Getting Unstuck with K. B. Carle Pt. II

It’s really nice to know that there is still an outlet or a form of writing that I can do and still keep a full-time job while doing it.

And it didn’t really bend my schedule too much. So that’s how I really started exploring Flash

-K. B. Carle

In the second part of my conversation with author KB Carle (listen to Part 1 here) we talk about what attracted her to Flash Fiction; the challenges of moving from short to novel-length fiction; how to get unstuck ; and how being a writer includes building your community

There’s a ton of practical tips (and resources) to keep you going in this week’s episode. Enjoy!

Need the transcript? Click here

RESOURCES

In Exchange for the Final Pudding Cup, We Offer Our Inner Thoughts, from The Offing (includes a Venn diagram)

Hello, My Name Is Marley in CRAFT Literary Magazine (this one has a word search!)

Vagabond Mannequin in Jellyfish Review (crossword clues as story!)

How We Survived , in Lost Balloon

Grace Q. Song‘s website

Christopher Gonzalez

Tommy Dean

Cathy Ulrich

Kathy Fish

Meghan Phillips

Best Small Fictions 2021

I Keep My Exoskeleton To Myself by M. Crane

Smokelong Quarterly

Five South

No Contact

Atlas & Alice

Atticus Review

Keep writing,

Julie

About KB Carle

K.B. Carle lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her flash has been published in a variety of places including Lost Balloon, Five South Lit., The Rumpus, JMWW, and elsewhere. K.B.’s stories have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and her story, “Soba,” was included in the 2020 Best of the Net anthology. Her story, “A Lethal Woman,” will be included in the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology. She can be found online at kbcarle.com or on Twitter @kbcarle.

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A Conversation with K. B. Carle Part I

When I’m most relaxed, here comes the character…

That’s when everybody decides to show up and just interrupt my day like they don’t have a care.

-K. B. Carle

In this conversation with author KB Carle we talk about writing flash fiction and micro fiction, the importance of community, getting through the middle, and more

Need the transcript? Click here

K.B. Carle lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her flash has been published in a variety of places including Lost Balloon, Five South Lit., The Rumpus, JMWW, and elsewhere. K.B.’s stories have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and her story, “Soba,” was included in the 2020 Best of the Net anthology. Her story, “A Lethal Woman,” will be included in the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology. She can be found online at kbcarle.com or on Twitter @kbcarle.

I hope it’ll leave you inspired and ready to get to your own stories!

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. You can listen to Part 2 here

Want more?

Weekly writing prompts and lessons in your inbox, every Wednesday with the StoryAWeek Newsletter

A Conversation with K. B. Carle

When I’m most relaxed, here comes the character…

That’s when everybody decides to show up and just interrupt my day like they don’t have a care.

-K. B. Carle

In this conversation with author KB Carle we talk about writing flash fiction and micro fiction, the importance of community, getting through the middle, and more

Need the transcript? Click here

K.B. Carle lives and writes outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her flash has been published in a variety of places including Lost Balloon, Five South Lit., The Rumpus, JMWW, and elsewhere. K.B.’s stories have been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, and her story, “Soba,” was included in the 2020 Best of the Net anthology. Her story, “A Lethal Woman,” will be included in the 2022 Best Small Fictions anthology. She can be found online at kbcarle.com or on Twitter @kbcarle.

I hope it’ll leave you inspired and ready to get to your own stories!

Keep writing,

Julie

Want more?

Weekly writing prompts and lessons in your inbox, every Wednesday with the StoryAWeek Newsletter

Forget the Hero’s Journey, a conversation with Gwen E. Kirby

“when we leave our characters in sort of these vagaries, these big emotions and these big ideas, we don’t have anything to hang the characters or the emotions on.”

-Gwen E. Kirby

In the second part of my conversation with Gwen E. Kirby we talk about developing characters that feel real to people, about writing at this moment in time, writing about women, and the question that Gwen Kirby doesn’t get asked often enough,

Gwen E Kirby is the author of the fabulous debut collection of short stories Shit Cassandra Saw. has a MFA from Johns Hopkins university. PhD from the University of Cincinnati and is the Associate Director of Programs and finance for the Sewanee Writers. Conference at the University of the South where she’s also teaching students about creative writing. Her writing has appeared in One Story Tin House Guernica. Smoke Long Quarterly, and many other places.

