The Spark with Madelyn Postman

Ahead of the publication of my debut, Staring into the Sun, in May, I hope you enjoy this excerpt from the third chapter, “An Upright Man.” It’s about my great-grandfather, Henri Wu.Staring into the Sun can be pre-ordered in the US with Ten16 Press and it’s already available for purchase in the UK. The audio book is read by Kate Hammer, Anthony Postman, and myself and it’s produced by Mercury Calling.🗓️ Book tour datesFriday-Sunday, April 17-19 — Outland Publishing Fair, Peckham, LondonFriday, May 1 — Season’s Cafe, Amersham, UK (let me know if you want an invite)Tues, May 5 — Queen’s Park Books, London (let me know if you want an invite)Mon, May 11 — Brown Club of the UK, Castiglione, London (for Brown University and Phillips Exeter Academy alumni)Weds, May 27 — Brewery Arts Center, Carson City, NVThurs, May 28 — The Radical Cat, Reno, NVSat, May 30 — Shoong Family Chinese Cultural Center, OaklandSun, May 31 — The Pearl, Locke, CA with the kind support of the Locke Foundation and the 1882 FoundationWeds, June 3 — Museum of Chinese in America, New YorkShare The Spark📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun will be published by Ten16 Press in May 2026 in paperback and ebook. The audio book is read by Kate Hammer, Anthony Postman, and myself and it is produced by Mercury Calling. The book can be pre-ordered in the US with Ten16 Press and it’s already available for purchase in the UK."Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected] for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Last month, I announced that I would stop The Spark newsletter and podcast indefinitely. But then, chatting with a friend, I asked myself: why don’t I use this platform to share an audio excerpt of my debut, Staring into the Sun? So please enjoy the beginning of the first story, “Things My Dad Told Me.” This story was shortlisted in The Hope Prize and published by Simon & Schuster Australia in the anthology, Tomorrow There Will Be Sun.🗓️ Book tour datesHere are my planned tour dates. Specific event details coming soon!Sat & Sun, May 23 & 24 — New YorkTues-Thurs, May 26-28 — RenoFri, May 29 — Locke, CASat-Sun, May 30-31 — San Francisco Bay AreaShare The Spark📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun will be published by Ten16 Press in May 2026 in paperback and ebook. The audio book will be produced by Mercury Calling. 👉 Preorder links coming soon! 👈"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected] for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Last month, I announced that I would stop The Spark newsletter and podcast indefinitely. But then, chatting with a friend, I asked myself: why don’t I use this platform to share an audio excerpt of my debut, Staring into the Sun? So please enjoy the beginning of the first story, “Things My Dad Told Me.” This story was shortlisted in The Hope Prize and published by Simon & Schuster Australia in the anthology, Tomorrow There Will Be Sun.🗓️ Book tour datesHere are my planned tour dates. Specific event details coming soon!Sat & Sun, May 23 & 24 — New YorkTues-Thurs, May 26-28 — RenoFri, May 29 — Locke, CASat-Sun, May 30-31 — San Francisco Bay AreaShare The Spark📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun will be published by Ten16 Press in May 2026 in paperback and ebook. The audio book will be produced by Mercury Calling. 👉 Preorder links coming soon! 👈"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected] for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

This will be the last edition of The Spark podcast and newsletter, maybe for a while, maybe ever. I will be using the time freed up to focus on my short story collection, Staring into the Sun. I do love The Spark as a means to connect to other writers, so we’ll see what happens to it.For the full interview with Teresa Wong, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersHere are the recommended reads for January.Dear Scarlet by Teresa Wong (2019)In this intimate and moving graphic memoir, Teresa Wong writes and illustrates the story of her struggle with postpartum depression in the form of a letter to her daughter Scarlet. Equal parts heartbreaking and funny, Dear Scarlet perfectly captures the quiet desperation of those suffering from postpartum depression and the profound feelings of inadequacy and loss. As Teresa grapples with her fears and anxieties and grasps at potential remedies, coping mechanisms, and her mother's Chinese elixirs, we come to understand one woman's battle against the cruel dynamics of postpartum depression.There There by Tommy Orange (2018)This novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. They converge and collide on one fateful day at the Big Oakland Powwow and together this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.Share The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersMy Instagram feed shared a couple of upcoming book festivals on both sides of the pond.Milton Keynes Literary Festival, April 9-12, 2026. “A fabulous festival of books, words, writers, and ideas.”Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, University of Southern California, April 18-19, 2026. “Many stories. One weekend.”👣 My moseyingThis is the year that Staring into the Sun will be published. It’s nearly ready to go to print. I finally finished the endnotes and the acknowledgments. Professor emeritus Robert G. Lee of Brown University wrote an afterword that places Joe Shoong’s story in historical context. Ten16 Press is publishing the paperback and ebook in May 2026. Mercury Calling will produce the audio book.It’s full speed ahead with marketing now!🎙️ Interview with Teresa WongI came across Teresa Wong when fellow 1% for the Planet business member Tinu Mathur of Mathur & Co gave me All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey.Teresa Wong is the author of the acclaimed graphic memoirs All Our Ordinary Stories and Dear Scarlet, both longlisted for CBC Canada Reads and finalists for the W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. All Our Ordinary Stories received two Alberta Literary Awards and was also a finalist for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award in nonfiction. Her comics and writing have appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and The Walrus. She teaches graphic narrative through Gotham Writers Workshop and was also the 2021–22 Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary.Books and authors mentioned:Raina Telgemeier wrote “How Do You Make a Graphic Novel (and, Why Do They Take So Long?)”Will There Ever Be Another You and Priestdaddy by Patricia LockwoodThe Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova BaileyLa Mennulara by Simonetta Agnello Hornby and Massimo FenatiTeresa can be found on Instagram @by_teresawong and at her website byteresawong.com.Tune in to the The Spark podcast for the full interview.📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun in May 2026, published by Ten16 Press in paperback and ebook, audio produced by Mercury Calling."Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

For the full interview with Maggie Smith, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendation for ravenous readersHere is the recommended read for December.All Our Ordinary Stories by Teresa WongBeginning with her mother’s stroke in 2014, Teresa Wong takes us on a moving journey through time and place to locate the beginnings of the disconnection she feels from her parents. Through a series of stories--some epic, like her mother and father’s daring escapes from communes during China’s Cultural Revolution, and some banal, like her quitting Chinese school to watch Saturday morning cartoons--Wong carefully examines the cultural, historical, language, and personality barriers to intimacy in her family, seeking answers to the questions “Where did I come from?” and “Where are we going?” At the same time, she discovers how storytelling can bridge distances and help make sense of a life.I’m excited to announce that Teresa will be our guest author in January!Share The Spark✏️ Resource for wonderful writersThe Outland Publishing Fair spotlights creative publishing practices from Chinese and Sino-diasporic communities in London and worldwide. Bringing together leading practitioners and their works across various regions, the fair aspires to establish a vibrant network that catalyses the translocal and intercultural mobility of Sinophone publications. It is scheduled for 17–19 April 2026 at the Copeland Gallery in Peckham in South London. 👣 My moseyingI’m making progress with getting Staring into the Sun ready for ARCs (advance reader copies) and other marketing ahead of its publication by Ten16 Press in May 2026.🎙️ Interview with Maggie SmithI first heard Maggie Smith either on the podcast she hosts, Hear Us Roar, or being interviewed on The S**t No One Tells You About Writing podcast. After getting my deal with Ten16 Press, I got in touch with her to ask how it was working with the publisher and she was very generous with her feedback and sharing resources.In a career that’s included work as a journalist, a psychologist, and the founder of a national art consulting company, Maggie Smith added novelist to her resume in 2022 with the publication of her debut, Truth and Other Lies. Her second novel, Blindspot, was published in May 2024. Maggie also hosts the weekly podcast Hear Us Roar, where she interviews debut authors about their novel and their path to publication. She blogs monthly on Substack and is a board member of Novel Book Camp and the Chicago Writer’s Association, where she serves as Managing Editor of their Write City Magazine. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband.Books mentioned:The Dive from Clausen’s Pier by Ann Packer We Begin at the End and All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker Maggie can be found on Substack as @maggiesmithwriter, on Instagram as @maggiesmithwrites, and at maggiesmithwriter.com.Tune in to the The Spark podcast for the full interview.📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun on Substack, weekly through the end of 2025."Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected] for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

For the full interview with publisher Michael T. Braun of Orange Hat Publishing and Ten16 Press, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersHere is the recommended read for November.When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016)At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015.Share The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersThis month, a single suggestion: to find balance between your writing and everything else in your life. My own life is super busy right now, so I’ve streamlined this month’s edition!👣 My moseyingThe cover design of Staring into the Sun is pretty much finalized. Can’t wait to share it with everyone, probably early next year. Many thanks to Dana Breunig at Ten16 Press for the design.I’m still working on the end notes of my book.With all this life busy-ness, I’ve dropped my novel-writing group earlier than planned. I was going to see out the year with three more meetings, but stopped it early. I plan to get back to writing my novel in the second half of 2026.🎙️ Interview with publisher Michael T. BraunI met Michael after submitting my manuscript to Orange Hat Publishing, one of about twenty submissions I made to independent publishers. His first email to me, which arrived auspiciously on my twentieth wedding anniversary, had the subject line, “Let’s Work Together on Staring Into the Sun.”Michael T. Braun is the owner and editor-in-chief of Orange Hat Publishing and its imprint Ten16 Press. He holds a BA in English literature and an MA and PhD in communication science, all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before purchasing Orange Hat from its founder, he worked in academic research and program evaluation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Medical College of Wisconsin. In addition to his role at Orange Hat, he is an adjunct professor at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, teaching writing.Books mentioned:Haven: A Small Cat’s Big Adventure by Megan Wagner LloydThe Hallmarked Man by J. K. Rowling, published under the pseudonym Robert GalbraithThe Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. FreemanA Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy TooleThe Magicians by Lev GrossmanTailspin by John ArmbrusterMichael can be found on Instagram as @brauninthebooks. Orange Hat Publishing is at orangehatpublishing.com, on Instagram, and on Facebook. Ten16 Press is also on Instagram and Facebook.Tune in to the The Spark podcast for the full interview.📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun on Substack, weekly through the end of 2025."Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected] for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

