Fierce Womxn Writing - Inspiring You to Write More

Nana Nkweti - Author of Walking on Cowrie Shells, a collection of stories in varying genres, which depict a variety of rich characters

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Nana Nkweti is the author of Walking on Cowrie Shells, a book that spans genres – literary realism, horror, mystery, YA, science fiction – and features complex, fully-embodied characters. The stories aim to entertain readers while also offering a counterpoint to prevalent “heart of darkness” writing that too often depicts a singular “African” experience plagued by locusts, hunger, and tribal in-fighting.

“Boisterous and high-spirited debut stories by a talented new writer.” - Kirkus Reviews

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Keeping runnings lists on your phone
Staying engaged with the world as a writer
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Follow her Website
Buy her book, Walking on Cowrie Shells

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Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

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Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Close your eyes. Imagine your body. Do a complete and full inventory and think of all the things that make you you. Hone in on scars, physical and emotional. Write from the perspective from that scar, or about how you received that scar. Let that scar tell you about yourself and your life.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Yaa Gyasi - Author of Transcendent Kingdom
Kwoya Fagin Maples - Author of Mend

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Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 78: Jennifer Craven - Author of All That Shines and Whispers
Episode 77: Marina Carreira - Author of Save the Bathwater
Episode 76: Kathleen Basi - Author of A Song for the Road
Episode 75: Tashie Bhuiyan - Author of Counting Down With You

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Jennifer Craven - Author of All That Shines and Whispers, a re-imagining of what happens after The Sound of Music ends

Thu, 27 May 2021 23:00:00 -0600

Jennifer Craven is the author of All That Shines and Whispers, a re-imagining of what happens after the credits roll on The Sound of Music. The book explores themes of betrayal, sacrifice, consequences, and redemption, set against the backdrop of Nazi-era Europe.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

That words have power and that we can use them for positive or negative purposes
How her book was inspired by The Sound of Music
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, and Website
Buy her latest book, All That Shines and Whispers

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Write a story in which you are disconnected from someone society tells you you should inherently be close to. Write how you navigate the distance, remain true to yourself, and explain your choice to those who just don’t understand.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Kiersten Modglin - Author of My Husband’s Secret
Ashleigh Renard - Author of Swing

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 77: Marina Carreira - Author of Save the Bathwater
Episode 76: Kathleen Basi - Author of A Song for the Road
Episode 75: Tashie Bhuiyan - Author of Counting Down With You
Episode 74: Cassandra Lane - Author of We Are Bridges

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Marina Carreira - Author of Save the Bathwater and curator of Divine Feminist: An Anthology of Poetry and Art by Womxn and Non-binary Folx

Thu, 20 May 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Marina Carreira is a queer, Luso-American poet artist and the author of Save the Bathwater, a poetry collection, and the curator of Divine Feminist: An Anthology of Poetry and Art by Womxn and Non-binary Folx, both published by Get Fresh Books.

“Her poet soul sings—like a Portuguese saudade—in service to safeguarding what has been lost and what should never be forgotten, “to remember it all—sweat and tears, / Luso ancestry, to run roots through/ my future great-granddaughter’s bones.” — Rigoberto González

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

The stories that you are too afraid to tell
Being part of a local writing community
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her Website
Buy her book, Save the Bathwater, and the book she recently curated, Divine Feminist: An Anthology of Poetry & Art by Womxn & Non-Binary Folx

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Where or how do you locate the divine in your own life?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

The WriteOnPoetryBabes

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 76: Kathleen Basi - Author of A Song for the Road
Episode 75: Tashie Bhuiyan - Author of Counting Down With You
Episode 74: Cassandra Lane - Author of We Are Bridges
Episode 73: Ellen Hagan - Author of Reckless, Glorious, Girl and Blooming Fiascoes

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Kathleen Basi - Author of A Song for the Road, the a story of a womxn’s healing road trip after profound loss.

Thu, 13 May 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Kathleen Basi is the author of the new novel, A Song for the Road, a story of a womxn’s healing road trip after profound loss.

"Basi's exquisite, gut-wrenching debut is filled with loss, hope, and secrets.” - Booklist

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

The brick wall that is an invitation
Feeding your creativity when supporting your family
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her Website, Facebook, and Instagram
Buy her book, A Song for the Road

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Think of a scene from your WIP. Think about the place where it is set: the smell, the sound, the way it feels on the skin and in your body. Freewrite 3-4 details you can weave into the dialogue that can be evoked in a sentence or two, so that you can weave them into your action.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Sonya Yoerg, Author of True Places
Louise Miller, Author of The Late Bloomers’ Club

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 74: Tashie Bhuiyan - Author of Counting Down With You
Episode 73: Ellen Hagan - Author of Reckless, Glorious, Girl and Blooming Fiascoes
Episode 72: Heather Ostman - Author of The Second Chance Home for Girls
Episode 71: Elle Marr - Author of Lies We Bury

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Tashie Bhuiyan - 22-year-old Author of Counting Down With You, an "Own Stories" YA Novel

Thu, 06 May 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Tashie Bhuiyan is the 22-year-old author of Counting Down With You, a YA “own stories” novel about a Bangladeshi teenager who agrees to a fake relationship with her school’s resident bad boy when her parents are out of the country.

"This 'love letter to young brown girls; explores a topic that can be taboo in desi culture: anxiety. Bhuiyan guides Karina through it with care … Hand to fans of Netflix hit Never Have I Ever." - Booklist

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

How consuming lots of media helps her through a block
Having a playlist for the book you’re writing
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok
Buy her book, Counting Down With You

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Look back on one of your childhood medias and think about what you loved so much about it, whether it was a character, a trope, the setting. Then, write your own version of it.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Chloe Gong, Author of These Violent Delights
Madeline Miller, Author of Circe

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 73: Ellen Hagan - Author of Reckless, Glorious, Girl and Blooming Fiascoes
Episode 72: Heather Ostman - Author of The Second Chance Home for Girls
Episode 71: Elle Marr - Author of Lies We Bury

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Cassandra Lane - Author of We Are Bridges, a memoir that reclaims family history

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Cassandra Lane is the author of We Are Bridges, a memoir that explores reclaiming violent family history in order to create a more free future for one’s children.

“In this narrative, Lane seeks an origin story, searching for what facts are available and wondering about the legacy she is passing on. . . . A multiangled exploration of family trauma and the forging of an identity.” — Kirkus Reviews

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Exploring your city to explore your creativity
Writing in the early morning hours with candles and incense
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her Instagram and Website
Buy her book, We Are Bridges

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Write about a food you loved as a child. Describe its taste, texture, smell, color, and how it felt in your mouth. Push deeper to unravel what it symbolized for you. What deep cravings does it dredge up even now?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Reema Zaman, Author of I Am Yours: A Shared Memoir
Lynell George, Author of A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 73: Ellen Hagan - Author of Reckless, Glorious, Girl and Blooming Fiascoes
Episode 70: Meg Medina - Author of Merci Suárez Can’t Dance
Episode 69: adrienne maree brown - Author of We Will Not Cancel Us
Episode 63: Sonya Renee Taylor - Author of The Body is Not An Apology

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Ellen Hagan - Author of YA novel in verse, Reckless, Glorious, Girl and a new poetry collection called Blooming Fiascoes

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Ellen Hagan is the author of two new releases: a YA novel in verse called Reckless, Glorious, Girl, and a poetry collection called Blooming Fiascoes. Hagan is also the co-author of Watch Us Rise with Renée Watson.

A gorgeous, inter-generational story of Southern women and a girl's path blossoming into her sense of self, Reckless, Glorious, Girl explores the important questions we all ask as we race toward growing up.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Being in community and dialoguing with other artists
Getting others to use writing to tell their stories
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Buy her books, Reckless, Glorious, Girl and Blooming Fiascoes
Check out her work at DreamYard Project

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Write an Ode poem. Make a list of all the things you really love. Circle one or two that really stand out to you. Write details that help the reader see what you’re writing about, and write what you want to say to that which you love.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Renée Watson, Author of Love is a Revolution
Aracelis Girmay, Author of The Black Maria

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 72: Heather Ostman - Author of The Second Chance Home for Girls
Episode 70: Meg Medina - Author of Merci Suárez Can’t Dance
Episode 69: adrienne maree brown - Author of We Will Not Cancel Us

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Heather Ostman - Author of The Second Chance Home for Girls and Rhetorical Lives

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Heather Ostman is the author of the new novel, The Second Chance Home for Girls. Told through three interwoven narrative voices, it’s a story of friendship and freedom, loss and grief, set in a halfway house for troubled teenage girls. She is also the author of the forthcoming Rhetorical Lives, a history of women activists of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

“An atmospheric yet entertaining read with an enigmatic, charismatic hero that will keep readers riveted. This beguiling, slyly subversive tale puts a spiritual mystery at the heart of gritty truths.” - Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2020

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Breathing through the fear of a writing block
Using Aristotle’s eight point arc to structure your novel
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her on Instagram, and Facebook
Buy her book, The Second Chance Home for Girls

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: How can I tell you all that cannot be said?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Kate Chopin, Author of The Awakening

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 71: Elle Marr - Author of Lies We Bury
Episode 69: adrienne maree brown - Author of We Will Not Cancel Us
Epiosde 64: Fan Favorites - Featuring Kim Krans, Brittney Morris, Aja Black, Melissa Valentine, and Rebekah Taussig
Episode 63: Sonya Renee Taylor - Author of The Body is Not An Apology

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Elle Marr - Author of Lies We Bury, a newly released thriller

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Elle Marr is the author of The Lies We Bury, a newly released thriller. She strives to tell powerful and compelling stories of womxn who demonstrate resilience in the face of great obstacles. She is also the author of a 2020 thriller release, The Missing Sister.

