Joyce Maynard, author of HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN
07/01/24 • 61 min
Joyce Maynard has been publishing since she was 13 years old. She first came to national attention with the publication of her New York Times cover story, “An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life,” in 1972, when she was a freshman at Yale. Since then, she has published 20 books, including the New York Times bestselling novel, Labor Day and To Die For (both adapted for film), Under the Influence and the memoirs, At Home in the World and The Best of Us.
Count the Ways —the story of a marriage and a divorce, and the children who survived it— was published in 2021. Its sequel, How the Light Gets In, came out last week. Joyce joins Marrie Stone to talk about it, including sustaining characters over two novels and how she knew she wasn’t finished with this family yet. She also talks about her ongoing obsessions and the importance of writing those obsessions down, her advice on not writing prematurely, her heavy use of white boards and what they look like, how to incorporate politics and the external world into fiction, her mother’s writing advice that she shares with her students, and more.
For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You’ll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners.
(Recorded on June 28, 2024)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
Joyce Maynard has been publishing since she was 13 years old. She first came to national attention with the publication of her New York Times cover story, “An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life,” in 1972, when she was a freshman at Yale. Since then, she has published 20 books, including the New York Times bestselling novel, Labor Day and To Die For (both adapted for film), Under the Influence and the memoirs, At Home in the World and The Best of Us.
Count the Ways —the story of a marriage and a divorce, and the children who survived it— was published in 2021. Its sequel, How the Light Gets In, came out last week. Joyce joins Marrie Stone to talk about it, including sustaining characters over two novels and how she knew she wasn’t finished with this family yet. She also talks about her ongoing obsessions and the importance of writing those obsessions down, her advice on not writing prematurely, her heavy use of white boards and what they look like, how to incorporate politics and the external world into fiction, her mother’s writing advice that she shares with her students, and more.
For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You’ll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners.
(Recorded on June 28, 2024)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
Previous Episode
Literary agent Dani Segelbaum
Dani Segelbaum began her publishing career as an editorial assistant at HarperCollins Publishers, focusing primarily on highly designed non-fiction titles. She ‘s worked as a literary assistant at New Leaf Literary & Media, working with established and debut authors. Dani joined Arc Literary in 2024 after three years at the Carol Mann Agency. Born and raised in Minneapolis, Dani is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Communication where she studied journalism and political science. Dani represents both fiction and non-fiction and works with authors from diverse backgrounds to tell stories important to them. Dani is also an evaluation agent at Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City.
Dani joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to discuss comps, ageism in publishing and does it exist or not, prologues, mistakes writers make, query letters and just how voicey they can be, word counts of books, the difference between categories, and much more.
For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You’ll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners.
(Recorded on May 31, 2024)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)
Next Episode
Dawn Tripp, author of the novel JACKIE
(This podcast was recorded live on June 22, 2024 at Arvida Book Co in Tustin, California.)
Dawn Tripp is the author of the novel Georgia, a national bestseller. She is the author of three previous novels: Game of Secrets, Moon Tide, and The Season of Open Water, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction. Her poems and essays have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Harvard Review, AGNI, Conjunctions, and NPR, among others. She serves on the board of the Boston Book Festival and on the board of Gnome Surf: A non-profit Surf Therapy Organization focused on creating a culture shift towards kindness, love, and acceptance for athletes of all abilities. She graduated from Harvard and lives in Massachusetts with her sons. Her new novel is JACKIE.
Dawn joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to discuss historical fiction and the research involved, surprises in the writing of the novel, why she chose the present tense, getting down the voice, and more.
For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You’ll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We love to hear from our listeners.
(Recorded on June 22, 2024)
Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.
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