For the full interview with author S.E. Reid, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersHere are the recommended reads for October.The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (2014)A.J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over--and see everything anew.On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (2019)On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie (2024)We are bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won’t be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, that we should reconsider having children. But in this bold, radically hopeful book, data scientist Hannah Ritchie argues that if we zoom out, a very different picture emerges. The data shows we’ve made so much progress on these problems, and so fast, that we could be on track to achieve true sustainability for the first time in history.Packed with the latest research, practical guidance and enlightening graphics, this book will make you rethink almost everything you’ve been told about the environment, from the virtues of eating locally and living in the countryside, to the evils of overpopulation, plastic straws and palm oil. It will give you the tools to understand what works, what doesn’t and what we urgently need to focus on so we can leave a sustainable planet for future generations.These problems are big. But they are solvable. We are not doomed. We can build a better future for everyone. Let’s turn that opportunity into reality.Share The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersAn episode of the Memoir Nation podcast mentioned host Brooke Warner’s Substack post, “‘You’ in Memoir, Five Ways,” about the use of the second person. A great post to check out.Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994) is a heartfelt guide. One suggestion for writers who feel blocked is to start with what you can see through a 1-inch-square frame.Discoveries 2026 is open for submissions until January 12th. It’s the Women’s Prize’s writer development program. Send the first 10,000 words of your novel and a synopsis of between 500-1,000 words. Novels do not need to be finished before you enter the competition, but you should be able to summarize in your synopsis the main plot of your work-in-progress. It’s open to women who are at least 18 years old at the time of entry and a resident of the UK, the Republic of Ireland, or the Channel Islands.Literary agency AM Heath have launched a “biennial adult novel prize to honour the much-loved double Booker Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel, who died in 2022. Hilary was a staunch supporter of countless first-time novelists, so the prize will focus on work in progress from unpublished writers, with the aim of offering the mentoring and financial support to assist the best of the next generation in finishing their work. AM Heath will be working with the publisher John Murray and creative writing charity Arvon.” The Hilary Mantel Prize for Fiction submission requires your first 15,000 words and a synopsis, to enter by December 31st.👣 My moseyingDana Breunig at Ten16 Press sent over four gorgeous routes for the cover of Staring into the Sun. She’s working on a second iteration of my favorite option now.I’m continuing to write the end notes for the collection, with a lot of info about the Sausalito Salmon Derby in 1955 🎣I am submitting a proposal to the Bay Area Book Festival for next May, which gives us a deadline of mid-November to have the digital ARC (Advance Reader Copy) ready.My writing group is still meeting every three weeks, though I have decided to complete the year and then bow out. Just too much other stuff going on to keep up with everything.My work-in-progress novel is on hold while I’m getting Staring into the Sun ready for publication. Then the marketing and promotion will kick in!Because I haven’t been submitting much, for now I’m cutting out the stats, tracked on the brilliant Chill Subs, on my story and book submissions. That section may return in future.🎙️ Author interview with S.E. ReidI came across S.E. Reid on Substack, through Eleanor Anstruther, a previous guest on The Spark. Both S.E. and Eleanor serialize their work on that platform, which inspired me to serialize my short story collection, Staring into the Sun, there too.S.E. is a freelance writer, editor, and poet living on a patch of wooded wetland in the Pacific Northwest with her craftsman husband and her two big goofball dogs, Finn and Huck. She loves to hear and tell stories about nature, history, ghosts, and God, and when not writing she loves to cook nourishing food, read widely, and tend to her vegetable garden. Learn more about her work at sereid.com.Books mentioned:Red Rabbit by Alex GrecianThe Last House on Needless Street by Catriona WardIn the Woods by Tana FrenchNightmares & Dreamscapes by Stephen KingThe Wisdom of the Beguines by Laura SwanS.E. can be found on Substack, on Instagram as writer.sereid and at sereid.com.Tune in to the The Spark podcast for the full interview.📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun on Substack, weekly through the end of 2025."Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

For the full interview with bookseller Amber Harrison of FOLDE Dorset, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersHere are the recommended reads for September.Sky Daddy by Kate Folk (2025)Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer. Weekdays, she earns $20 an hour moderating comments for a video-sharing platform, then rides the bus home to the windowless garage she rents on the outskirts of San Francisco. But on the last Friday of each month, she indulges her true passion, taking BART to SFO for a round-trip flight to a regional hub. The destination is irrelevant, because each trip means a new date with a handsome stranger—a stranger whose intelligent windscreens, sleek fuselages, and powerful engines make Linda feel a way that no human ever could.Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes. Nor can she reveal her belief that it’s her destiny to “marry” one of her suitors, uniting with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.The Interpreter’s Daughter by Teresa Lim (2022)In the last years of her life, Teresa Lim's mother, Violet Chang, had copies of a cherished family photograph made for those in the portrait who were still alive. The photo is mounted on cream card with the name of the studio stamped at the bottom in Chinese characters. The place and date on the back: Hong Kong, 1935.Teresa would often look at this photograph, enticed by the fierceness and beauty of her great-aunt Fanny looking back at her. But Fanny never seemed to feature in the family stories that were always being told and retold. Why? she wondered.This photograph set Teresa on a journey to uncover her family's remarkable history. Through detective work, serendipity, and the kindness of strangers, she was guided to the fascinating, ordinary, yet extraordinary life of her great-aunt and her world of sworn spinsters, ghost husbands and the working-class feminists of nineteenth century south China. But to recover her great-aunt's past, we first must get to know Fanny's family, the times and circumstances in which they lived, and the momentous yet forgotten conflicts that would lead to war in Singapore and, ultimately, a long-buried family tragedy.Good Luck Life: The Essential Guide to Chinese American Celebrations and Culture by Rosemary Gong (2005)Good Luck Life is the first book to explain the meanings of Chinese rituals and to offer advice on when and how to plan for Chinese holidays and special occasions such as Chinese weddings, the Red Egg and Ginger party to welcome a new baby, significant birthdays, and the inevitable funeral. Packed with practical information, Good Luck Life contains an abundance of facts, legends, foods, old-village recipes, and quick planning guides for Chinese New Year, Clear Brightness, Dragon Boat, Mid-Autumn, and many other festivals.Written with warmth and wit, Good Luck Life is beautifully designed as an easily accessible cultural guide that includes an explanation of the Lunar Calendar, tips on Chinese table etiquette for dining with confidence, and dos and don'ts from wise Auntie Lao, who recounts ancient Chinese beliefs and superstitions. This is your map for celebrating a good luck life.For further inspiration, this month’s reading theme from Backstory Bookshop is Prize Nominations.Share The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersStill a little way off: there will be a Mayfair Book Fair for “readers of all ages and interests” in London in March 2026. I hope to have a table there.Not quite a craft book, but something to motivate you to focus on your writing is Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.The Fabula Deck is a fun way to structure your writing. You can use the 40 cards however you want, to analyze, organize, and build your stories.👣 My moseyingThis past week, I spoke with my publisher, Michael T. Braun, at Ten16 Press. Now that I have my manuscript edits back for Staring into the Sun, next steps are for Ten16 to do the interior layout and the cover design. My dear friend and former design business partner, Luca de Salvia, will be designing the handwritten script typography for the cover.Together with another dear friend, Kate Hammer, I will start recording the audio book for independent publication. Mercury Calling Audio will produce it.I thought I’d go back to working on my novel work-in-progress but have decided to focus on Staring into the Sun for now.📊 Tracked on Chill SubsShort story collection submissions to small presses & awards⏱️ 1 pending🚫 14 rejected↩️ 3 withdrawn🥉 1 semi-finalist🎉 1 publication offer!🟰 20 totalNovel prize submissions of my work in progress🚫 4 rejected🟰 4 total🎙️ Author interview with Amber HarrisonI met Amber Harrison in 2020 through work and since the end of that year, we have been colleagues at consultancy Grain Sustainability. Amber is co-founder, together with Karen Brazier, of FOLDE Dorset, an award-winning nature writing focused bookshop that opened in April 2021, in the hilltop town of Shaftesbury, Dorset.FOLDE also celebrates traditional art and crafts, working with local makers to create a sense of place through their work. As well as the shop, they run a spring and autumn author events programme and recently launched their book club.The business has always been run with a strong environmental and social intent, and in April 2024 became B Corp certified.Books mentioned:What We Can Know by Ian McEwanRaising Hare by Chloe DaltonThe Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley RobinsonThe Overstory by Richard PowersAmber can be found in the shop and FOLDE is online at foldedorset.com as well as Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and Facebook.Tune in to the The Spark podcast for the full interview.📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun on Substack, weekly through the end of 2025."Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected] for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