“The suspenseful plot is matched by the convincing portrayal of the vulnerable Claire, who just wants to lead a normal life. Marr is a writer to watch.” - Publishers Weekly

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Consuming art to get inspired
Giving yourself breaks and not writing every day
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
Buy her book, Lies We Bury

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Write a scene in which a long held secret is revealed over a meal. Is the meal symbolic of the secret? How do your characters digest this new information while consuming their food? Do they even continue eating at all or do the utensils they clutch remain tools of nourishment or become weapons?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Georgina Cross - Author of The Stepdaughter
A.H. Kim - Author of A Good Family

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 70: Meg Medina - Author of Merci Suárez Can’t Dance
Episode 69: adrienne maree brown - Author of We Will Not Cancel Us
Episode 68: Amy Solomon - Editor of Notes from the Bathroom Line

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Meg Medina, author of Merci Suárez Can’t Dance, the sequel to the Newbery-award winning young adult novel, Merci Suárez Changes Gears

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Meg Medina is the author of Merci Suárez Can’t Dance, the sequel to the Newberry-award winning young adult novel, Merci Suárez Changes Gears. She is a New York Times bestselling Latina author of books for kids of all ages.

"Medina writes about the joys of multigenerational home life (a staple of the Latinx community) with a touching, humorous authenticity. Merci's relationship with Lolo is heartbreakingly beautiful and will particularly strike readers who can relate to the close, chaotic, and complicated bonds of live-in grandparents. Medina delivers another stellar and deeply moving story." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Scaring herself with trying new genres
Cross-pollinating when she’s feeling blocked
Staying at it and keeping the emotional connection to your work
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her Website, where you can find links to her socials
Buy her book, Merci Suárez Can’t Dance

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: On the top of the page, write “I remember.” Imagine yourself at your favorite age as a kid. Set a timer for six minutes and write a memory you have of that age. After the six minutes, stop, and ask yourself, “Why do I remember this?” And then for two minutes, write and answer that question for yourself.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Renee Watson, Author of Love is a Revolution
Yamile Saied Méndez, Author of Furia

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 69: adrienne maree brown - Author of We Will Not Cancel Us
Episode 68: Amy Solomon - Editor of Notes from the Bathroom Line

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adrienne maree brown - queer, Black feminist activist and author of We Will Not Cancel Us, Pleasure Activism, Emergent Strategies, Holding Change, and more

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0600

adrienne maree brown is the author of We Will Not Cancel Us, Pleasure Activism, Emergent Strategy, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements. Her new book, Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation, comes out in April. She is the co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World and Octavia’s Parables podcasts.

“adrienne maree brown urges us to go deep, sink down, struggle, and swim as we find language, spirit, ourselves, and each other in this time of chaos. I cannot say how grateful I am for this work of poetry and love that makes sense of my/our everyday state of confusion and shows us how we might live abolition—not as an absolute state but as a dynamic motion forward and together.” - Mimi Kim, California State University, Long Beach

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

The most valuable thing there is
Applying Buddhist principles to her editing process
What the next moves are when you feel blocked.
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her on Instagram and her Website
Buy her book, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Write a story in which you are being called out or cancelled. Write how you would handle it, how you would want to be treated, how you would want your community to hold you accountable if you had actually done anything harmful or wrong, and what you would hope to be the outcome on the other side of it.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Mariame Kaba, author of We Do This Until We Free Us
Trans activist Indya Moore

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Epiosde 64: Fan Favorites - Kim Krans, Brittney Morris, Aja Black, Melissa Valentine, and Rebekah Taussig
Episode 63: Sonya Renee Taylor - Author of The Body is Not An Apology

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Amy Solomon - Editor of Notes From The Bathroom Line, a collection of humor writing by 150 modern womxn and nonbinary writers

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0600

Amy Solomon is the editor of Notes From The Bathroom Line, an anthology of all new humor pieces (essays, satire, short stories, poetry, cartoons, artwork, and more) by 150 womxn and nonbinary writers in comedy.

“The beautiful thing about some books is their time-capsule quality, how they perfectly preserve a cultural moment between two covers. Amy Solomon has created just such a book with Notes From the Bathroom Line, an eclectic mix of writing, art and "low-grade panic," to quote the subtitle, from a large and rowdy cast of very funny women.” - BookPage

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Thoughtful editing
Fancy pens that make you happy
Getting inspired by other people’s work
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her on Instagram and Twitter
Buy her book, Notes From The Bathroom Line

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: What’s the story of the time you laughed the hardest?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Catherine Cohen, author of God I Feel Modern Tonight
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, author of The Undocumented Americans

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 67: Layla AlAmmar - Author of Silence Is A Sense
Episode 66: Patricia Engel - Author of Infinite Country
Epiosde 64: Fan Favorites - Featuring Kim Krans, Brittney Morris, Aja Black, Melissa Valentine, and Rebekah Taussig

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Layla AlAmmar - author of Silence is a Sense, a novel about the fundamental need for human connection, written from the viewpoint of a Syrian refugee

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Layla AlAmmar is the author of Silence is a Sense, a profound and life-affirming novel that follows a mute Syrian refugee grappling with her experiences during the Syrian Civil War, and as a refugee traveling through Europe as she is gradually and unwillingly drawn into the lives of her neighbors.

“With gut-punching clarity, AlAmmar unpacks the complicated identity of a refugee discovering that safety is not what it seems, as she learns to find her voice in a new home.” - Booklist

Layla AlAmmar is a Kuwaiti-American writer and student of Arab literature, delivering a complex and fluid book about memory, revolution, loss, and safety. AlAmmar’s debut novel, The Pact We Made, was published in 2019. She is currently pursuing a PhD on the intersection of Arab women's fiction and literary trauma theory.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Changing your medium to get un-stuck
Writing as a repository for thoughts and feelings
The difficulty in trying to take writing advice
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Follow her on Twitter
Buy her book, Silence is a Sense

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Take a pivotal scene in your WIP, or a scene that is giving you trouble, and try to rewrite it in several different ways. For example: straight, a dream or nightmare, someone relaying the scene to another person in a letter, or as a hallucination.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Adania Shibli, author of Minor Detail
Han Kang, author of The Vegetarian

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 66: Patricia Engel - Author of Infinite Country
Epiosde 64: Fan Favorites - Featuring Kim Krans, Brittney Morris, Aja Black, Melissa Valentine, and Rebekah Taussig
Episode 63: Sonya Renee Taylor - Author of The Body is Not An Apology

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Patricia Engel - Author of Infinite Country, a Reese's Book Club Pick

Thu, 04 Mar 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Patricia Engel is the author of Infinite Country. The novel follows teenager Talia as she and her family grapple with their mixed-immigration statuses, offering an intimate perspective on an experience that so many have endured - and are enduring right now.

Rich with Bogotá urban life, steeped in Andean myth, and tense with the daily reality of the undocumented in America, Infinite Country is the story of two countries and one mixed-status family - for whom every triumph is stitched with regret, and every dream pursued bears the weight of a dream deferred.

Patricia Engel is also the author of Vida, which won Colombia’s national book award. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Writing by natural light
Keeping your writing appointments
Her unique approach to revision (hint: it involves re-writing)
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, Twitter, or Website
Buy her book, Infinite Country

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Write about a time in your life when you did what some people might consider the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Carolina De Robertis, author of The President and The Frog

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 65: Kate Hope Day - Author of In the Quick
Epiosde 64: Fan Favorites - Featuring Kim Krans, Brittney Morris, Aja Black, Melissa Valentine, and Rebekah Taussig
Episode 63: Sonya Renee Taylor - Author of The Body is Not An Apology

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Kate Hope Day - Author of In the Quick, the story of an ambitious young astronaut whose love affair threatens the rescue of a lost crew

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 22:00:00 -0700

Kate Hope Day is the author of In the Quick, a novel about an ambitious young astronaut whose love affair threatens the rescue of a lost crew.

“I read In the Quick with wonder at the deeply imaginative world Kate Hope Day created. Feminist and thrilling, this novel centers around a precocious, brilliant character named June. I happily followed June into deep space, but I would have followed her anywhere. What a wonderful story. I highly recommend this novel.” - Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Dear Edward

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Changing your definition of a good writing day
What she does between 10pm and midnight
Letting your brain think about your writing while you sleep
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, Twitter, or Website
Buy her book, In the Quick

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Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Take a page of a piece you’re revising. Skim the page and see what words are hot, and circle those for a few paragraphs. Then make a list of those words, and step away for a few minutes. Come back and read the words again. Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and write about what those words might be telling you about your writing.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Katherine May, author of Wintering
Danielle Geller, author of Dog Flowers

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Epiosde 64: Fan Favorites - Featuring Kim Krans, Brittney Morris, Aja Black, Melissa Valentine, and Rebekah Taussig
Episode 63: Sonya Renee Taylor - Author of The Body is Not An Apology
Episode 62: Arianna Davis - Author of What Would Frida Do?: A Guide to Living Boldly

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Fan Favorites - Highlights from Hit Episodes featuring Kim Krans, Brittney Morris, Aja Black, Rebekah Taussig, and Melissa Valentine

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0700

This week we hear highlights from some of your favorite episodes:

Episode 15: Brittney Morris - Author of the YA novel, Slay
Episode 14: Kim Krans - Author of the graphic memoir Blossoms and Bones: Drawing a Life Back Together
Episode 33: Melissa Valentine - Author of the memoir, The Names of All the Flowers
Episode 39: Rebekah Taussig - Author of the memoir, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body
Episode 27: Aja Black - Songwriter from The Reminders

Follow these Writers

Visit Brittney Morris’ Twitter, Instagram, Website, and order her books, Slay, and The Cost of Knowing
Visit Kim Krans’ Instagram pages, The Wild Unknown, Kim Krans, her Website, and order her book, Blossoms and Bones: Drawing a Life Back Together
Visit Melissa Valentine’s Website, Instagram, and Twitter, and order her book, The Names of All the Flowers
Visit Rebekah Taussig’s Instagram, Website, and order her book, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body
Visit Aja Black’s Website, Instagram, or hear her new collaboration on Hungry World with Rising Appalachia

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website
Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about The Feminist Press, which lifts up insurgent and marginalized voices from around the world to build a more just future

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page

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Sonya Renee Taylor - Author of The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Sonya Renee Taylor is the author of The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love, an invitation to reconnect with the radical origins of our minds and bodies and celebrate our collective, enduring strength.

