring writer, especially one who's really interested in writing thrillers, would find it really interesting.

You also do something.

I recently did a webinar for Writer's Digest where I also teach and I called the echo effect.

And I talk about in a piece of work, there's sometimes a phrase or something that is a word or a song and it's brought all throughout each time there's a heightened change in the character.

And so the one that stuck out for me is the language used around being a team.

Today's guest is author Jessica Guerreri, a novelist, mother, and a woman in recovery whose work explores motherhood, identity, addiction, and the emotional truths that women often keep buried.

Her writing has been featured in People, HuffPost, and Writer's Digest, and her new novel, Both Can Be True, is already resonated deeply with women everywhere.

Jessica, welcome to Cake for Dinner.

Hey, thank you

So I will self-promote myself right now.

But I was very delighted and very... honored that I was chosen as one of the top 20 agents by Writer's Digest magazine.

They featured me in the annual agent lineup.

So of course, if I'm going to be featured in that, I was like, well, that's the perfect time to make sure I'm open because anybody that might find me on there, they come a knock and I want them to know the door is open.

Yeah.

I was lucky enough to do the keynote address for the Writer's Digest conference this year.

Mm.

And I got to tell ... aspiring authors my story and the sense of I'm living proof that any schmo-

She is the author of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, winner of the 2023 Maurice Prize for Fiction, and her newest novel, Both Can Be True.

Beyond her fiction, Jessica's essays have appeared in People, HuffPost, and Writer's Digest.

And as someone with more than 13 years of sobriety, she is also a passionate voice in the sobriety and mental health communities.

Jessica lives in Davis, California, with her family and what she describes as a small parade of pets.