I recorded the podcast this month in Den Bosch, in the Netherlands, while my daughter did some work experience at Antigif branding and design studio.For the full interview with Dr. Anjana Khatwa, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersHere are the recommended reads for August.Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)Dana's 26th birthday celebration ends when she's ripped from 1976 California and thrust onto a Maryland slave plantation in 1815. Her mission: keep alive the white boy who will grow up to assault her ancestor—because without him, she'll never be born. Every trip back grows more dangerous. Dana feels the lash, wears the chains, endures the daily terror that defined millions of lives. She can't just read about slavery's horrors—she lives them, bleeds from them, nearly breaks under them.The Past by Tessa Hadley (2015)Three sisters and a brother, complete with children, a new wife, and an ex-boyfriend’s son, descend on their grandparents’ dilapidated old home in the Somerset countryside for a final summer holiday. The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past—their mother took them there to live when she left their father—but now, they may have to sell it. And beneath the idyllic pastoral surface lie tensions. As the family’s stories and silences intertwine over the course of three long, hot weeks, small disturbances build into familial crises, and a way of life—bourgeois, literate, ritualized, Anglican—winds down to its inevitable end.The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell (2019)I received this from the Big Green Bookshop’s Book Club.1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives—their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes—emerge through a panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction.Share The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersIf you’re in London on September 13th, come along to the Story Feast Lit Fest celebrating ESEA (East and South East Asian) stories and authors. It’s at SOAS University of London and tickets are free.Mslexia’s 2025 Adult Novel Competition is open until September 22nd. Send the first 5,000 words and be ready to submit your finished manuscript if you get longlisted.The Outland Publishing Fair, which represents a curated selection of self-published titles by Chinese and Sino-diasporic practitioners, was meant to be in September but it has been postponed. I’ve applied for a space at a shared table there. Look for @outlandpublishingfair on Instagram for the new date.👣 My moseyingI did not win the Developing Your Creative Practice grant from the Arts Council. However, I’ll apply again in the next round.My short story collection, Staring into the Sun, was a semifinalist in the Autumn House Press 2025 Nonfiction Prize!Big news: I’ve signed the contract to publish Staring into the Sun with Ten16 Press in May 2026 (Asian American and Pacific Islanders month in the U.S.). The book links memoir and narrative nonfiction about my Chinese American family. Spanning 1895-2015, look out for a millionaire, a magician, and a model. Ten16 Press will publish the paperback and ebook. With the same release date, I will self-publish the audio book, narrating the four memoir chapters. Kate Hammer will narrate the historical creative nonfiction chapters and Anthony at Mercury Calling Audio will produce it. I started researching and writing this book in January 2017 and to finally have a publication deal is an enormous joy. Staring into the Sun celebrates and honors my ancestors.If you can’t wait until next May to read the stories, subscribe for free on Substack to get them sent to your inbox every Saturday through the end of 2025. More info, links to each installment, and sign up are here. The free subscription is for Staring into the Sun serialization as well as The Spark monthly newsletter.I’m still writing my novel and meeting with my writing group every three weeks.📊 Tracked on Chill SubsShort story collection submissions to small presses & awards⏱️ 4 pending🚫 11 rejected↩️ 3 withdrawn🥉 1 semi-finalist🎉 1 publication offer!🟰 20 totalNovel prize submissions of my work in progress⏱️ 2 pending🚫 2 rejected🟰 4 total🎙️ Author interview with Dr. Anjana KhatwaI met Dr. Anjana Khatwa at the Nature Writing Prize for Working Class Writers, founded by Natasha Carthew. The event was held on the stunning roof terrace of Hachette in London.Dr. Anjana Khatwa is an award-winning earth scientist who has worked for the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and the National Trust. Dr. Khatwa has contributed to and presented TV programmes for the BBC as well as ITV. She has been given the Geographical Award for public engagement by the Royal Geographical Society, the RH Worth Award by the Geological Society of London and the Halstead Medal from the Geologists' Association. In 2021, she received a National Diversity Award in recognition of her work to champion inclusion within earth science and natural heritage, and the same year was longlisted for the 2021 Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing. She lives with her family in Dorset in a house filled with rocks and fossils collected from all over the world. The Whispers of Rock is her first book.In The Whispers of Rock earth scientist Anjana Khatwa asks us to think again, and listen to their stories. Boldly alternating between modern science and ancient wisdom, Khatwa takes us on an exhilarating journey through deep time, from origins of the green pounamu that courses down New Zealand rivers to the wonder of the bluestone megaliths of Stonehenge, from the tuff-hewn churches of Lalibela, Ethiopia, to Manhattan’s bedrock of schist. In unearthing those stories and more, Khatwa shows how rocks have always spoken to us, and we humans to them. She delicately intertwines Indigenous stories of Earth’s creation with our scientific understanding of its development, deftly showing how our lives are intimately connected to time’s ancient storytellers.Through tales of planetary change, ancient wisdom, and contemporary creativity, The Whispers of Rock offers the hope of reconnection with Earth. With Khatwa as your guide, you won’t simply hear rocks speak; you, too, will feel the magic of deep time seep into your bones.Anjana can be found on Instagram, Bluesky, and on her website, anjanakhatwa.com.Photo credit: Rob Coombe.Tune in to the The Spark podcast for the full interview.📙 Where to find my writingStaring into the Sun on Substack, weekly through the end of 2025."Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, The Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected] for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Share The Spark This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

For the full interview with Virginia Evans, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersHere are my pick ‘n’ mix recommendations for July.Stoner by John Williams (1965)William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.Misspelled Paradise: A Year in a Reinvented Colombia by Bryanna Plog (2014)What does “Colombia” bring to mind? This South American country has sometimes been misrepresented, only known for cocaine, guerrilla groups, coffee, and Shakira’s hips. In 2011, Bryanna Plog spent a year in the country to find out what the headlines might be missing (headlines, that let’s face it, sometimes misspelled the country as “Columbia.”).As a volunteer middle school English teacher in an impoverished community outside of Cartagena, Colombia, Plog recounts with delightfully understated wit her year traveling Colombia’s cities, deserts, and rain forests (fairly successful ventures), her attempts to hold class on a regular schedule (less successful), and her quest to eat meals that didn’t include rice (a complete and utter failure).Through her teaching and traveling, Plog realizes Colombia is a place closer to a paradise than a country supposedly off-limits to travelers. Instead of having to survive encounters with drug cartels or avoiding kidnappings, Plog discovered her biggest problems included trying to get her students to pay attention in class, the country’s strangely undrinkable coffee, and the searing Caribbean heat.Mott Street: A Chinese American Family's Story of Exclusion and Homecoming by Ava Chin (2023)As the only child of a single mother in Queens, Ava Chin found her family’s origins to be shrouded in mystery. She had never met her father, and her grandparents’ stories didn’t match the history she read at school. Mott Street traces Chin’s quest to understand her Chinese American family’s story. Over decades of painstaking research, she finds not only her father but also the building that provided a refuge for them all.Breaking the silence surrounding her family’s past meant confronting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the first federal law to restrict immigration by race and nationality, barring Chinese immigrants from citizenship for six decades. Chin traces the story of the pioneering family members who emigrated from the Pearl River Delta, crossing an ocean to make their way in the American West of the mid-nineteenth century. She tells of their backbreaking work on the transcontinental railroad and of the brutal racism of frontier towns, then follows their paths to New York City.In New York’s Chinatown she discovers a single building on Mott Street where so many of her ancestors would live, begin families, and craft new identities. She follows the men and women who became merchants, “paper son” refugees, activists, and heads of the Chinese tong, piecing together how they bore and resisted the weight of the Exclusion laws. She soon realizes that exclusion is not simply a political condition but also a personal one.If you’d like further inspiration, Backstory bookshop’s theme for July is books published in your birth year.Share The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersThe lovely folks at Collaborist are still offering a review of 25 pages of your writing to give their intern Maddy more experience. Email them at [email protected] Lip Press is open for submissions of novel and novella manuscripts until September 1st.C&R Press is open for three categories of book awards—poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction—until September 16th.👣 My moseyingYesterday I had an hour-long call with Jason, Ben, and Maddy at Collaborist to review the first 25 pages of my work-in-progress novel. They had some really insightful points about having too many characters in the first scene, upping the tension and stakes in my second scene, and not writing to a word count……which is great advice—except that I’m aiming for 20,000 words by the end of July, in case I get long-listed for any of the prizes I submitted to in May. I’m almost at 9,000 words now and scribbling away on it.I’m finalizing my contract to publish my short story collection, Staring into the Sun. The plan is to serialize it for free on Substack, then pull the online version before publication, which should be May 2026. And I’ll be narrating the four memoir chapters of the audio book, with another narrator covering the other five chapters. I’m super excited about all of this and can’t wait to tell you more.Also near the end of July will be the news from the Arts Council about my application for the Developing Your Creative Practice grant. Fingers crossed!📊 Tracked on Chill SubsShort story collection submissions to small presses⏱️ 9 pending🚫 9 rejected (some of which were super lovely)🤫 1 secret something🎉 1 publication offer!