“This book took my breath away. It’s an unexpected and urgent embrace of truth.” - Brené Brown, Ph.D., author of the New York Times #1 bestseller, Dare to Lead

“Through lucid and courageous self-revelation, Taylor shows us how to realize the revolutionary potential of self-love.” - Kimberlé Crenshaw, legal scholar and founder and Executive Director, African American Policy Forum

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Tending to what needs to be tended so you can write
Choosing her bold book cover
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, Website, or the Your Body Is Not An Apology Instagram
Buy her book, The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

I suggest setting a timer for 6 or 8 minutes, putting the writing prompt at the top of your page, and free writing whatever comes to mind. Remember, the important part is keeping your pen moving. Right now we just want to write something new and see what happens.

This week’s writing prompt: Imagine yourself as having gotten lost. Using five colors, four items you can see in your house right now, and one faraway location, write yourself a map back to yourself.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Octavia E. Butler, author of Kindred, Fledgling, Collected Stories
adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism

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Episode 62: Arianna Davis - Author of What Would Frida Do?
Episode 60: Isabel Ibañez - Author of Written in Starlight

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Arianna Davis - Author of What Would Frida Do?: A Guide to Living Boldly - and digital director at Oprah Magazine

Thu, 04 Feb 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Arianna Davis is the author of What Would Frida Do?: A Guide to Living Boldly, an exploration of the feminist icon’s signature style, outspoken politics, and boldness in love and art, even in the face of pain and heartbreak. She is also the Digital Director at Oprah Magazine.

"A modern take on a woman who was modern beyond her time. Arianna Davis's book paints a colorful picture of the strength, courage, and love that uplifted Frida Kahlo through her many tragedies. This comprehensive look into Frida's life leads me to think that we could all learn a lesson or two from Frida." - Nina Garcia, editor-in-chief of Elle

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Translating your creative energy into words
Nurturing creativity by spending time in nature
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, Twitter, Website, or Oprah Magazine where she works
Buy her book, What Would Frida Do?: A Guide to Living Boldly

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: If someone in history who is no longer with us were suddenly with you again, what would you say to them or what message would you want to write down and have them read behind you?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half
Elizabeth Acevedo, author of The Poet X

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Episode 60: Isabel Ibañez - Author of Written in Starlight
Episode 59: Stephanie Big Eagle - Author of Thunderbird Rising

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Isabel Ibañez - Author of YA novels Written in Starlight and Woven in Moonlight

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Isabel Ibañez is the author of Written in Starlight, a YA novel that continues the story of Woven in Moonlight, where Catalina, the rightful heiress to the Inkasisa throne, has been abandoned in the Yanu jungle, and needs to find her way back to her power and her home.

“Packed with growing pains, adventure, and self-realization, Written in Starlight is an important, entertaining tale about community and resistance.” – Foreword Reviews

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Finishing the book so that you have something to edit
Returning to writing after years in graphic design
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Isabel’s Instagram, or her Website
Buy her new YA novel, Written in Starlight

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Choose an Enneagram personality type and write about their point of view as they are experiencing a jungle setting on their very first day.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Stacey Lee, author of Outrun the Moon
Zoraida Córdova, author of Labyrinth Lost

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 59: Stephanie Big Eagle - Author of Thunderbird Rising
Episode 58: Timneisha Greene Kim - Author of Athena’s Quest: A Lesbian’s Quest for Normality
Episode 56: Mia Mercado - Author of Weird But Normal

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Stephanie Big Eagle - author of the memoir, Thunderbird Rising

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Stephanie Big Eagle is the author of Thunderbird Rising, a memoir about reconnecting, resilience, and empowerment.

In this episode, we discuss their writing process, and:

Writing from your heart and your passion
Finding the right agent and publisher
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Stephanie’s Website and TikTok
Buy her memoir, Thunderbird Rising

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: What experiences in your own life, whether from a dream, a vision, or everyday reality, had such a profound effect on you that it forever changed your life and your perspective on your identity? How would you describe it so that your audience is there with you in that moment, experiencing it with you, and feeling the shift it created within you?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Winnie Mandela, author of Part of My Soul Went With Him
Joy Harjo, author of Crazy Brave

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 58: Timneisha Greene Kim - Author of Athena’s Quest: A Lesbian’s Quest for Normality
Episode 57: Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite - Authors of One of the Good Ones
Episode 56: Mia Mercado - Author of Weird But Normal
Episode 54: Sarah Gottesdiener - Author of The Moon Book

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Timneisha Greene Kim - Author of Athena's Quest: A Lesbian's Quest for Normality

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Timneisha Greene Kim is the author of Athena’s Quest: A Lesbian’s Quest for Normality, a memoir that explores coming out while being a Christian, and learning self-love and acceptance in the wake of molestation.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Putting your genuine feelings on paper
The pros and cons of self-publishing
Writing in bed
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Timneisha on Instagram
Buy Athena’s Quest: A Lesbian’s Quest for Normality

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Write to your younger self about the heroes of the past. Tell your younger self how you are a hero of the present. Do you think your younger self would be proud?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Trina Greene Brown, author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 57: Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite - Authors of One of the Good Ones
Episode 56: Mia Mercado - Author of Weird But Normal
Episode 55: Alexandra Chang - Author of Days of Distraction
Episode 54: Sarah Gottesdiener - Author of The Moon Book

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Maika Moulite & Maritza Moulite, authors of One of the Good Ones, a young adult novel about a young womxn living in the aftermath of her sister's death at a BLM protest

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 00:00:00 -0700

Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite are sisters and the authors of One of the Good Ones, a young adult novel that explores Blackness and how it relates to white acceptability, through the eyes of a young womxn whose sister was killed at a BLM protest.

Kirkus awarded the book a starred review, saying, “Brilliant storytelling, sharp dialogue … An explosive look behind the hashtags at race and history, taking readers on a road trip mapped by love and grief. Close to perfection."

In this episode, we discuss their writing process, and:

Getting caught up in perfectionism and failing to start
Asking for deadline extensions
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Maika on Instagram, Twitter, Maritza on Instagram, Twitter, and their shared Website
Buy One of the Good Ones

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Write a scene where your character is having a physical and mental reaction to an extremely shocking moment. What happened? What will happen next?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, they recommended these womxn writers:

Elizabeth Acevedo, author of The Poet X
Alyssa Cole, author of When No One is Watching
Ibi Zoboi, author of Pride
Gloria Anzaldua, author of Borderlands

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Episode 56: Mia Mercado - Author of Weird But Normal

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Mia Mercado - Author of Weird But Normal, a collection of humor essays exploring the contradictions of being a womxn

Thu, 31 Dec 2020 01:00:00 -0700

Mia Mercado is the author of the collection of humor essays, Weird But Normal, which explores the absurdity of being a womxn, and more particularly, a millennial womxn.

PopSugar recommends the book, saying, “Whether she’s tackling universal topics like the joy of shopping at Target or zeroing in on discussing racial identity, each one of her essays is insightful, funny, and a joy to read.”

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Separating your worth as a person from what you create
Writing the things you want to write
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, Twitter, and Website
Buy Weird But Normal: Essays

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: What is something that other people take as normal or fine, that you think is super strange?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Rachel Ignotofsky, author of Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World
Riance Konc, author of Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance

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Episode 55: Alexandra Chang - Author of Days of Distraction
Episode 54: Sarah Gottesdiener - Author of The Moon Book
Episode 53: Rachel Mans McKenny - Author of The Butterfly Effect

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Alexandra Chang - Author of Days of Distraction, a novel that examines the question, "How do you exist in a society that does not notice or understand you?"

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Alexandra Chang is the author of Days of Distraction, a new novel about a young womxn who leaves home and contends with the question, “How do you exist in a society that does not notice or understand you?”

The Washington Post calls the book “an immersive, emotionally honest novel that thinks through our era’s complexities, histories and divisions; it wanders into the gray areas, and wonders where the path forward might be.”

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Being physically well in order to be able to create
Letting your ordinary life nurture your creativity
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, Twitter, and Website
Buy Days of Distraction

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Stolen from J. Robert Lennon: Go to Mapcrunch and click around randomized google street views. Find one view that calls to you and write a story that takes place in that street view of your choice.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Likes by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
Night Rooms by Gina Nutt

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Episode 54: Sarah Gottesdiener - Author of The Moon Book
Episode 53: Rachel Mans McKenny - Author of The Butterfly Effect
Episode 52: Riane Konc - Author of Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance

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Sarah Faith Gottesdiener, Author of The Moon Book, and the Many Moons Lunar Planner

Thu, 17 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Sarah Faith Gottesdiener is the author of The Moon Book, “a guide to conscious living through the moon and her phases, incorporating wellness rituals, spellwork, and witchcraft for the modern seeker.”

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Having an ambivalent relationship with writing
The importance of a good editor
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Website
Buy The Moon Book and the 2021 Many Moons Lunar Planner

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Close your eyes. Take eight slow deep belly breaths. Out loud, name how you’d like to feel right now. Bring that feeling into your entire body. Now, put an eight minute timer on your phone and write by hand at least eight sentences that invoke that feeling.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Pema Chödrön, author of The Wisdom of No Escape
adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategies and Pleasure Activism

Ensure the Podcast Continues

Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 53: Rachel Mans McKenny - Author of The Butterfly Effect
Episode 52: Riane Konc - Author of Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance
Episode 50: Marisa Acocella - Author of The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother

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Rachel Mans McKenny - Author of The Butterfly Effect, a novel about an entomologist who steps outside her comfort zone and discovers herself

Thu, 10 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Rachel Mans McKenny is the author of The Butterfly Effect, a new novel. The book is the story of Greta, an entomologist, who takes an unexpected trip back home and unwinds an “unconventional tale of self-discovery, navigating relationships, and how sometimes it takes stepping outside of our comfort zone to find what we need the most.” McKenny is also a humor writer who has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and more.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Writing outside your genre
What she thinks about writing every day
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Website, Instagram, and Twitter
Buy her book, The Butterfly Effect

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt: Think about an indoor space with which you are extremely familiar. Picture it and think for a moment about the other things, unseen, which might reside there. Pick one of these creatures and describe what you know about them or what questions you might have about them, without doing any additional research. Create a scene where two people are talking, told from the perspective from this truly outside observer.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Mia Mercado, author of Weird But Normal: Essays
Tyrese Coleman, author of How to Sit: A Memoir in Stories and Essays

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Love what you’re hearing? Show your appreciation and become a Supporter with a monthly contribution.