Need the transcript? Find it here

I hope it’ll leave you inspired and ready to get to your own stories!

Keep writing,

Julie

Want more?

Weekly writing prompts and lessons in your inbox, every Wednesday with the StoryAWeek Newsletter

Sh*t Cassandra Saw, an Inteview with Gwen E. Kirby

“So little of life is comprised of huge dramatic running out into the rain to cry “Stella!”  If we saved our short fiction for only those moments, not only am I not totally sure what we would write about, but I’m not sure it would be all that accurate a portrayal of what it is to be a person.”

-Gwen E. Kirby

On this week’s podcast I’m in conversation with author Gwen E. Kirby, whose debut collection Sh*t Cassandra Saw was one of my absolute favorites from last year.

In our conversation we talk about the stories in her new collection, the benefit of a fantastic title, how to take an idea and develop it into a story. 

Need the transcript? Find it here

Next week, in the second part of this interview, we will talk more about developing characters that feel real to people, about writing at this moment in time, writing about women, and the question that Gwen Kirby doesn’t get asked often enough.

It was a delightful conversation and I hope it’ll leave you inspired and ready to get to your own stories!

Keep writing,

Julie

P. S. Mary Robinette Kowal, who I interviewed a few episodes ago, is offering a class this Sunday on diagnosing (and fixing) story problems. I always leave her classes feeling as if someone has flipped my head open and dropped in a bunch of sparklers. You might want to check it out.

Want more?

Weekly writing prompts and lessons in your inbox, every Wednesday with the StoryAWeek Newsletter

Where’s My Butler? An Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal about the writing life – Part 2

Join us as we talk about building a productive writing practice, no matter what…..

My conversation continues, with award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal as we discuss her new novel The Spare Man and the art of writing even in the face of challenges. Don’t miss it!

Listen to the Audio

Watch the video

Watch video with full transcript here

LINKS:

LINKS:

Never miss an episode: Subscribe to the Podcast

Link to this episode: https://storyaday.org/episode273

Join the discussion in the Serious Writers’ Accountability Group (SWAGr)

More Writing Help

StoryADay Short Story Framework

Download the free Short Story Framework and write today, not ‘some day’. Go from ‘idea’ to ‘the end’ without getting lost along the way!

Download now
StoryAWeek logo

Weekly writing prompts and lessons in your inbox, every Wednesday with the StoryAWeek Newsletter

Find out more
StoryaDay 3-Day Challenge

Take the 3-Day Challenge and write three short stories this weekend!

find out more

An Interview with Mary Robinette Kowal about writing “The Spare Man” – Part 1

Join us as we talk about writing, cocktails and the art of writing what you don’t know…

Murder! Cocktails! Adorable service dogs!

Award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal comes to the StoryADay podcast to discuss her new novel The Spare Man and the art of writing books you’d actually want to read. Don’t miss it!

Listen to the Audio

Watch the video

Watch video with full transcript here

LINKS:

LINKS
MaryRobinette.com
Mary Robinette Kowal’s Patreon
My Favorite Bit (10 best Fantine curses) 

Never miss an episode: Subscribe to the Podcast

Link to this episode: https://storyaday.org/episode273

Join the discussion in the Serious Writers’ Accountability Group (SWAGr)

More Writing Help

StoryADay Short Story Framework

Download the free Short Story Framework and write today, not ‘some day’. Go from ‘idea’ to ‘the end’ without getting lost along the way!

Download now
StoryAWeek logo

Weekly writing prompts and lessons in your inbox, every Wednesday with the StoryAWeek Newsletter

Find out more
StoryaDay 3-Day Challenge

Take the 3-Day Challenge and write three short stories this weekend!

find out more

Networking Without Nerves, a conversation with Coach Larissa Sjarbaini

Crafting a writing life isn’t all about knowing where to put commas and how to develop characters. It’s also about engaging with other humans. This week I’m in conversation with Larissa Sjarbaini, a high performance coach, about how to do that and why you might want to, even if you’re an extreme introvert. And stay tuned for an opportunity to develop your own game plan for a writing life

LINKS

Set Yourself Up For Success sign up now!