🟰 20 totalNovel prize submissions of my work in progress⏱️ 3 pending🎙️ Author interview with Virginia EvansThe S**t No One Tells You About Writing podcast (my daughter says that the only time I swear is when I mention the podcast) helps find comparative titles to authors’ works-in-progress. These comps, as they’re known, are included as references for genre, voice, tone, and setting (i.e. vibes!) in letters to prospective agents and publishers. When I asked for comps for my novel, Emily from East City Bookshop in Washington, D.C. suggested The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.I promptly listened to the audiobook, which is masterfully narrated by a huge cast, and loved it. Virginia Evans attended James Madison University for her bachelor’s in English literature. After starting a family, she went back to school for her master’s of philosophy in creative writing at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, where she had the good fortune to study under Carlo Gébler, Eoin McNamee, Claire Keegan, Harry Clifton and Kevin Power. She now lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with her husband, Mark, two children, Jack and Mae, and her Red Labrador, Brigid.In the interview, Virginia mentions Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr, and Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller.You can find Virginia at virginiaevansauthor.com and on Instagram as @virginia.l.evans.Tune into the The Spark podcast for the full interview.📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK “His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends!Music and mixing by [email protected]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Interview with Eleanor Anstruther📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersDive into these literary explorations of familial relationships, mental health, community, and friendships. Plus some am-dram (amateur dramatics) and theater.In Judgement of Others byEleanor Anstruther(2025)The Midhurst Amateur Dramatic Society are putting on a production of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, and Tessa has agreed to play a part. But when she suffers a psychotic episode, Ros, a C-list celebrity and new to the community, takes her place. In this darkly comic tale of psychosis in the Home Counties, the stage is set for a blistering examination of mental illness, how we treat it and why we don't. While Tessa is sectioned in a secure psychiatric hospital, the relationships in the community unravel, and by the time she's released, all that we thought we knew, and all of our judgements, are thrown into question.Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (2023)In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025)Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.If you’d like further inspiration, Backstory bookshop’s theme for the month is “Books set in the future.”Share The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersAnn in my writing group recommended Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison. I’m enjoying this exploration of more organic, nature-inspired narrative structures compared to the typical narrative arc, three-act setup, or hero’s journey.This month’s guest, Eleanor Anstruther, who champions all writers as independent artists, suggested joining ALLi: The Alliance of Independent Authors. My browser tab is open to sign up so I can get help reviewing my publishing contract (!!).If you’re a writer, you’ve probably heard ofJane Friedman. This authority on all things publishing recently featured on the London Writers’ Salon podcast. I love her 30,000-foot view of the publishing industry: in these times of nervousness about AI, she reminds us of naysayers of the word processor (which would take away women’s typing jobs!!) and even the printing press itself. She considers AI as an intern: it can do legwork for you, but you need to check its output. If you want to know more about routes to publication, it’s worth perusing Jane’s super-useful Key Book Publishing Paths.The Hope Prize is open for submissions, deadline October 31.The lovely folks at Collaborist are offering a review of 25 pages of your writing to give their intern Maddy more experience. Email them at [email protected].👣 My moseyingSome friends from my Bologna days in the 1990s got in touch and asked to write about my experiences. The article in vox@bo is followed by my flash fiction story, “His Bones.” More info and links are on my website.I submitted the first 5,000 words of my work-in-progress novel to three prizes: the Bridport First Novel Award, the BPA (Blue Pencil Agency) First Novel Award, and the First Novel Prize. These deadlines at the end of May fueled me to write and edit the first three chapters of my book. Many thanks to the beta readers who gave feedback. The Bath Novel Award would require a full manuscript of longlisted entries, so I didn’t enter that one: I didn’t want to enter it hoping not to get longlisted since I don’t have that many words finished. The others require 10,000-15,000 more words by the end of July, which is feasible.I’ve ordered four more copies of Tomorrow There Will Be Sun directly from Australia since the UK copies are sold out.My Instagram account name was the16stories, the original title of my short story collection. Now I’m myself: @madelynpostman.📊 Tracked on Chill SubsShort story collection submissions to small presses⏱️ 12 pending🚫 6 rejected🎉 1 publication offer!🟰 19 totalNovel prize submissions of my work in progress⏱️ 3 pending🎙️ Author interview with Eleanor AnstrutherI came across Eleanor Anstruther on The Write and Wrong Podcast and she’s also been a guest on the London Writer’s Salon podcast. She has published both traditionally and independently, in that unusual order, and is working on a kitemark for indie authors. Listen to the Patreon supporters’ full version of The Write and Wrong episode for more on that initiative.Eleanor was born in London, educated at Westminster School and studied History of Art at Manchester University where she was distracted from finishing her degree by a trip to India. She was lost and found for the next twelve years, starting a commune and traveling the world before finally settling down to write. Her acclaimed debut novel, A Perfect Explanation, was long listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the 2019 Not The Booker Prize. Her memoir, A Memoir in 65 Postcards & the Recovery Diaries, first serialized on Substack, was published in 2024 and her latest novel, In Judgement of Others, came out in January 2025. On Substack she writes The Literary Obsessive where she champions independent artists and runs the interview series 8Q.In the interview, she mentions The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim and In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B Hughes. Here’s Eleanor’s 8Q (eight questions) with Chris Best, co-founder and CEO of Substack.Eleanor’s website is eleanoranstruther.com.📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Featuring an interview with memoir, fiction, and nonfiction writer Tessa McWatt.This May, add some great reads to your list, submit your debut manuscript for awards, and see if my novel is indeed writing itself. For the full interview with Tessa McWatt, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersOne young adult book, a literary novel, and an upmarket tale of an ill-fated couple.Turtles All the Way Down by John GreenThe Magician’s Assistant by Ann PatchettCleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco MellorsShare The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersCheck out Eleanor Anstruther on Substack. I came across her on the Write and Wrong podcast and love how she champions self/indie publishing. Great news: she’ll be my guest in June!Top tip for reviewing your writing: pop it into Word if it’s not there already, go to the Review tab and then choose Read Aloud. Great for catching awkward phrases and repeated words.If you’re writing your debut novel and can get together a 300-word synopsis and 5,000 words by the end of May, check out the Bridport, Bath, Blue Pencil Agency, and First Novel prizes.👣 Updates on my moseyingI’ve been busy putting together an application for a grant. More news about that in July, be it yay!! or nay.My writing group is going strong, with our third meeting this coming weekend. I haven’t spent much time writing since last month’s update. So far, I’ve written a synopsis of my novel and am about 3,000 words in, aiming to get my submission ready for the four contests mentioned above.Short story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 15 pending🚫 4 rejected🎉 1 accepted by a hybrid publisher—I’m waiting to see what happens with the others🟰 20 total🎙️ Author interview with Tessa McWattTessa McWatt's memoir, Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging, won the OCM Bocas Prize for NonFiction 2020 and was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize and the Governor-General's Award. A professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, she is also the author of seven novels and two books for young people. Her fiction has been nominated for the Governor General's Award, the City of Toronto Book Awards, the OCM Bocas Prize and the Society of Authors' Volcano Prize. She is one of the winners of the Eccles British Library Award 2018 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She is also a librettist, and she works on interdisciplinary projects and community-based life writing. Born in Guyana, she grew up in Canada, and now makes her home in London, England.Here’s the Instagram account for her new book, The Snag.Tune into the The Spark podcast for the full interview!Photo by Bill Knight.📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who.You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And please share it with your reading and writing friends! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Featuring an interview with memoir and short story author An Ngo Lang.This April, add some short story collections to your list, sign up to a free writing sprint, and discover what I’ve dived into. For the full interview with An Ngo Lang, tune in to The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersThree short story collections to add to your “To Be Read” list.You Have a Friend in 10A by Maggie ShipsteadA Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid NunezInterpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa LahiriShare The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersThe London Writers’ Salon is holding a free 24-hour writing sprint from 7pm BST (11am PT, 2pm ET) on Friday 25 April to 7pm BST on Saturday 26 April. Join for as few or as many 1-hour sessions as you’d like, starting at the top of each hour. See you there?I heard Sanam Mahloudji, whose debut novel is The Persians, say on The Write and Wrong Podcast that writers should aim for 100 rejections per year. I love that reframing, in the “every no is one step closer to a yes” mindset. Or: “You’ve got to be in it to win it”!Last autumn, Jessica Payne wrote “A How-To Guide: from Pantser to Plantser” on The Payneful Truth About Being a Writer. I’m finding it to be a very helpful reference.👣 Updates on my moseyingIn past episodes, I had mentioned my plans to write a nonfiction sustainability handbook for small businesses. This is now on the back burner because……I’ve started working on my novel! The inspiration is from a short story I wrote about a year and a half ago during a short story course at City Lit. I used Jessica Payne’s guide and hopped back and forth between Story Genius by Lisa Cron and Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. I now have a logline, the synopsis, and a chapter outline. My aim is to have 25 chapters of about 3,500 words each and breaking it down into little chunks like this seems to make it “easy” (??) to write. (I think I’m going to end up eating these words.) I’m more than 1,500 words in!I recently caught up with a friend from high school who, like me, spent a lot of time in Bologna. She did a creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia and I wanted to ask her about it. One thing led to the next and we’ve now formed a writing group together with a friend of hers and a fellow writer from the City Lit short story course. We’re all working on book-length manuscripts: fiction and memoir.Short story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 14 pending🚫 3 rejected🟰 17 totalStory submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 6 accepted🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 58 rejected🟰 71 total🎙️ Author interview with An Ngo LangAn Ngo Lang was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and fled with her family in 1975, resettling in Kansas and now living in Australia. She is a writer, actor, and model. Her writing appears in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, Leatherneck, The VVA Veteran, Kill Your Darlings, diaCritics, and more. To find out more about An, please visit her website anngolang.com. She is also on Instagram and Facebook.Tune into the The Spark podcast for the full interview!📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean the world to me. And if you know other writers and readers, please share it! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Featured author: Holly GramazioThis month I recorded under a duvet (best for sound quality) in Birmingham. I was up there to speak about ESG Expectations at FAB, the Festival of Accounting and Bookkeeping, on as part of my work at Grain Sustainability. Carbon accounting goes hand-in-hand with financial accounting. I’ve also been refining a keynote speech on sustainability which incorporates storytelling.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersMarch’s theme, thanks to Backstory London, is “New Beginnings.”The Husbands by Holly GramazioThe Strange Case of Jane O. by Karen Thompson WalkerRemainder by Tom McCarthy—sent to me through the Big Green Bookshop Book Club subscriptionThe Promised Land by Mary AntinShare The Spark✏️ Resources for wonderful writersThe free, online Writer’s Workout conference, March 17-23How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The MothLists on Bluesky, like the small presses I’m submitting to, and Tania Hershman’s hybrid writing starter packThe inaugural Alternative Book Fair in London was held on March 5-8. Check out all the independent presses listed!👣 Updates on my moseyingCanvasRebel’s mission is to create a space for artists, creatives and entrepreneurs to be able to learn from their peers through the magic and power of storytelling. My own life, writing, and sustainability work resonate with that mission, and I’m excited to be featured there. “Meet Madelyn Postman”Learning from Becca Syme’s Better-Faster Academy about CliftonStrengthsMore learning from Becca, on her QuitCast for Writers podcast, about #JOMO: the Joy Of Missing OutShort story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 10 pending🚫 3 rejected🟰 13 totalQueries to literary agents — tracked on QueryTracker 📊🤷‍♀️ 7 closed after no response to query letter🚫 2 rejections after reading query letter😭 2 rejections after reading full manuscript🟰 11 totalStory submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 6 accepted⏱️ 1 pending🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 57 rejected🟰 71 total🎙️ Author interview with Holly GramazioHolly is a writer, game designer, and curator from Adelaide, living in Walthamstow in London. Her debut novel The Husbands is a comedy about a woman whose attic starts creating an infinite supply of husbands. It just came out in paperback.She founded, and for five years directed, the experimental games festival Now Play This, and wrote the script for the award-winning video game Dicey Dungeons. She’s interested in rules, play, cities, gardens, games that get people acting creatively, stories that buy into a ridiculous premise and then really commit to it, and art that gets people interacting with their surroundings in new ways.Listen to Holly on The Spark wherever you listen to podcasts (here’s a link to all platforms). Her reading recommendations are Living with Birds by Len Howard, The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay, and Memento Mori by Eunice Hong.Holly can be found at hollygramazio.net, on Bluesky and Instagram, and you can sign up to her newsletter.📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!You can listen to The Spark on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. Please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify—it would mean a the world to me. And if you know other writers and readers, please share it! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Featured author: Jason BuchholzI’m excited about The Spark this month. Like last month, the spoken, podcast version is mostly improvised rather than simply reading out my written newsletter as I was doing previously. This time, I happen to be recording in the Austrian Alps—well, under a duvet in the Alps so I can keep the high sound quality ; )It’s also the first month that our author interview is a recording of the author themself. Following a recommendation from a podcast listener, the interview will be at the end instead of the beginning. So sit (or drive, or walk) tight.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersLast year, the bookshop Backstory London had a reading challenge card to fill with books, like young adult, under 200 pages, and a book in translation. A friend and I called it Backstory Bingo. This year, the bookshop is suggesting one theme per month. January was “stories set in winter.” February is “one-word titles.” I’m not promising to follow Backstory’s theme every month, but I have some good ones this month.* Orbital by Samantha Harvey* Sinkhole: A Legacy of Suicide by Juliet Patterson* Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi✏️ Resources for wonderful writers* The Great Beta Reader Match Up. Looking for beta readers? Submit your info and 3,000 words of your writing to Bianca Marais, founder of The S**t No One Tells You About Writing podcast, by March 2nd. The cost is $25. Almost two years on, I still have two amazing, active beta readers from the match up!* The Writers’ Workout Conference, March 17th-23rd. “This free, virtual conference is designed to help you make the most of your time with short videos from presenters around the world.”* On Writing by Stephen King. Entertaining and useful.👣 Updates on my moseyingI took part in the Mslexia Agent Extravaganza earlier in February but there weren’t any agent bites or feedback on my pitch. I don’t think that seeking agent representation is the right way for me to go right now. I am continuing to submit my short story collection, Staring into the Sun, directly to small presses.My next project will be a nonfiction book, the SME Sustainability Handbook, which ties in with my consulting business, Grain Sustainability. I’ll probably self-publish it.Short story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 7 pending🚫 2 rejected🟰 9 totalQueries to literary agents — tracked on QueryTracker 📊⏱️ 7 waiting for replies on query letter🚫 2 rejections after reading query letter😭 2 rejections after reading full manuscript🟰 11 totalStory submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 6 accepted⏱️ 2 pending🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 55 rejected🟰 70 total🎙️ Author interview with Jason BuchholzI first came across Jason Buchholz when I read his debut novel, A Paper Son, while researching my family history. Once I had a complete draft of my book manuscript, I realized that he and his colleague Ben LeRoy offer manuscript assessments as part of their offering at Collaborist. Jason’s feedback gave me confidence and encouraged me to stick with my project. It’s a pleasure to feature Jason as the first interview on The Spark with the author speaking. Here he is!Jason can be found at jasonbuchholz.com, at Collaborist.org, and on Instagram as @jasondbuchholz.📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.Buy in US | Buy in UK“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.Buy in US | Buy in UK“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.Buy in US | Buy in UKFind out more about me and my writing, including press coverage, on my website: madelynpostman.com.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!If you enjoy The Spark, please share, rate, and review it on your favorite podcast platform. On Substack, you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. I don’t think I actually have any reviews yet, so I’d really appreciate your review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Thanks for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Trying something new this month: a bit of improvising! Most of the content is in the audio version only, with the full author interview and some links below. My submission stats are exclusive for newsletter readers this month (only because I forgot to read them out 🙃). Please let me know your thoughts on this new, improvised format.📖 Author interview with Wiz WhartonWiz Wharton was born in London of Chinese-European heritage and is a prize-winning graduate of the National Film and Television School (NFTS). Her debut novel Ghost Girl, Banana was published in 2023 and deals with issues of identity, belonging and familial secrets. It was longlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award 2024 and shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards 2024. Adaptation rights have been optioned with Wharton on board as screenwriter and executive producer. In 2023 the Scottish Government Expo Fund named her as one of the 40 Authors Predicted to Set the Literary World Alight. She lives in the Scottish Highlands.What inspires you?A lot of the obvious stuff, I suppose, like books and art and music, but across the whole spectrum of what I personally regard as creatively successful. I hate the phrase “teachable moment” but I’m often inspired as much by things I don’t particularly enjoy because it’s interesting to consider how I would have done them differently. Whatever the medium, or person, I’m hugely inspired by authenticity in all things because it speaks of fearlessness which is a state I’m constantly trying to get to, both in my writing and in life.For me, writing is a way of evolving or making sense of the world so I’m obviously inspired by past experiences and past relationships although not in an autofiction way. Rather, it’s the feelings behind those stories that I like to explore. Finding the universal in the specific.Do you have a writing routine?I’m lucky enough to write full-time now, although when I had an additional job it did oblige me to be more disciplined about the creative stuff so it’s been a learning curve! I always start the day with coffee and admin—writing or replying to emails, following up on invitations or filling out tax spreadsheets—all the things that keep the business side running. Before I was published, I didn’t really think much about this aspect, but it’s become something that solidifies writing as a job to me. Then I’ll turn off the internet and put my phone into do not disturb mode and sit down to whatever I’m working on, whether it’s my current book or a script. I’ll usually read back the previous day’s work and mark any new thoughts I’ve had without editing the pages themselves. I always leave the manuscript at a point where I can immediately dive into the writing itself when I return. Sometimes I’ll have left notes in the margin about what I’m trying to achieve in terms of plot or what a character wants in a scene. Sometimes I’ll have left mid-sentence! I learned this trick a few years ago and it definitely works for me.People often think writing is just about getting words on the page, but I probably only spend about five or six hours a day on this, ending up at around 3pm, and some days I don’t write at all. The advice to write every day is more of an ideal than a reality for lots of people and like most rules about writing (which when you’re beginning are easy to regard as sacrosanct) it really has no bearing on whether or not