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Episode 52: Riane Konc - Author of Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance
Episode 51: Mariëlle S. Smith - Author of 52 Weeks of Writing: Author Journal and Planner

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Riane Konc - Humor Author of Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance: Pick Your Plot, Meet Your Man, and Create the Holiday Love Story of a Lifetime

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 22:00:00 -0700

Riane Konc is the author of Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance: Pick Your Plot, Meet Your Man, and Create the Holiday Love Story of a Lifetime. The book takes you on a humorous trip of your choosing through the challenges of a big-city heroine who heads back to her small hometown, while navigating work and love, all with a touch of holiday spirit.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Being in the struggle
Her path from school psychologist to internet humor writer
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Website, Instagram, and Twitter
Buy her book, Build Your Own Christmas Movie Romance

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompts are borrowed from Elissa Bassist’s piece, Writing Prompts for the Dumped, published at McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Two unlikely characters meet, date, and eventually part ways. Write their story without using the words “part ways,” “meet,” or “Zoloft.” OR/AND Write flash fiction that begins with the phrase “every silver lining has a cloud” and ends in castration.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Katie Schmid, author of the forthcoming book, Nowhere
Maggie Smith, author if Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

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Episode 51: Mariëlle S. Smith - Author of 52 Weeks of Writing
Episode 50: Marisa Acocella - Author of The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother

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Mariëlle S. Smith - Author of 52 Weeks of Writing: Author Journal and Planner

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 01:00:00 -0700

Mariëlle S. Smith is the author of 52 Weeks of Writing: Author Journal and Planner. The book helps writers to plan and work on writing goals all year, reflect on your experience writing, and keep you inspired with weekly prompts.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Being brutally honest with yourself
Journaling for anti-journalers
And more

I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Website, Instagram, and Facebook
Buy her latest book, 52 Weeks of Writing: Author Journal and Planner (Volume Two)

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write a letter to your future self: the one who never stopped writing. Keep the letter close in a spot you’ll remember, and each time you find yourself stalling, take out the letter and read it to yourself.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Cassandra Snow, author of Queering Your Craft: Witchcraft from the Margins
Clare Sager, author of Beneath Black Sails

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Episode 50: Marisa Acocella - Author of The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother
Episode 49: Laura Taylor Namey - Author of A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
Episode 48: Lan Cao and Harlan Van Cao - Authors of Family in Six Tones

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Marisa Acocella - Author of the graphic novel, The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Marisa Acocella is the author of The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother, an Oprah Magazine book pick. Marisa highlights the ways womxn have been erased, vilified, and dominated for thousands of years, and uses humor and the graphic novel format to set the story straight.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Walking and creativity
Being compelled to tell stories that have been squelched
And more

Follow this Writer

Visit her Website, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook
Buy her latest book, The Big She-Bang: The Herstory of the Universe According to God the Mother

Follow the Podcast

Visit the podcast’s Website

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Take the very worst moment in your life, write about it, and turn it into the very best moment of your life.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Maria Scrivan, author of Nat Enough
Maryjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis
Karen Duffy, author of Backbone
Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels
Gigi Levangie, author of Been There Married That
Adriana Trigiani, author of Don’t Sing at the Table
Max Dashu, author of Witches and Pagans

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Episode 49: Laura Taylor Namey - Author of A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow
Episode 48: Lan Cao and Harlan Van Cao - Authors of Family in Six Tones

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Laura Taylor Namey - author of A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, a YA novel that has a diverse take on being a fish out of water

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Laura Taylor Namey is the author of A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, a new Young Adult novel that was just chosen as a Reese’s Book Club pick for November 2020. The novel is the story of Lila, a recent high school graduate who is sent to England from Miami by her parents after disaster strikes at home. She feels out of place, but then she meets Orion, and starts to rethink her plans for the future.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Knowing that we don’t have to get it right the first time
How to read to make you a better writer
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

Each week the featured author offers a writing prompt for you to use at home. I suggest setting a timer for 6 or 8 minutes, putting the writing prompt at the top of your page, and free writing whatever comes to mind. Remember, the important part is keeping your pen moving. You can always edit later. Right now we just want to write something new and see what happens.

This week’s writing prompt is: Write your protagonist’s first look at a new place or an opportunity that takes them outside their comfort zone.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Aida Salazar, author of The Land of the Cranes
Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of Today Tonight Tomorrow

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 48: Lan Cao and Harlan Van Cao - Authors of Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter
Episode 47: Zara Stone - Author of The Future of Science is Female: The Brilliant Minds Shaping the 21st Century

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Lan Cao & Harlan Van Cao - Authors of Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Lan Cao and daughter Harlan Van Cao share the new book they wrote together, Family in Six Tones: A Refugee Mother, an American Daughter, a memoir exploring the American immigrant experience and how it impacts a family.

In this episode, we discuss their writing process, and:

Writing a book together as mother and daughter
Setting time aside to write, even if you aren’t inspired
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit Harlan’s Website and Instagram, and Lan’s Website and Facebook
Buy their book, Family in Six Tones

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

Harlan’s writing prompt is: What are things about your childhood that you resented at the time that now create parts of your personality that you really love?

Lan’s writing prompt is: Think of a period in your life where you struggled with your own self identity vs. how somebody thought of you.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Greta Gerwig, screenwriter of Little Women and Ladybird
Gail Honeyman, author of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Bharati Mukherjee, author of Jasmine
Isabel Allende, author of House of the Spirits

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Episode 47: Zara Stone - Author of The Future of Science is Female: The Brilliant Minds Shaping the 21st Century

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Zara Stone - Award Winning Journalist and Author of The Future of Science is Female: The Brilliant Minds Shaping the 21st Century, a book for young people about badass scientists and entrepreneurs

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 08:00:00 -0600

Award-winning journalist Zara Stone is the author of The Future of Science is Female: The Brilliant Minds Shaping the 21st Century, a book for young people about badass womxn scientists and entrepreneurs.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Editing your book like it’s your favorite book
Being inspired by the little things
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Buy her latest book, The Future of Science is Female

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Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write about a physical product that doesn’t exist right now, magical or otherwise, and how you would use it.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Sarah Frier, author of No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram
Britt Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 46: Francina Simone - Author of Smash It!
Episode 45: Nicole Vick - Author of Pushing Through: Finding the Light in Every Lesson
Episode 44: Sandra Miller Linhart - Author of Diary of an Unkempt Woman

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Francina Simone - YA Author of Smash It!, the story of a curvy girl discovering who she is and what it means to love

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 01:00:00 -0600

Francina Simone, author of YA novel, Smash It!

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Being your own best editor
Blocks coming from undeveloped characters
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Website, Instagram, and YouTube
Buy her debut YA novel, Smash It!

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Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Play some music that gets you into writing. Pick at least three of your characters who interact, and take them to Disney World. Have them avoid the problem that you know they have to face, and let them talk around it.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Amara Luciano, author of Heirs of Fate
Olivia A. Cole, author of The Conspiracy of Stars

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 45: Nicole Vick - Author of Pushing Through: Finding the Light in Every Lesson
Episode 43: Deborah Salazar Shapiro - Author of The Magical Mindful Day
Episode 42: Emily Hashimoto - Author of A World Between

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Nicole Vick - Public Health Advocate and Author of Pushing Through: Finding the Light in Every Lesson

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Nicole Vick, public health advocate and self-published author. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

The benefits of self-publishing
What she listens to when she’s writing
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit her Website, Instagram, and LinkedIn
Buy her debut memoir, Pushing Through: Finding the Light in Every Lesson

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: What did you experience in life that at first appeared to be a huge hurdle, that became a blessing?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Trina Greene Brown, author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children
Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migrations

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 44: Sandra Miller Linhart - Author of Diary of an Unkempt Woman
Episode 42: Emily Hashimoto - Author of A World Between
Episode 39: Rebekah Taussig - Author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body
Episode 30: Trina Greene Brown - Author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children

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Sandra Linhart - Author of Daddy's Boots, a children's book about military deployment, and Diary of an Unkempt Woman

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Sandra Miller Linhart. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

The importance of having someone else edit your work
Writing as a program running in the background of your mind
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Website
Buy her collection of essays, Diary of an Unkempt Woman, or her children’s book about feelings and deployment, Daddy’s Boots

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write without a prompt!

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Elizabeth Berg, author of Open House
Mary Higgins Clark, author of Where are the Children?

