All Episodes

Episode 85: "We Thought We’d Just Write an Annotated Memoir," But the Agent and Editor Had Other Ideas With Joanna Sliwa

Episode 84: Writing Page-Turning Banking History with Rebecca Kobrin

Episode 83: [Encore] Application Advice for the Job Season with Jeff Kopstein

Episode 82: When Writing Is the Biggest Hurdle with Dr. Elissa Sampson

Episode 81: Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowships: Open to All Career Stages, but Innovative, Groundbreaking Research Is a Must

Episode 80: What It Means to Show That This Book Has Value to Readers with Laura Portwood-Stacer

Episode 79: Books that Change the Conversation with Fred Appel

Episode 78: Getting It Done with Ayelet Fishbach

Episode 77: Who Cares and Why Now? And More Editor Straight Talk with Cate Hodorowicz

Episode 76: Negotiating Book Length with the Press with Jenna Weissman Joselit

Episode 75: Special Episode of Writing It!/Peer Review: Creativity and Fulfillment in Academia

Episode 74: It Actually Is About Love with Laura McGrath

Episode 73: Luck & a Lot of Preparation: What It Takes to Move to Trade Press for Book Two with Prof. Max Mueller

Episode 72: Making the Familiar Strange, and the Strange Familiar with essayist (and author of When the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down), Anne Fadiman

Episode 71: When the Biography Writing Road is Long with Megan Marshall

Episode 70: "Yes, your editor googles you..." and other things your editor thinks and does with Adina Popescu

Episode 69: ENCORE EPISODE 69: Figuring out the Post-Tenure Book with Elli Stern

Episode 68: The Agent’s Perspective with literary agent Alia Hanna Habib

Episode 67: When Your Academic Study Becomes a Surprise Bestseller with Richard Breitman

Episode 66: Rediscovering the Pleasures of Academic Writing with Helen Sword

Episode 65: On Being an Academic Who Writes Popular Books w/ Noah Isenberg

Episode 64: Reinventing the Traditional Academic Journal

Episode 63: How to Get Grant Money with Raphael Folsom

Episode 62: Writing Family History with Elizabeth Graver

Episode 61: Writing The Book about Katrina with Andy Horowitz

Episode 60: Why Our Public Persona Matters to the Stories We Write with Jim Loeffler

Episode 59: When dissertations do not become tenure books & research becomes NYT Op-eds with Miriam Udel

Episode 58: Finding Joy in Writing After Burn-Out with Samantha Baskind

Episode 57: Deciding When (and When Not) to Write the Hard Stuff with Claire Sufrin

Episode 56: From Academic Writing to Self-Help with Liz Arleo, MD

Episode 55: Choosing the Next Project with Mark Oppenheimer

Episode 54: What to do when the book editor says, ‘This won’t sell’ with J.E. Smyth

Episode 53: You Don’t Have to Feel Creative to Create Good Writing with Tim Shenk

Episode 52: Letting the primary sources tell the story with Rachel Cockerell

Episode 51: Heather Clark Part II: Maybe you don’t have to “stay in your lane”

Episode 50: Heather Clark Part I: When the editor says, “We want a doorstopper!

Episode 49: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Episode 48: Four Decades of Writing Biography

Episode 47: Historian-turned-Playwright (With a little help from real estate good luck!)

Episode 46: Cold-calling works!

Episode 45: “Before there was therapy, there was religion”

Episode 44: What AI can do for us academics (and what it can’t do for us without sucking the joy from life)

Episode 43: “Filling the gaps of history… with fiction!” with Lauren Willig

Episode 42: “Two Years Ago I Quit My Life” with scholar and writer, Anne Boyd

Episode 41: Finding your form… and voice

Episode 40: Finding courage to write the broader story

Episode 39: How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing

Episode 38: Relationships and Writing

Episode 37: How a great elevator pitch can make a difference

Episode 36: What do book publicists do for academic authors?

Episode 35: GETTING THE READER FROM BEGINNING TO END, WITH MERVE EMRE

Episode 34: When Writing Becomes Like Painting

Episode 33: Psychedelics & Writing

Episode 32: 5,000-10.000 Downloads of a Conversation about Your Book

Episode 31: Being Open to Collaboration

Episode 30: What is the magic that happens when you work with a Developmental Editor?

Episode 29: Are “writing spurts” a thing?

Episode 28: An Editor's Perspective: Sandra Korn

Episode 27: Turning points in our academic writing

Episode 26: “Modern Love” in the Academic Life

Episode 25: The Book Seminar with Sam Freedman

Episode 24: The Joy of Editing

Episode 23: From writing about a Chicago heat wave to writing about 2020: A conversation with NYU Sociologist and New Yorker writer Eric Klinenberg

Episode 22: Maurice Samuels on the Challenges of writing Biography

Episode 21: What’s the deal with academics writing for "The Conversation"?

Episode 20: Would Nahmanides have had a beard? Creating a graphic history with historian Nina Caputo and illustrator Liz Clarke

Episode 19: The pitch is the start of a relationship

Episode 18: “Why is this a must-read book?” How to show a literary agent/editor that your book is important: a conversation with literary agent and former editor, Susan Rabiner

Episode 17: Writing while Parenting

Episode 16: When you need lots of images in your book

Episode 15: The Path to a Pulitzer

Episode 14: What’s so important about your book’s meta-data? Understanding publishing from the perspective of a university press

Episode 13: Why publish with a ‘trade division’ of an academic press?

Episode 12: The Truth About Book Promotion with Sandra Fox

Episode 11: Figuring out how to write the post-tenure book

Episode 10: Getting Unstuck in our Academic Writing with Gillian Steinberg

Episode 09: How to tell your academic story in applications: Special issue for job market/fellowship/graduate school application season

Episode 08: Writing as a practice for self-understanding

Episode 07: Finally! Insightful, concrete advice for your job market writing materials

Episode 06: Behind-the-Scenes of a First Book & a New Journal

Episode 05: An Editor's Perspective - Elaine Maisner, UNC Press

Episode 04: "What is it all for?" The challenge of finding a writing motivation after the first book with Professor Martin Kavka

Episode 03: An Editor’s Perspective - Jennifer Banks

Episode 02: Unlearning Academic Writing Tics and Reaching a Broader Audience

Episode 01: Choosing Literary Non-Fiction... And All That Comes With It