you’ll be published. Incredible novels have come out of all sorts of situations.Unless I’m on a particularly tight deadline, when my usual routine tends to go out of the window, I’ll spend the rest of the day doing things that revolve around writing, so reading and researching or watching films or TV. This feeds the analytic side of my brain and I always do it with a notebook in hand. I also advocate naps. It’s amazing what your mind comes up with when you’re not whipping it into submission!The other thing I build into my routine is lots of walks with our dog, Wilson. The change of scene and the physical effect of being outdoors does wonders if I’m feeling stuck or need to think about the project in its entirety and what I’m trying to do with it.My worst writing momentThe dreaded book two syndrome. With my debut I’d had considerable time to write without expectation and Ghost Girl, Banana was in pretty good shape by the time I even thought about submitting to agents. A second book is another prospect entirely because by then you’re already on the publishing carousel with all the other commitments that entails and I definitely felt the pressure. It’s not simply the dread of showing a really bad first draft to someone whose opinion you respect, it’s that debuts also tend to set out your stall as a writer, meaning that readers have expectations of you too. It took me a good year and four failed attempts at a second manuscript before I came to the realization that I—as my first audience—should actually be enjoying what I was writing, without becoming bogged down in whether it would sell or do well. Getting out of my own way was the key to finally landing on the right idea—the one that means something to me and that I would want to read. I definitely panicked myself into thinking I would never write another book, but it’s been a valuable lesson in trusting my gut.My best writing momentThe best moments (plural) are undoubtedly getting to meet readers. The prize lists are wonderful but they’ll never beat the experience of talking to someone who thinks of your characters as real people and who have invested such time and emotion into their stories. So many have written to me saying that they felt seen by Ghost Girl, Banana and will remember it for a long time to come and that’s the kind of legacy that makes it all worthwhile. That particular novel is very much about coming to terms with being “other” and even growing to a place of empowerment with that knowledge, and from a personal perspective, readers have helped me in that journey too, not only validating me as a writer but as an individual.What are you reading right now?Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes, which I am loving. I tend to gravitate towards books with similar themes to whatever I’m working on at any given moment and Despentes has a lot to say about feminism and sexuality and generational differences which speaks very strongly to what I’m trying to achieve in this second book. I haven’t read an epistolary novel since Where’d You Go, Bernadette and it’s a form I really enjoy when it’s done well, as this is! One of the reasons I’m loving it so much is because Despentes really nails the pathos-through-humor trick. To convey a sense of human fragility without recourse to sentiment or victimhood is very hard to pull off creatively and I’m in awe of her skill.Book recommendationApart from the Despentes, I’ve read so many good things in the last twelve months, it would be hard to choose just one. I’d happily press into anyone’s hands Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan, or Trespasses by Louise Kennedy.Where can we find you?I’ve more or less given up on social media, especially since Twitter got taken over by Musk, but I’ve retained my handle @Chomsky1. Maybe I’ll take the mothballs off it if it ever returns to its golden years. I’m slightly more active on Instagram @wizwharton although I have a love-hate relationship with social media, to be honest. It can be both a balm and a time-suck. Just write already!📚 Recommendations for ravenous readers* Returning Home with Glory: Chinese Villagers around the Pacific, 1849 to 1949 by Michael Williams* Sour Heart: Stories by Jenny Zhang* A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez* Backstory London’s monthly reading challenge✏️ Resources for wonderful writers* The Writers’ Workout Fiction Potluck contest, “About an Egg.” I’m the judge! Up to 5,000 words, due February 20th.* Mslexia Agent Extravaganza, February 3rd & 4th.* Reedsy lists, e.g. Best Short Story Book Publishing Companies in UK and Best Short Fiction Independent Publishers in 2025.👣 Updates on my moseyingI’m now submitting my short story collection, Staring into the Sun, directly to small presses. My next project will be a nonfiction book, the SME Sustainability Handbook, which ties in with my consulting business, Grain Sustainability. I’ll probably self-publish it.Short story collection submissions to small presses — tracked on Chill Subs 📊⏱️ 1 pending🚫 1 rejected🟰 2 totalQueries to literary agents — tracked on QueryTracker 📊⏱️ 7 waiting for replies on query letter🕰️ 1 waiting for reply on full manuscript🚫 2 rejections after reading query letter😭 1 rejection after reading full manuscript🟰 11 totalStory submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 7 accepted⏱️ 3 pending🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 52 rejected🟰 69 total📙 Where to find my writing"Things My Dad Told Me" in Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, the Hope Prize anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia.“Gold Mountain Diggers” in Issue 10 of Livina Press.“His Bones” in Transformations, the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology.US and UK printed books plus ebook links are all available on my website.Most book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!If you enjoy The Spark, please share it, rate, and review on your favorite podcast platform or go to Substack where you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. I don’t think I actually have any reviews yet, so I’d really appreciate your contribution on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Thanks for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

This month brings an interview with a thriller author, a tip on moving to bluer skies, and a recommended novel about a daredevil pilot flying in blue skies.📖 Author interview with Alex PavesiAlex Pavesi lives just outside of London, in Surrey, England, where he writes full time. He previously worked as a software engineer and before that obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He enjoys puzzles, long walks, and recreational lock picking. His debut novel, Eight Detectives, published in 2020, was translated into more than twenty languages and was picked by the Sunday Times and the New York Times as one of their books of the year.What inspires you?I write the books that I'd like to read: namely, thrillers that move in truly unpredictable directions and do things with the story that you don't expect. My biggest influence is probably the group of authors, active in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, who are often described as "postmodern". Paul Auster, John Fowles, Jeanette Winterson, etc. I am really excited by the idea of finding different ways to tell stories.Do you have a writing routine?As I get further into my career, I spend more and more time planning my books. I don't have a routine for planning. It involves long walks, visits to coffee shops, and reading other books. But it's fairly chaotic. When it comes to actually putting words on the page, I try to treat it like a 9-to-5 and be at my desk for as much of that time as possible. I wrote my first book in coffee shops before work, for ninety minutes each morning. But I don't think that was sustainable long-term.Writing’s biggest secret is…I'm a great proponent of time as a tool for writers. If you're not fully convinced by an idea, give it more time. Don't rush. The brain uses time in ways that are hard to understand. You could struggle for months to think of the ending for a story, then one day it will just come to you. You have to see this as one of the tools in your toolbox...though of course it can be hard to reconcile with deadlines and publishing schedules. I don't have a solution to that unfortunately.My worst writing momentI scrapped several earlier versions of my second novel and started from scratch. Each time was more painful than the last. This is why I now spend more time planning.My best writing momentMy first book was written out of order (anyone that reads it will probably understand why), but the opening chapter was written first and I've always been really happy with it. I knew as soon as I'd finished it that it would eventually grow into an entire novel.What are you reading right now?I've just adopted a pair of kittens and have been struggling to concentrate on novels. So instead I've been working my way through the complete short stories of J.G. Ballard.Book recommendationI always recommend the novels of Alison Moore, who publishes with a small independent press and so doesn't get the publicity a lot of lesser authors get. Her latest, The Retreat, might be my favourite. It's about a socially awkward woman struggling to fit in with her peers at an artists' retreat on a remote island. The sense of discomfort is sublime.Where can we find you?I'm on Twitter/X as @pavesi_alex and on Bluesky as @AlexPavesi. My website is alexpavesi.com.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersI was intrigued by the complex, interwoven structure of Alex Pavesi’s Ink Ribbon Red. Six friends gather every year—but this year is different. Anatol, the host, asks his friends to write short stories about murdering each other according to his “motive, murder, death” requirements. As a reader, it’s initially unclear which stories are the actual novel and which are the tales written by Anatol and his friends. Near the end, I was worrying, “What if I don’t understand anything?” but thankfully all was revealed, and I even patted myself on my back for noticing a few of the clues.You’ve probably heard a few times by now about The Hope Prize anthology, Tomorrow There Will Be Sun. Though it’s a little cheeky of me to include my own writing as a recommendation, my story is only one of twenty in this hope-infused book. Australia’s former Prime Minister Julia Gillard says, “Tomorrow There Will Be Sun is more than just a book, it is hope in your hands.” From a young gay couple in Nigeria to a mother escaping an abusive partner, all the stories emerge from darkness into the light. All royalties go to Australia’s mental health charity Beyond Blue.Maggie Shipstead’s historical and contemporary fiction novel Great Circle is a tour de force. Marian Graves is a daredevil pilot determined to complete a great circle: to circumnavigate the globe by flying over the North and South Poles. She sets off in the 1950s. Decades later, in the 2010s, actor Hadley Baxter plays Marian in a biopic. We follow Marian’s entire life story, even from before her birth. By the end of this 672-page book (I had to buy two extra 10-hour packs on Spotify Premium to get through it!), I was so invested in the characters that it felt like my heart was being torn out every time something happened to them.