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 43: Deborah Salazar Shapiro - Author of The Magical Mindful Day
Episode 42: Emily Hashimoto - Author of A World Between
Episode 41: Jenny Bhatt - Author of Each of Us Killers
Episode 39: Rebekah Taussig - Author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body

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Deborah Salazar Shapiro - Author of The Magical Mindful Day, an award-winning children's book published in Spanish and English, which explores mindfulness, environmentalism, and our interconnectedness

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Deborah Salazar Shapiro, author of the award-winning children’s book published in both Spanish and English, The Magical Mindful Day. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Writing to turn compassion into action
Connecting to your intuition
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit her Instagram and Website
Buy The Magical Mindful Day a children’s book that explores mindfulness, environmentalism, and our interconnectedness

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write about a time that you felt deeply connected to the earth or nature in some way, and include as many sensory details as you can recall.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Ruth King, author of Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out
Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

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Episode 42: Emily Hashimoto - Author of A World Between
Episode 41: Jenny Bhatt - Author of Each of Us Killers
Episode 39: Rebekah Taussig - Author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body
Episode 35: Chet’la Sebree - Author of Mistress

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Emily Hashimoto - Author of A World Between

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Emily Hashimoto, author of the new novel, A World Between, which explores the relationship between two queer womxn over the span of many years. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Making a playlist for your characters
Doing “writing-adjacent” work
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Buy A World Between at bookshop.org

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Consider a time you were uncomfortable or insecure. Rewrite that moment in a way that unfolds unexpectedly.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties and In the Dream House
Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 41: Jenny Bhatt - Author of Each of Us Killers
Episode 40: Xanthe Alexis - Creator of The Offering
Episode 39: Rebekah Taussig - Author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body
Episode 38: Maisy Card - Author of These Ghosts are Family

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Jenny Bhatt - Author of Each of Us Killers and Podcast Host of Desi Books

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Jenny Bhatt, Indian author of Each of Us Killers. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Editing out your tics
The point of no return
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Start with a memory about an object, a news headline, or an image. Take any of these and free write non-stop for about 10-15 minutes.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Toni Morrison, author of Beloved
Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 40: Xanthe Alexis - Creator of The Offering
Episode 39: Rebekah Taussig - Author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body
Episode 38: Maisy Card - Author of These Ghosts are Family
Episode 37: Christina Hammonds Reed - Author of The Black Kids
Episode 36: Melissa Faliveno - Author of Tomboyland

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Xanthe Alexis - Songwriter and Creator of The Offering, an album of atmospheric indie folk music

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Xanthe Alexis, songwriter, and creator of the atmospheric indie folk album, The Offering. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Writing as devotional practice
Telling the truth
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, Facebook, and Website
Watch the video for her song, Moon
Buy her album, The Offering, produced by Conor Bourgal, on Apple Music

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Learn more about The Feminist Press, which lifts up insurgent and marginalized voices from around the world to build a more just future

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Imagine your little girl and what her blueprint was for you. Allow her voice to come through and let you know where she sees you going and what’s up ahead.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Kaia Ra, author of The Sophia Code
Fiona Apple, creator of Fetch the Bolt Cutters

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Episode 39: Rebekah Taussig - Author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body
Episode 38: Maisy Card - Author of These Ghosts are Family
Episode 37: Christina Hammonds Reed - Author of The Black Kids
Episode 36: Melissa Faliveno - Author of Tomboyland

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Rebekah Taussig - Author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

Thu, 27 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Rebekah Taussig, author of Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Being easy on yourself
Giving yourself space to make a mess
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit her Instagram, and Website
Order her book, Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body

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Visit the podcast’s Website

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Learn more about The Feminist Press, which lifts up insurgent and marginalized voices from around the world to build a more just future

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write about one crystal clear moment when you were made very aware of your sense of being inside of or outside of this designated circle of "women."

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Keah Brown, author of The Pretty One
Alice Wong, editor of Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century
Erin Clark, author of If you really love me, throw me off the mountain: a memoir

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 38: Maisy Card - Author of These Ghosts are Family
Episode 37: Christina Hammonds Reed - Author of The Black Kids
Episode 36: Melissa Faliveno - Author of Tomboyland
Episode 35: Chet’la Sebree - Author of Mistress

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Maisy Card - Author of These Ghosts Are Family, a novel exploring family secrets

Thu, 20 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Maisy Card, author of the new novel, These Ghosts Are Family. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Never getting rid of anything you love that you edit out
Writing from your experience
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Order her book, These Ghosts Are Family

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Learn more about The Feminist Press, which lifts up insurgent and marginalized voices from around the world to build a more just future

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is based on a prompt provided to Maisy from Elizabeth Bobrick: Write a story you heard that happened before you were born. Whoever it’s about, write from their perspective.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Michelle Cliff, Author of No Telephone to Heaven
Megan Giddings, Author of Lakewood

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Episode 37: Christina Hammonds Reed - Author of The Black Kids
Episode 35: Chet’la Sebree - Author of Mistress
Episode 33: Melissa Valentine - Author of The Names of All the Flowers
Episode 30: Trina Greene Brown - Author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children

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Christina Hammonds Reed - Author of The Black Kids, a YA Novel

Thu, 13 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Christina Hammonds Reed author of the new YA novel, The Black Kids. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

How screenwriting helped her develop her novel
When she takes a nap during her writing process
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write about somebody who receives bad personal news in the middle of a national or international upheaval/catastrophe.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Jesmyn Ward, Author of Sing, Unburied, Sing
Laila Lalami, Author of The Moor’s Account
Rebecca Makkai, Author of The Great Believers

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 36: Melissa Faliveno - Author of Tomboyland
Episode 35: Chet’la Sebree - Author of Mistress
Episode 34: Lacy Crawford - Author of Notes on a Silencing
Episode 33: Melissa Valentine - Author of The Names of All the Flowers
Episode 32: Juli Delgado Lopera - Author of Fiebre Tropical

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Melissa Faliveno - Editor, Essayist, and Author of Tomboyland

Thu, 06 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Melissa Faliveno, editor, teacher, and author of Tomboyland. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Carving out just five minutes a day
Reading and editing other people’s work to improve your own writing
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Order her book, Tomboyland

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Find the tree nearest you. If you can, stand or sit down next to the tree. Describe the tree. First using only sensory descriptions. Then, add a little speculation about the tree. Then write yourself into a scene with a tree and see where it takes you.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood
Alison Stine, author of Road Out of Winter
Samantha Irby, author of wow, no thank you
Angela Pelster, author of Limber

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 35: Chet’la Sebree - Author of Mistress
Episode 34: Lacy Crawford - Author of Notes on a Silencing
Episode 33: Melissa Valentine - Author of The Names of All the Flowers
Episode 32: Juli Delgado Lopera - Author of Fiebre Tropical

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Chet'la Sebree - Author of the poetry collection Mistress

Thu, 30 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Chet’la Sebree, author of poetry collection Mistress, and the forthcoming lyric meditation Field Study. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

What really makes a person a writer
Writing before the emails start piling up
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit Chet’la’s Website
Order her poetry collection, Mistress

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Take out a piece of writing that has content you feel passioante about, but you feel like it isn’t working. Write it in a completely different mode, form, or genre.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Shayla Lawson, author of This is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope
Dantiel Moniz, author of the forthcoming Milk, Blood, Heat

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Check Out More Womxn Authors

Episode 34: Lacy Crawford - Author of Notes on a Silencing
Episode 33: Melissa Valentine - Author of The Names of All the Flowers
Episode 32: Juli Delgado Lopera - Author of Fiebre Tropical
Episode 31: Casey Cep - Author of The Furious Hours

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Lacy Crawford - Author of Notes on a Silencing, the memoir of a young woman's struggle to regain her sense of self after sexual assault, and the efforts of a powerful New England boarding school to silence her at any cost

Thu, 23 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is memoirist Lacy Crawford, author of the memoir Notes on a Silencing, the journalistic account of being sexual assaulted as a teenager at a private school that spent decades covering it up. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Being compassionate with yourself when you are blocked
Giving up writing for periods of time
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Order her new book, Notes on a Silencing

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Choose an experience from your life, and instead of writing it beautifully, write it as cleanly, accurately, and honestly as you can.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Meg Howrey, author of The Wanderers
Maggie Nelson, author of Bluets
Patricia Lockwood, author of Priestdaddy

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Episode 33: Melissa Valentine - Author of The Names of All the Flowers
Episode 32: Juli Delgado Lopera - Author of Fiebre Tropical

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Melissa Valentine - Author of the memoir The Names of All the Flowers

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is memoirist Melissa Valentine, author of The Names of All the Flowers, which explores growing up mixed race in Oakland, being part of a family fractured by the school to prison pipeline, and losing her brother. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Doing the writing first before anything else
Writing as a self-help tool
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Order her book, The Names of All the Flowers

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Read two pages of any piece of literature and let it inspire you to write.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Zora Neale Hurston, author of Dust Tracks on a Road
Dorothy Allison, author of Bastard Out of Carolina
Robin Coste Lewis, author of Voyage of the Sable Venus
Clarice Lispector, author of The Passion According to G.H.

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Check Out Black Womxn Authors

Episode 28: Liara Tamani - Author of All The Things We Never Knew
Episode 27: Aja Black - Songwriter of musical duo The Reminders
Episdoe 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay

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Juli Delgado Lopera - Colombian author of the queer multilingual novel, Fiebre Tropical

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Colombian writer Juli Delgado Lopera, author of the queer multilingual novel, Fiebre Tropical. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Editing with an inquisitive lens
Committing to a creative practice
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit Juli’s Instagram, Twitter, and Website
Order her book, Fiebre Tropical

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: This is ‘stolen’ from Linda Barry because I love her so much. Write a list of ten cars that have appeared in your life. Pick number 7 and write the story of that car, using all of your senses as you’re writing.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Miriam Toews, author of A Complicated Kindness
Rita Indiana, author of Papi

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Check Out Black Womxn Authors

Episode 29: Trina Greene Brown - Author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children
Episode 28: Liara Tamani - Author of All The Things We Never Knew
Episode 27: Aja Black - Songwriter of musical duo The Reminders
Episode 26: Minna Salami - Author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone

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Casey Cep - New Yorker Writer and Author of the NYT Bestseller, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is New York Times bestselling author and staff writer at the New Yorker, Casey Cep. Her recent book is Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, which was listed by President Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of 2019. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Writing nonfiction and being curious about people
Being flexible in order to write
And more

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Draft a tableau. Place all of your characters in the same place at the same time.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Elaine Weiss, author of The Woman’s Hour
Jamaica Kinkaid, author of At the Bottom of the River

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Check Out Black Womxn Authors