Workshop is a Verb – Gabriela Pereira and DIYMFA Part 2

Gabriela Pereira of DIYMFA talks about her belief that you don’t go to a workshop, you workshop writing and what that looks like in her DIYMFA community.

::LINKS::

Gabriela’s free series

Writing Prompt

The StoryADay 3-Day Workshop

Gabriela Pereira and DIYMFA Pt. 1 Plus a writing prompt from Caroline Kim

How is writing like a martial art or a Montesorri school? Find out in my interview with DIYMFA’s Gabriela Pereira

And stay tuned for my thoughts on Caroline Kim’s prompt for the StoryADay Challenge

::Links::

Caroline Kim’s Writing Prompt

Register for Gabriela’s workshop

Take the 3-Day Challenge

Author Websites with Nancy Fields

To engage with your audience there’s no tool quite like an author website. Even if your social media presence is strong, it pays to have your own home on the web, and this week Nancy Fields of Fields Graphic Design is here to talk us through everything from how to set up a site, to what to put on each page.

::LINKS::

Nancy’s site: https://fieldsgraphicdesign.com

Writing Prompt: https://storyaday.org/wow-taste

Bluehost: Julie’s Referral link (current offer: from $2.95/month)

Ready to write today, not “some day”?

Craft In the Real World, an Interview with Matthew Salesses

Episode 1999 - Craft in the Real World with Matthew Salesses

Matthew Salesses is the author of three novels — one written in Flash Fiction — and the writing handbook “Craft In The Real World”. In this episode we talk about writing rules, audience, how to give and receive feedback and what it was like to write a flash fiction novel.

Photo credit: Grace Salesses

Ready to write today, not “some day”?

188 – Angela Ackerman & Great Character Writing

In Part 2 of my interview with Angela Ackerman, co-author of The Emotion Thesaurus and host of Writers Helping Writers, we talk about how to use details to write great characters, immerse readers in your story, and even figure out your plot.

Links:

Writers Helping Writers: http://stada.me/whw

One Stop For Writers: http://stada.me/osfw

Ready to write today, not “some day”?

187 – Angela Ackerman and “Should You NaNoWriMo?”

Angela Ackerman is the co-author of the Emotion Thesaurus range of writing books and the One Stop for Writers site. In this episode I talked to her about creativity and how a big writing challenge might be just the thing you need right now.

Links:

Angela’s post: http://stada.me/angela

One Stop For Writers: http://stada.me/osfw

Ready to write today, not “some day”?

159 – Talking About Creativity And Mental Health with Gabriela Pereira

episode 159 Gabriela Pt 2As well as running DIYMFA, Gabriela Pereira often speaks at conferences about issues other than the writing craft, including entrepreneurship and mental illness.

Today, we have a frank discussion about Gabriela’s history with mental illness as one part of a very full life that also includes running a business, having a family, and being a creative person.

We also talk a little about writing emotion when you struggle with your own.

(If you need help and live in the US, please text HOME to 741741. In Canada, 686-868, In the UK 85258. In the UK and Ireland, call 116 123. In Australia, call 13 11 14)

158 – Writing Love & Intimacy with Dr. Lanae St. John

Lanae St. John podcast cover

What are we really talking about when we talk about sex? Join me for a conversation with sexuality educator Dr. Lanae St. John. We talk about how to portray true intimacy on the page (without any weird noises), how to make consent sexy, and where to find a model for your next villain.

LINKS:

The Mamasutra – https://www.themamasutra.net/

Read Me: A Parental Primer For ‘The Talk’ – https://www.amazon.com/Read-Me-Parental-Primer-Talk

Ready to write today, not “some day”?

099 – Jane Friedman & The Business of Being A Writer

Today I interview publishing industry expert Jane Friedman (www.janefriedman.com) whose new book The Business Of Being A Writer is billed as ‘the business education you never got’, for writers.

We discuss what writers should do when they want to go pro, the myth of the overnight success, the nature of ‘work’ and networking for introverts! Continue reading “099 – Jane Friedman & The Business of Being A Writer”