✏️ Resources for wonderful writersHave you noticed the X-odus? (And please may I claim credit for that coinage?) The writing community has pulled up its tent stakes and moved over to Bluesky en masse. Maybe some non-writers too, considering that 1 million people signed up in 24 hours. The Chrome extension Sky Follower Bridge is a super-easy way to check who you’re following on Twitter/X and follow them all on Bluesky with the click of a button. I’m running it every couple of weeks and every time there are more and more people flying over to where the sky is blue.Particularly for short story and poetry writers, there are competitions all over the world you can enter. They’re useful for providing you with a deadline, getting published, and raising your profile. Short Story Comps on both Bluesky and X is a great place to find competitions—they tend to retweet/re-X/re-sky (??) calls for submissions. Chill Subs is also a fab source for many things including contest listings, though their Writing Contests section is getting a revamp at the moment, so there are fewer listings than usual. And check my Instagram on December 22nd for a fun announcement!The Writer’s Routine podcast is where you can discover that everyone is different and there is no one “right” way to write. Host Dan Simpson starts each interview by asking what the writer sees around them at that moment, in their writing space. Of course he enquires about their routine as well, and then he picks up on writers’ responses to further explore their work and approaches. The weekly episodes cover a wonderful range of genres, from crime to fantasy, young adult to nonfiction. Fun fact: it’s where I first heard of Alex Pavesi.👣 Updates on my moseyingIt’s another month of writing updates! December saw in the publication of Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, together with a launch in Melbourne. I regretted the lack of teleportation technology to whisk me over there. The publicity team at Simon & Schuster Australia have been hard at work: the day before the launch, The Conversation Hour on ABC Radio Melbourne asked “How do we find hope?” and right toward the end of the hour, I had the opportunity to talk about my shortlisted short story and even mention my work in sustainability.I came across Jason Buchholz, author of A Paper Son, when I was researching the Chinese side of my family. It turned out that he offered manuscript assessments through Collaborist, which he runs with publisher Ben LeRoy, so Jason provided the very first evaluation of my short story collection manuscript. Now, almost two years later, the duo kindly invited me as a guest on their podcast, Collaborcast. It was an honor and a pleasure to discuss my writing at length, responding to their thoughtful questions.Check out my reading of “His Bones” at the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize anthology launch back in October! Transformations is available on Amazon US and Amazon UK.I haven’t been writing much for the past six weeks or so, and over the winter break I’m looking forward to playing around with more tweaks to my short story collection while continuing to submit to agents. I also plan to work on two new short stories as well as my first full novel.Queries to literary agents — tracked on QueryTracker 📊⏱️ 7 waiting for replies on query letter🕰️ 1 waiting for reply on full manuscript🚫 2 rejections after reading query letter😭 1 rejection after reading full manuscript🟰 11 totalWriting submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 7 accepted⏱️ 6 pending🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 48 rejected🟰 68 totalMost book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!If you enjoy The Spark, please share it, rate, and review on your favorite podcast platform or go to Substack where you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter. I don’t think I actually have any reviews yet, so I’d really appreciate your contribution on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.Thanks for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

After eight years of research and writing, everything has snowballed in the most wonderful way. Find out more after the author interview, reading recs, and writing resources!📖 Author interview with Alex PickettAlex Pickett grew up in Wisconsin. He received his MFA from the University of Florida.His debut novel, The Restaurant Inspector, was published in 2021. His short story collection, Camera Lake, was published this year. His stories have appeared in literary journals such as The Southern Review and Subtropics. The Restaurant Inspector was selected as the Wisconsin Public Radio "Book of the Month" in May 2024.But he has had to work to live. He was an inspector in New York City and supervised a warehouse in Fairbanks, Alaska. He has worked at two cemeteries and four factories. He has been a movie extra, a researcher, a copywriter, and a winter caretaker at Denali State Park. He also managed a London homeless shelter and taught creative writing to undocumented refugees and asylum seekers for the British Red Cross.Currently, he is a doctoral researcher at the University of Westminster and teaches creative writing at City Lit in London. He just got a dog named Maxine.What inspires you?Being able to sit down tomorrow and write fiction.Do you have a writing routine?Do I ever. I eat the same breakfast every day. Oatmeal, coffee, smoothie. The muscle memory of preparation allows my mind to ease into the day. After breakfast I drink coffee and read. I used to read fiction during coffee time. But I began to notice the style of what I read seeping too much into my own writing. Sitting down to write is scary. The words might not come. When motivation strikes, I force myself to the computer. I write or edit for three to five hours, eat lunch, and then go back to work. But usually not writing work. Emails, editing, answering these questions, that kind of thing. Every day that I am able to adhere to this routine is a gift.Writing’s biggest secret is…I wish I knew! Well, I’ll say this. Don’t stop. Keep going. Figure some stuff out. Fail. Get used to failing. Figure more stuff out. Keep writing. Enjoy writing. Writing is difficult. Is that the secret? Writing is difficult? Or, revised: Writing is difficult but worth the heartache.My worst writing momentHow to choose from all the rejection! Fine, I’ll do a workshop story. Padgett Powell, a wonderful writer, concluded my workshop by saying, “If this is the story that Mr. Pickett wanted to write, then he has done it.” I had played it safe. I did not risk failure. I knew what I was doing. I still regret it. I don’t want to be that person. But I was that day.My best writing momentI’ll interpret “moment” loosely. I stopped writing for a few years after university. I had nothing to write about. Plus, I was able to sacrifice writing from my life. Then, one summer, I think it was 2010, I decided I would write. That was it. I decided to. I had a horrible apartment with no bed. I slept on the floor, wrapped in a quilt, surrounded by books. I worked at a cemetery. Every free moment I wrote. I sat at a glass-topped table that came with the apartment and typed on a netbook. I had no internet access. A flip pay-as-you-go phone. I read short story anthologies and anything by a Russian. I had two stories in mind and spent the summer obsessing about them. It was so hot. I had no air conditioning. Incredible.What are you reading right now?Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov. It’s great.Book recommendationThe Quick & the Dead by Joy Williams? Or Oreo by Fran Ross? The Dog of the South by Charles Portis? Horse Crazy by Gary Indiana? Those are all near-perfect books, but I feel I should be imperfect and recommend a deeper cut. How about Memories of Amnesia by Lawrence Shainberg. Yes, that. It’s about a brain surgeon who realizes he has brain damage while performing brain surgery, then describes his ailment in meticulous detail as both practitioner and patient. It’s wild. The novel I am writing for my PhD involves memory loss. If anyone has any amnesia or memory loss fiction recs, please get in touch.Where can we find you?My website is rapickett.com and Twitter is @alex_pickett1.📚 Recommendations for ravenous readersI thoroughly enjoyed Alex Pickett’s short story class at City Lit last autumn. Fittingly, I also love his short story collection, Camera Lake, as well as his novel, The Restaurant Inspector, which is told masterfully from many points of view. His characters are unforgettably unique, and he weaves together tragedy and humor in his plotlines.Speaking of short story collections, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies tells nine stories set in the 1980s and 1990s of Indians, Americans, and Indian Americans. Full of subtle observations and sensory details, Lahiri explores personal relationships as well as wider cultural expectations and clashes. It’s the closest comparative title I’ve found for my own short story collection (I say humbly, noting that it won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction).In my exploration of dual timelines and historical fiction, I read The Alice Network by Kate Quinn. The novel incorporates elements of mystery, suspense, and thrillers. I’d categorize it as “upmarket” or “book club” since it balances character development and gorgeous (yet non-gratuitous) language with the fast-paced plot. In 1947, Charlie St. Clair is investigating her cousin’s disappearance in France, aided by Eve Gardiner. In 1915, during the Great War, Eve is a spy in France. As the search for the cousin unfurls, the women discover that one man lies behind their suffering.✏️ Resources for wonderful writers(Or, The Tale of Two Jessicas)Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is a classic book for plotters. Jessica Brody takes 15 essential plot points from screenwriting and adapts them to novels. It’s a helpful way to structure your three-act plot.Jessica Payne, The Spark’s featured author last month, has written a super-useful post, ”A How-To Guide: from Pantser to Plantser Pt 1,” in her Substack, The Payneful Truth About Being a Writer. I’ve even printed it out for easy reference. In this guide, she mentions both Lisa Cron’s Story Genius and Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. I’m excited to use her approach to map out my first full novel.👣 Updates on my moseyingSo: the snowball effect. I started researching and writing about my family in January, 2017. From the summer of 2023, I started querying agents and in August, my query letter and first five pages were critiqued on The S**t No One Tells You About Writing podcast. After a few months, with some feedback from agents, I decided to rework the manuscript. Around that time, in autumn 2023, I began submitting to contests and literary magazines. Fast forward a few months to spring 2024, and two stories got long-listed in Flash 500 Short Stories 2024, and another story was featured on The Failing Writers’ Podcast.Then, the game-changer in June: getting shortlisted for The Hope Prize, with the anthology published by Simon & Schuster Australia and all royalties going to mental health charity Beyond Blue. Next was another shortlist, for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize, and an opportunity to read at the Weston Library (part of Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries) at the anthology launch in October. And, most recently, with a super-fast turnaround, was the placement of another story in Livina Press Issue 10 with the “Golden” theme.So now I have three printed publications on “my shelf” and the unbelievable thing is that they were all being printed around the same time—mid-October—in Australia, the U.K. and the U.S.! 📚 🇦🇺 📚 🇬🇧 📚 🇺🇸Queries to literary agents — tracked on QueryTracker 📊⏱️ 10 pending (7 🇺🇸, 3 🇬🇧)Writing submissions — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 7 accepted⏱️ 6 pending🙅‍♀️ 7 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 45 rejected🟰 65 totalMost book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A-you-know-who!If you enjoy The Spark, please share it, rate, and review on your favorite podcast platform or go to Substack where you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter.Thanks for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Hope you enjoyed The Spark’s new theme music, with a huge thanks to my brother Anthony Postman for the original composition and all the mixing. This month’s interview is with psychological thriller author Jessica Payne. I have a whole new batch of amazing reading recommendations for you, some top writing tips—and some very exciting updates on my moseying!