Episode 30: Trina Greene Brown - Author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children
Episode 28: Liara Tamani - Author of All The Things We Never Knew
Episode 27: Aja Black - Songwriter of musical duo The Reminders
Episode 26: Minna Salami - Author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone

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Trina Greene Brown - Author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is author Trina Greene Brown, author of Parenting for Liberation: A Guide for Raising Black Children. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Trusting your inner knowing and sharing it with the world
Writing as activism
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit Trina Greene Brown’s Website, Twitter, and Instagram
Order her instructional book, Parenting for Liberation

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: How are you practicing liberation in your home?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Octavia Butler, author of Kindred
Audre Lorde, author of The Black Unicorn
Dani McClain, author of We Live for the We: Policial Power of Black Motherhood
The authors in the anthology, Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines
adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategies and Pleasure Activism

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Check Out More Black Womxn Authors

Episode 27: Aja Black - Songwriter of musical duo The Reminders
Episode 26: Minna Salami - Author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone
Episode 3: Nefertiti Austin - Author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America

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Jaquira Díaz - Author of Ordinary Girls

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is memoirist Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girls - a story of growing up queer in Puerto Rico and Miami. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Listening to yourself read your own work
The pen she needs for her first drafts
And more

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write about an event, a person, or a moment that changed everything. Who were you before this moment, before this event, before this person? Who were you right after this event, or this moment, or this person? Think about yourself now, or about the character now. What do you know now that you didn’t know then? What was happening in the world in that moment? Think about the world and the character: how are those things connected?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana
Carolina De Robertis, author of Cantoras

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Check Out Black Womxn Authors

Episode 28: Liara Tamani - Author of All The Things We Never Knew
Episode 27: Aja Black - Songwriter of musical duo The Reminders
Episode 26: Minna Salami - Author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone

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Liara Tamani - Author of the young adult novel, All the Things We Never Knew

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is novelist Liara Tamani, author of All the Things We Never Knew, a young adult novel that follows two Black teenagers as they discover how first love, heartbreak, betrayal, and family can shape you - for better or worse. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

The three questions to ask yourself when you’re blocked
Editing as you write
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit Liara Tamani’s Website, Twitter, and Instagram
Order her latest Young Adult novel, All the Things We Never Knew

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Inspired by Ross Gay, write an essay about delight. Draft it really quickly and write it by hand.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Zinzi Clemmons, author of What We Lose
Elana K. Arnold, author of An Ordinary Day
Renee Watson, author of Ways to Make Sunshine
Brandy Colbert, author of The Only Black Girls in Town

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Check Out More Black Womxn Authors

Episode 27: Aja Black - Songwriter of musical duo The Reminders
Episode 26: Minna Salami - Author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone
Episdoe 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay

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Aja Black - Songwriter, Vocalist, Musican from The Reminders

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Aja Black - songwriter, musician, vocalist, and one half of the creative duo The Reminders. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Asking questions with your writing
Removing expectations, rules and regulations from your creativity
And more

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Start with the phrase “flowers keep falling from your mouth,” and combine it with an emotion of your choosing. Expand on that metaphorical phrase through your own interpretation.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Nnedi Okorafor, author of the Afrofuturistic series Binti

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Check Out More Black Womxn Authors

Episode 26: Minna Salami - Author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone
Episode 23: Valencia Robin - Author of Ridiculous Light
Episdoe 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay
Episode 7: Dr. Rosenna Bakari - Author of Too Much Love is Not Enough
Episode 3: Nefertiti Austin - Author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America

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Minna Salami - Author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone

Thu, 28 May 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Minna Salami, author of Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and:

Showing up for your muse
Having an idea that you’re obsessive about
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Order Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone

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Learn more about The Feminist Press, which lifts up insurgent and marginalized voices from around the world to build a more just future.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Think about a topic that you want to write about. Write about this topic with sensuous knowledge. Conveying whatever topic you choose to write about in the most holistic and sensuous way that you can.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Elif Shafak, author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
Bernadine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, Other

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Episode 25: Bishakh Som - Author of Apsara Engine
Episode 24: Aimee Liu - Author of Glorious Boy
Episode 23: Valencia Robin - Author of Ridiculous Light
Episode 22: Deborah Paredez - Author of Year of the Dog

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Bishakh Som - Author of Apsara Engine, a collection of graphic short stories

Thu, 21 May 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Bishakh Som, author of Apsara Engine, a collection of graphic short stories. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Turning everything off
Making sure your work isn’t too precious while you’re editing
And more

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Visit her Website, and Instagram
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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Dig up an old photo of yourself on a holiday. Preferably one with you and with people in the background. Now imagine yourself as one of the people in the background and how they regard you taking a photo as a tourist.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Vidhu Aggarwal, author of The Trouble with Humpdori
Cat Fitzpatrick, author of Glamorpuss

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Episode 24: Aimee Liu - Author of Glorious Boy
Episode 23: Valencia Robin - Author of Ridiculous Light
Episode 22: Deborah Paredez - Author of Year of the Dog
Episode 21: Dallas Woodburn - Author of The Best Week That Never Happened

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Aimee Liu - Author of WWII novel Glorious Boy

Thu, 14 May 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Aimee Liu, author of Glorious Boy, a novel set in World War II. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Who to include in your writing group
Having an abiding question as you write
And more

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit her Website, Facebook, and Instagram
Order her new novel, Glorious Boy, the story of a family in a British penal colony during World War II.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Part One: Write about a memory that inspires guilt. What happened, what did you do, why and how do you blame yourself?

Part Two: How does that memory play forward? What might you do to atone for what happened and what consequences might ensure from the acts you undertake to atone?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Colette Sartor, author of Once Removed
Cai Emmons, author of Vanishing
Sherri L. Smith, author of The Blossom and the Firefly

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Episode 23: Valencia Robin - Author of Ridiculous Light
Episode 22: Deborah Paredez - Author of Year of the Dog
Episode 21: Dallas Woodburn - Author of The Best Week That Never Happened

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Valencia Robin - Author of Ridiculous Light, an Award-Winning Poetry Collection

Thu, 07 May 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Valencia Robin, visual artist, poet, and author of Ridiculous Light. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

The power of a writing group
Toggling between painting and writing
And more

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Visit her Website
Order her poetry collection, Ridiculous Light, the winner of Persea Books’ Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry, finalist for the 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and named one of the best poetry books of 2019 by Library Journal.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write a poem where the lines go from one margin to the other.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Linda Gregg, author of All of it Singing
Rita Dove, Naomi Shihab Nye, Joy Harjo, Sharon Olds, Natasha Trethewey, Brenda Shaughnessy, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Natalie G. Diaz

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Episode 16: Writing in the Time of COVID-19 with host Sara Gallagher and poem Perhaps Prayer by Kristy Milligan

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Deborah Paredez - Author of the poetry collection Year of the Dog

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Deborah Paredez, co-founder of CantoMundo, and author of Year of the Dog, a book of poetry. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Submitting more, and submitting after rejection
Reckoning with silence
And more

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Visit her Website
Order her poetry collection, Year of the Dog, that explores themes of grief, the Vietnam War, and poetic form

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Make a list of language, stories, figures, or images that we see as so completely mundane that we don’t even notice them. Then write what you know and notice about that familiar piece of language. Then write a story to pull it from its familiarity to something more strange or wondrous or meaningful.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Aracelis Girmay, author of Black Maria
Lucille Clifton, author of Blessing the Boats

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Episode 20: Kristen Millares Young - Author of Subduction
Episode 17: Hala Alyan - Author of The Twenty-Ninth Year
Episode 16: Writing in the Time of COVID-19 with host Sara Gallagher and poem Perhaps Prayer by Kristy Milligan

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Dallas Woodburn - Author of The Best Week That Never Happened

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Dallas Woodburn, author of the young adult novel, The Best Week That Never Happened. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Accidentally making external critics internal
Writing after loss
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit her Website, Facebook, and Instagram
Order her new book, The Best Week That Never Happened

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Have your character do something out of character for them. What is their decision, why do they decide to do it, and what happens as a result?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Vanessa Hua, author of Deceit and Other Possibilities
Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master

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Episode 20: Kristen Millares Young - Author of Subduction
Episode 17: Hala Alyan - Author of The Twenty-Ninth Year
Episode 16: Writing in the Time of COVID-19 with host Sara Gallagher and poem Perhaps Prayer by Kristy Milligan
Episode 14: Kim Krans - Author of Blossoms and Bones

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Kristen Millares Young - Author of Subduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Kristen Millares Young, author of Subduction. In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Parenting and writing in short periods of time
Allusion and the tension of the unsaid
Editing from the end forward
And more!

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Pick a scene that’s been stymying you, and write it from the perspective of the character who is in juxtaposition with but not interior to your protagonist.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Elissa Washuta, author of My Body is a Book of Rules
Elizabeth Rosner, author of Survivor Cafe
Weike Wang, author of Chemistry

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Episode 19: Luba Vikhanski - Author of Gender Mosaic
Episode 18: Melissa Matthewson - Author of Tracing the Desire Line
Episode 17: Hala Alyan - Author of The Twenty-Ninth Year
Episode 16: Writing in the Time of COVID-19 with host Sara Gallagher and poem Perhaps Prayer by Kristy Milligan
Episdoe 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay

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Luba Vikhanski - Author of Gender Mosaic

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Luba Vikhanski, author of Gender Mosaic.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Adding tension and suspense to any writing
The importance of your opening
Working on writing in your sleep
And more!

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Visit her Goodreads for Gender Mosaic, and for all of her books

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Take some quiet time in the evening before you go to bed, and try to think about what you are trying to write in as much detail as possible. Get up in the morning and see if you have fresh ideas.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Chimamanda Adichie, author of We Should All Be Feminists
Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Gwen Cooper, author of Homer’s Odyssey

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Episode 18: Melissa Matthewson - Author of Tracing the Desire Line
Episode 17: Hala Alyan - Author of The Twenty-Ninth Year
Episode 16: Writing in the Time of COVID-19 with host Sara Gallagher and poem Perhaps Prayer by Kristy Milligan
Episdoe 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay
Episode 14: Kim Krans - Author of Blossoms and Bones

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Melissa Matthewson - Author of Tracing the Desire Line

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Melissa Matthewson, author of Tracing the Desire Line.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Moving your body
Playing with the words on the page
Researching where to submit
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Make a list of ten beautiful things. Be as specific as possible and ground yourself in all sensory details. Draw each one out into 200 word fragments about each beautiful thing.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Mary-Kim Arnold, Author of Litany of the Long Moment and The Fish & The Dove
Emily Arnason Casey, Author of Made Holy
Cari Luna, Author of The Revolution of Every Day

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Episode 17: Hala Alyan - Author of The Twenty-Ninth Year
Episode 16: Writing in the Time of COVID-19 with host Sara Gallagher and poem Perhaps Prayer by Kristy Milligan
Episdoe 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay
Episode 14: Kim Krans - Author of Blossoms and Bones
Episode 13: Ann Hagerty Davenport - Owner at 31 Annotations

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Hala Alyan - Author of The Twenty-Ninth Year

Thu, 26 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Hala Alyan, poet and author of The Twenty-Ninth Year.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Your writing ritual
Keeping an inspired headspace
Leading with the action
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Think of some long ago family member, imagined or real, and write something about them or to them.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Analicia Sotelo, author of Virgin
Marwa Helal, author of Invasive Species
Ada Limón, author of The Carrying
Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina

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Episode 16: Writing in the Time of COVID-19 with host Sara Gallagher and poem Perhaps Prayer by Kristy Milligan
Episdoe 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay
Episode 14: Kim Krans - Author of Blossoms and Bones
Episode 13: Ann Hagerty Davenport - Owner at 31 Annotations
Episode 12: Ysabel Y. Gonzalez - Author of Wild Invocations
Episode 11: T. Susan Chang - Author of Tarot Correspondences

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Writing in the Time of COVID-19

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week host Sara Gallagher talks about creativity and writing during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Poet Kristy Milligan shares Perhaps Prayer.

In this episode, we discuss

That our art is here to nourish us
The truth and the beauty of life
To give ourselves grace as we navigate these uncertain times
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

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Follow our Partners

Visit Terra Preta Review (unearthing phenomenal writing) to read the latest issue and submit work

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write a prayer. Write the prayer you need right now. Write the prayer in your heart.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, you heard from:

Kristy Milligan, who read Perhaps Prayer

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Episode 15: Brittney Morris - Author of Slay
Episode 14: Kim Krans - Author of Blossoms and Bones
Episode 13: Ann Hagerty Davenport - Owner at 31 Annotations
Episode 12: Ysabel Y. Gonzalez - Author of Wild Invocations
Episode 11: T. Susan Chang - Author of Tarot Correspondences
Episode 10: Dr. Chloe Schwenke - Author of SELF-ish: A Transgender Awakening
Episode 9: Tara Lynn Masih - Author of My Real Name is Hanna
Episode 8: Elizabeth Bell - Author of The Lazare Family Saga

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Brittney Morris - Author of Slay

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0600

This week our guest is Brittney Morris, author of Slay, a young adult novel based on her idea of what might happen if there were an all-black Wakanda-style video game.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Writing a published book in 12 days
Keeping at it even after 200 rejections
A prompt to help you learn more about your protagonist
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Set your protagonist in a coffee shop, tavern, or restaurant. Have each of your other characters come in. Focus on the five senses, and how they feel about the interaction with the other characters who come in. Make it as interesting as you can and focus on the five senses.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Roseanne Brown, author of A Song of Wraiths and Ruin

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Episode 14: Kim Krans - Author of Blossoms and Bones
Episode 13: Ann Hagerty Davenport - Owner at 31 Annotations
Episode 12: Ysabel Y. Gonzalez - Author of Wild Invocations
Episode 11: T. Susan Chang - Author of Tarot Correspondences
Episode 10: Dr. Chloe Schwenke - Author of SELF-ish: A Transgender Awakening

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Kim Krans - Author of Blossoms and Bones, and the Wild Unknown Tarot

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is New York Times bestselling author Kim Krans, who reads from her new graphic memoir, Blossoms and Bones: Drawing a Life Back Together.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

The need for tension in creation
“The third thing” we need in order to work on a project
Surprising yourself
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit her Instagram pages, The Wild Unknown, and Kim Krans
VIsit Kim Krans’ Website

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Learn more about our partner, The Flower Essences Deck, an oracle deck for reference and self-reflection.

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write a thank you letter to an author or artist, the first one who comes to mind. Write a one page, handwritten letter, and thank them for not giving up. Sign it with the date.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Ariana Reines, author of A Sand Book
Anne Frank, author of The Diary of a Young Girl

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Episode 13: Ann Hagerty Davenport - Owner at 31 Annotations
Episode 12: Ysabel Y. Gonzalez - Author of Wild Invocations
Episode 11: T. Susan Chang - Author of Tarot Correspondences
Episode 10: Dr. Chloe Schwenke - Author of SELF-ish: A Transgender Awakening

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Ann Hagerty Davenport - Owner at 31 Annotations

Thu, 27 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is Ann Hagerty Davenport: poet, translator, and devotee of fresh bread.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Tuning into what works for your own practice
The element of surprise when you’re stuck
Connecting with your voice as a writer
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Ann Hagerty Davenport’s Website
Visit Terra Preta Review (unearthing phenomenal writing) to read the latest issue and submit work
Visit QuillsEdge Press (dedicated to the poetry of womxn over 40)

Follow the Podcast

Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

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Learn more about our partner, We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: The door is a memory. When you walk through, what does this house hold? What rooms do you visit? How might you rearrange the furniture to meet your present needs?

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Sarah Faith Gottesdiener, creator of Modern Women and Visual Magic
Brené Brown, author of Dare to Lead
Aracelis Girmay, author of Kingdom Anamalia
Natalie G. Diaz, author of Postcolonial Love Poem
Ysabel Y. Gonzalez, author of Wild Invocations
Roxane Gay, author of Ayiti
Rebecca Solnit, author of Recollections of My Nonexistence

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Episode 12: Ysabel Y. Gonzalez - Author of Wild Invocations
Episode 11: T. Susan Chang - Author of Tarot Correspondences

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Ysabel Y. Gonzalez - Author of Wild Invocations

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is poet Ysabel Y. Gonzalez, author of Wild Invocations.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

How poems build up in the body
Creating a container for your work
The magic of revision
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit myContact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit Ysabel Y. Gonzalez’s Website

Follow the Podcast

Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

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Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Visit QuillsEdge Press (dedicated to the poetry of womxn over 40) and submit for their next anthology

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Think about praise and celebrating, and how we celebrate our body in particular. Write an ode or a praise poem to a body part.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Aracelis Girmay, author of Kingdom Anamalia
Ada Limón, author of The Carrying
Audre Lorde, Author of Sister Outsider
Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Author of Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

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Episode 11: T. Susan Chang - Author of Tarot Correspondences
Episode 10: Dr. Chloe Schwenke - Author of SELF-ish: A Transgender Awakening
Episode 8: Elizabeth Bell - Author of The Lazare Family Saga
Episode 7: Dr. Rosenna Bakari - Author of Too Much Love is Not Enough

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T. Susan Chang - Author of Tarot Correspondences

Thu, 13 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is writer T. Susan Chang. Susie writes about the tarot, and occasionally reviews cookbooks.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

How sleep can help a block
Drinking tea
Affirmations for writing
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Susie Chang’s website
See what she’s creating on Patreon and Etsy

Follow the Podcast

Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

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Follow our Partners

Learn more about We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Set an alarm for a random time of day when you’re not normally thinking about writing. Check in with each of your senses. Write a sentence or two for each sensory experience.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Lorna Crozier, author of The Sex Lives of Vegetables
Jane Hirshfield, author of poem “Spell to be Said after Illness” from Lives of the Heart

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Episode 10: Dr. Chloe Schwenke - Author of SELF-ish: A Transgender Awakening
Episode 9: Tara Lynn Masih - Author of My Real Name is Hanna
Episode 8: Elizabeth Bell - Author of The Lazare Family Saga
Episode 7: Dr. Rosenna Bakari - Author of Too Much Love is Not Enough

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Dr. Chloe Schwenke - Author of SELF-ish: A Transgender Awakening

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is creative nonfiction writer Dr. Chloe Schwenke. She reads from her memoir, SELF-ish: A Transgender Awakening.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Being brave enough to be introspective
How stress makes it hard to write
Finding the right places to publish
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Dr. Chloe Schwenke’s website
Follow her on Twitter and LinkedIn

Follow the Podcast

Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Visit QuillsEdge Press (dedicated to the poetry of womxn over 40) and submit for their next anthology

Become an Advertiser

Use my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta

This Week’s Writing Prompt

I suggest setting a timer for 6 or 8 minutes, putting the writing prompt at the top of your page, and free writing whatever comes to mind. Remember, the important part is keeping your pen moving. You can always edit later. Right now we just want to write something new and see what happens.

This week’s writing prompt is: Even though people prefer to read about heroes and winners, try to own being less than or different from those who are celebrated. Write about your own experiences of being victimized and how you avoided identifying as a victim.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

N.K. Jemisin, author of The Broken Earth Triology
Cheryl Strayed, author of Tiny Beautiful Things and Wild
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, author of Water & Salt

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Episode 9: Tara Lynn Masih - Author of My Real Name is Hanna
Episode 8: Elizabeth Bell - Author of The Lazare Family Saga
Episode 7: Dr. Rosenna Bakari - Author of Too Much Love is Not Enough
Episode 6: Shara McCallum - Author of Madwoman

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Tara Lynn Masih - Author of My Real Name is Hanna

Thu, 30 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is editor and fiction writer, Tara Lynn Masih. Her recent novel, My Real Name is Hanna, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

When to take a walk
Persistence
Writing by hand vs. writing on a computer
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Tara Lynn Masih’s website
Follow her on Instagram, LinkedIn, Goodreads, and Facebook

Follow the Podcast

Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Pick a subject matter, Google it, and see if anything crazy shows up. Truth is crazier than fiction. I use news headlines to prompt interesting stories that are unusual.

Explore Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Courtney Maum, author of Costalegre
Rene Denfeld, author of The Child Finder
Hannelore Cayre, author of The Godmother

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Episode 8: Elizabeth Bell - Author of The Lazare Family Saga
Episode 7: Dr. Rosenna Bakari - Author of Too Much Love is Not Enough
Episode 6: Shara McCallum - Author of Madwoman

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Elizabeth Bell - Author of the Lazare Family Saga

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is historical fiction author Elizabeth Bell, author of Necessary Sins and Lost Saints, in the Lazare Family Saga.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

what she does when she feels stalled in her process
a great proofreading hack
what she reads when she’s feeling insecure
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

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Visit Elizabeth Bell’s website
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Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Visit QuillsEdge Press (dedicated to the poetry of womxn over 40) and submit for their next anthology

Become an Advertiser

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write a scene in which a character interacts with a work of art. Maybe it sparks a memory, maybe it challenges the character’s beliefs, or maybe the character knows the artist.

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Episode 7: Dr. Rosenna Bakari - Author of Too Much Love is Not Enough
Episode 6: Shara McCallum - Author of Madwoman
Episode 5: Courtney Maum - Author of Before and After the Book Deal
Episode 4: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach - Author of The Many Names for Mother
Episode 3: Nefertiti Austin - Author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America
Episode 2: Elissa Bassist - essayist, humor writer, and editor at The Rumpus

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Dr. Rosenna Bakari - Author of Too Much Love is Not Enough

Thu, 16 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0700

This week our guest is Dr. Rosenna Bakari: memoirist, poet, psychologist, and college professor.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Embracing writer’s block
How she uses a four-draft revision system
Womxn’s body autonomy
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Visit Dr. Rosenna Bakari’s website, and her blog on Medium
Order her book, Too Much Love is Not Enough

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Visit Terra Preta Review (unearthing phenomenal writing) to read the latest issue and submit work

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Reach listeners who love to read and write by advertising on the show. Get in touch through my Contact Page or hit me up on Insta to see how we can collaborate

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write a letter of apology to your younger self at whatever age you think some wounding occurred.

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Episode 6: Shara McCallum - Author of Madwoman
Episode 5: Courtney Maum - Author of Before and After the Book Deal
Episode 4: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach - Author of The Many Names for Mother
Episode 3: Nefertiti Austin - Author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America

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Shara McCallum - Author of Madwoman

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Jamaican-born writer Shara McCallum has received a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, an award from the Library of Congress, and more.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Being a parent and waking up early to write
Learning the language of poetry as a child in Jamaica
Writing poetry in spurts rather than marathons
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Read Shara McCallum’s books Madwoman, The Face of Water, This Strange Land, Song of Thieves, The Water Between Us
Hear Shara read “Oh Abuse” in the Kenyon Review

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Follow our Partners

Learn more about We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children
Visit Terra Preta Review (unearthing phenomenal writing) to read the latest issue and submit work

This Week’s Writing Prompt

I suggest setting a timer for 6 or 8 minutes, putting the writing prompt at the top of your page, and free writing whatever comes to mind. Remember, the important part is keeping your pen moving. You can always edit later. Right now we just want to write something new and see what happens.

This week’s writing prompt is: Choose an abstract concept that you are particularly vexed by, and allow that concept to talk to you.

Explore these Womxn Authors

The author recommended these womxn writers:

Shivanee Ramlochan, Author of Everyone Knows I am a Haunting
Chet’la Sebree, Author of Mistress
Lucille Clifton, Author of Blessing the Boats
Emily Dickinson, Author of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

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Episode 5: Courtney Maum - Author of Before and After the Book Deal
Episode 4: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach - Author of The Many Names for Mother

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Courtney Maum - Author of Before and After the Book Deal

Thu, 02 Jan 2020 00:00:00 -0700

Writer Courtney Maum shares the introduction to her book that is being released this week, Before and After the Book Deal.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

Why you should fall in love with editing
Writing as catharsis
Being uninhibited in first drafts
Naming your drafts so that you can find them later
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Reach Courtney Maum on her Website, Twitter, and Instagram
Subscribe to her newsletter where she interviews authors
Meet Courtney on her book tour
Preorder her book, Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book releasing from Catapult this week
Learn about The Cabins, the artist retreat she founded

Follow the Podcast

Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Visit QuillsEdge Press (dedicated to the poetry of womxn over 40) and submit for their next anthology
Learn more about We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

This Week’s Writing Prompt

I suggest setting a timer for 6 or 8 minutes, putting the writing prompt at the top of your page, and free writing whatever comes to mind. Remember, the important part is keeping your pen moving. You can always edit later. Right now we just want to write something new and see what happens.

This week’s writing prompt is: Write from the first person point of view of a holiday gift. Explore the way the gifts that we give and receive feel about the act of being given.

Explore these Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight, Author of Hex
Hala Alyan, Author of Salt Houses
Renata Adler, Author of Speedboat

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Check Out More Fierce Womxn Writing Programming

Episode 4: Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach - Author of The Many Names for Mother
Episode 3: Nefertiti Austin - Author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America

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Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach - Author of The Many Names for Mother

Thu, 26 Dec 2019 00:00:00 -0700

Poet Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach emigrated from Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six years old. She shares two poems; one of them Hanukkah-themed.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

How many rejections her first manuscript received
Are more submissions better?
How parenting affects her writing practice
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Reach Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach on her Website, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
Preorder her next book, Don’t Touch The Bones from Lost Horse Press
Her poetry collection, The Many Names for Mother, is available now

Follow the Podcast

Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Visit QuillsEdge Press (dedicated to the poetry of womxn over 40) and submit for their next anthology
Learn more about We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write a poem that uses a foreign language and plays with the way it enters into the English. Use it to make music or meaning or a little bit of both. Use it to play.

Explore these Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Kelly Grace Thomas, author of Boat Burned
Luisa Muradyan, author of American Radiance
Maya Jewell Zeller, author of Yesterday, the Bees

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Episode 3: Nefertiti Austin - Author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America
Episode 2: Elissa Bassist - essayist, humor writer, and editor at The Rumpus

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Nefertiti Austin - Author of Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 00:00:00 -0700

When Nefertiti Austin looked for books reflecting the experience of a single, black, adoptive mother, she didn’t find any. Anywhere. So she wrote one. This week Nefertiti shares a reading from her recent memoir, Motherhood So White: A Memoir of Race, Gender, and Parenting in America.

In this episode, we discuss her writing process, and

How long it took her to get published
Whether or not procrastination is good for a writer
How emotional peace is involved in writing
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Reach Nefertiti Austin on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

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Visit the Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into Sara Gallagher’s DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Learn more about We Need Diverse Books, whose mission is to put more diverse books into the hands of all children
Visit Terra Preta Review (unearthing phenomenal writing) to read the latest issue and submit work

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: What does motherhood look like to you?

Explore these Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours
Toni Morrison’s collection The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
Doris Payne’s book Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief

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Episode 2: Elissa Bassist - essayist, humor writer, and editor at The Rumpus
Episode 1: Grace Talusan - Author of The Body Papers
Fierce Womxn Writing: Trailer

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Elissa Bassist - Essayist, Humor Writer, & Editor at The Rumpus

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 00:00:00 -0700

“Read, read, read! Read all the time!” - Elissa Bassist

This week, Sara interviews essayist, humor writer, and editor Elissa Bassist on her writing process.

In this episode, we discuss:

Writing one good sentence
What the first goal should be for any professional writer
What’s changed since her letter to Dear Sugar (Cheryl Strayed)
And more!

If you’re a new listener to Fierce Womxn Writing, I would love to hear from you. Please visit my Contact Page and tell me about your writing challenges.

Follow this Writer

Reach Elissa Bassist on her Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tinder (at Elissa Bassist)

Follow the Podcast

Visit my Website for more info on the podcast

Follow the Host

Slide into my DM’s on Instagram

Follow our Partners

Visit Terra Preta Review (unearthing phenomenal writing) to read the latest issue and submit work

This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Tell me what you do not want people you knew in high school to read about you.

Explore these Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Riane Konc, Mia Mercado, Emily Flake, Mira Ptacin, Tracy Clark-Flory, Anna Weiner

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Episode 1: Grace Talusan - Author of The Body Papers
Fierce Womxn Writing: Trailer

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Grace Talusan - Author of The Body Papers

Thu, 05 Dec 2019 02:00:00 -0700

We all need companionship in our creativity. This week, Sara interviews author Grace Talusan, who shares writing tips and reads from her book, The Body Papers.

In this episode, we discuss:

Rejection rates (they’re high!)
Grace’s process for making editing and revising pleasurable
How to use a Critic Journal
And more!

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This Week’s Writing Prompt

This week’s writing prompt is: Write about a meal that you’ve made for someone else out of love, or that someone has made for you out of love.

Explore these Womxn Authors

In this episode, the author recommended these womxn writers:

Jia Tolentino, Meredith Talusan, Roslyn Talusan, Celeste Ng, Jennifer De Leon, Whitney Scharer

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Check Out More Fierce Womxn Writing Programming

Trailer

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Trailer - Fierce Womxn Writing

Sat, 09 Nov 2019 15:00:00 -0700

Hear interviews and original pieces read by diverse femxle authors, on Fierce Womxn Writing. If you're looking for creative inspiration, interested in discovering new authors, or just want to find support in navigating the writing process - this podcast is for you. Host Sara Gallagher ends every week's episode with a writing prompt for you to use at home.

Coming in Winter 2019 - Fierce Womxn Writing - inspiring you to write more.

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