📖 Author interview with Jessica PayneJessica Payne is a psychological thriller author who has probably spent a little too much time studying the dark intricacies of the human mind. An expert coffee drinker, she loves to go on long runs to manage the resulting caffeine jolt. Jessica lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, daughter, and their many (many!) cats and dogs. Her novels include Make Me Disappear, The Lucky One, The Good Doctor, and Never Trust the Husband. (Note: book links go to Jessica’s local bookstore.)What inspires you?I always wonder if any author truly knows the answer to this. For me, there is no one answer. I get ideas from everywhere, and sometimes, seemingly from nowhere—the idea just pops into my head. In my debut, Make Me Disappear, all I knew was that there was this nurse in Seattle trapped in a bad relationship and that she wanted to have herself kidnapped to escape. Then, in my research, I discovered extreme kidnapping—people treat it like a sport!My latest book, Never Trust the Husband, was all inspired by running alone before sunrise in Texas when I briefly lived there—people leave the lights on in their homes, keep their curtains drawn back. Whether I wanted to or not, I'd get glimpses inside their houses, see them drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. It sparked an idea for a character who ran through the darkness looking in people's houses on purpose—why would she do something like that? What did she want? Thus, a plot was born.  Other ideas have come from podcasts, dreams, overheard conversations...I think a lot of it is about being open to creativity. Letting your mind wander and speculate.Do you have a writing routine?No. Yes. Kind of? The reality is that my routine is constantly changing—each book demands something different, and also, I'm responsible for a small human. As she's in school, on summer break, or sick for a day, my routine fluctuates around her. But you know what, I love that I can work from home and be around for all these moments, and I wouldn't have it any other way. My weekday routine looks similar to this:* 5am - alarm goes off. I ignore it.* 5:20am - my cat gets annoyed and stomps all over me until I pull myself from the bed.* 5:21am - COFFEE.* 5:40am - I'm at my desk, checking emails, social media, chugging coffee, etc.* 6am - working on whatever needs attention most. This might be writing the next chapter, combing through revisions from my agent, or writing up pitches for the next book. * 7am - kiddo is awake and I get her ready for school.* 9am-10:30am - workout (running, yoga, gym time, not all on the same day), shower, eat.* 11am - back at the desk, again working on writing or revising for the next book. * I work until about 3pm, taking breaks to stretch, walk the dogs, make tea, etc.Once I've picked my daughter up from school, I'm usually done working for the day. Occasionally, if I have a pressing matter, I'll work more at night, after she's in bed, but that's fairly rare. I'm of the opinion it's important to intake creativity as much as I put it out—so reading books, watching shows, going on walks with my dogs to let ideas percolate—that's all important, too!Writing’s biggest secret is……not giving up. So many people expect their first book to land them an agent and a huge book deal, and they're devastated when it doesn't work out that way. I get it—I, too, thought everyone would love my first book. But I got zero requests from agents, and now I realize that it lacked plot and character development. It takes time and hard work to get good at writing, and that's normal and okay. It took me four books to get an agent and a publishing deal. For some of my friends, it took five or six, and then for some it took ONE. Every writer has their own journey. You just have to keep going. Also, your path will likely look different than your friends', and again, that's okay and normal!My worst writing momentWhen I realized I needed to rewrite a book that was on deadline. That felt really icky—realizing it wasn't good enough, realizing it wasn't ready to go to my editor, but instead, I needed to ask for an extension and rewrite a big part of it. But it also taught me to trust my gut when something felt off, and it's kept me from making that same mistake. My best writing momentGetting a book deal. When you get that call or text from your agent—discovering an editor loved your book and fought to acquire it and that manuscript you've been working on for the last 6 months or year is going to become a REAL book. Publishing has so many ups and downs, and this is one of my favorite moments. Another best writing moment would be my first book event. It was held at Browsers Bookshop in Olympia, Washington (it's adorable, go there!). So many friends—and strangers!—came to support me and my debut. It was just incredible. What are you reading right now?I'm currently reading an Advance Review Copy (an ARC) of You Are Fatally Invited, Ande Pliego's debut. She and I are writing friends, and I got to see an early version of it. Now, on the verge of her publication date, it's such a privilege to hold a physical copy and get to see how that raw manuscript transformed. It's such a good book—I highly recommend pre-ordering it!Book recommendationShoot, I suppose I already recommended a book! Well, here's another: It Had to be You by Eliza Jane Brazier. Think Mr. & Mrs. Smith but...different. Overseas and hired killers hired to kill one another while trying not to fall in love with one another. Part romcom (seriously hilarious dialogue) and part thriller (so tense!), this is one of my favorite books this year. Where can we find you?On my website jessicapayne.net or on Instagram as @jessicapayne.writer. But I'm pretty much everywhere online, including here on Substack.📚 Book recommendations for ravenous readersTold through the points of view of three sisters a year after the death of their fourth sister, Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors is excruciatingly stark and tender. Set in the present day, the novel travels between Los Angeles, New York, London, and Paris. Last month, I was struck by the figurative language of Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time. Blue Sisters is also full of original similes and metaphors—there was one about a hungover Lucky crawling up her sister’s front stoop like a Slinky going up stairs. (The only drawback of listening to books is that it’s tough to find quotes if you don’t note the time stamp when they’re spoken.) Lucky spends a lot of time hung over, so here’s a description of her in that state.“Her body no longer felt like a pillowcase that had been filled with rocks and broken glass, then put in the tumble dryer, but she didn’t feel great.”Holly Graziano’s career as a game designer is apparent in her debut, The Husbands. Lauren returns home one day to find an unknown man in her house who thinks he’s her husband. His belief is backed up by everything around them—wedding photos, text messages, and so on. He goes into the attic and—bzzzz—another one comes down the ladder. Repeat. It’s like Sliding Doors on steroids—or rather than Choose Your Own Adventure, it’s You Don’t Get to Choose Your Own Husband. While the story is entertaining, between the lines it makes you reflect on big topics like fate (or lack thereof), “what if?,” happiness, pet peeves (like separate-toe shoes), and commitment. Oh, and there’s a simile with a capybara which I won’t attempt to find (neither the quote nor the capybara).Hidden: The Lies She Told recounts growing up in Liverpool, mixed-race, with an absent father and an abusive mother. Lisa Nicol’s memoir details her harrowing “…daily life in this so-called United Kingdom, which felt anything but united.” The big, hinted-at reveal about her ancestry, discovered through a DNA test bought for her by a friend, happened in her adult life and appears late in the book. Finally, Lisa says:“For the first time in my life, when I look in the mirror, I truly see myself. The cloud of uncertainly that once shrouded my reflection has been lifted.”✏️ Resources for wonderful writersMy top tip for October is to submit to writing contests and magazines that offer feedback. For example, West Trade Review accepts fiction up to 5,000 words and creative nonfiction up to 6,000 words. Per reading period, you may “…choose to receive a quick decision about your work for $10, and may also receive a quick decision about your work along with personalized feedback from the editors for $25 (1.5-2 pages). The response time for both expedited and personalized options is approximately 2 weeks.” Receiving insightful feedback from experienced editors takes the sting out of rejection and boosts chances to win future contests and get published.History Through Fiction offered feedback on pieces entered into its Short Story Contest, but doesn’t seem to offer it for regular submissions. Two people separately provided scores from 1-10 (“completely inadequate”—harsh—to “brilliant”) on:* Overall theme/message - Consider how effectively the central message is conveyed through characters and setting, and its relevance to both the historical context and today's world.* Historical Relevance - Focus on the accuracy of events, settings, and cultural norms of the time period, ensuring they align with documented history and contribute to the story's authenticity.* Character/Plot/Setting - Evaluate characters for historical accuracy and depth. Assess the plot for engaging, credible events. Ensure the setting reflects the era's authentic details and atmosphere.* Narration and Point of View - Consider if the narrator's perspective is consistent and authentic to the time period. Assess how the point of view influences the story's credibility and engagement.* Overall Impact/Quality - Consider the story's emotional pull, authenticity of setting, character depth, and how well it blends fact with fiction to engage and enlighten readers.Speaking of submissions and contents, I’ve discovered a wonderful format for stories. I was looking up one of the actors who reads Matt Haig’s Echo Boy, Thomas Judd, and came across this 2022 interview with him on Books Forward. He explained:“I was spotted performing at Liars’ League, which is a live event in London where actors narrate new short stories by writers.”I’ve submitted twice to the Liars, to no avail—yet—and am writing a piece specifically for the next event, themed Wreaths & Wraiths, in December. Fingers crossed! Even if you’re not near London or even in the UK, you can still submit. All videos are up on the Liars’ League YouTube channel.👣 Updates on my moseyingA lot has happened since mid-September. On 23 September, I did the London Writers’ Salon “100 Days of Writing” workshop, which is helping me track progress and keep focus. On my 100 days sheet, I’m circling in green the days that I’m working on my short story collection and orange are non-short-story-collection things.Becca Syme’s Better-Faster Academy and having a coaching session with Becca herself put me back on the traditional publishing track as my first priority. I’ve now written all nine chapters and I’ve set 1 November as my date to start querying my short story collection with literary agents.My story, “Things My Dad Told Me,” getting shortlisted for The Hope Prize has been a game-changer for me. It’s the first story in my work-in-progress short story collection. The Hope Prize anthology, Tomorrow There Will Be Sun, will be published by Simon & Schuster Australia on 4 December and is now available for pre-orders: paperback in Australia and it’ll be on Kindle too but it might take some VPN (virtual private network) jiggery-pokery to access it. The cover is GORGEOUS and I’m still stunned how the title fits in with the title of my short story collection, Staring into the Sun. All Tomorrow royalties will go to Australia’s mental health charity Beyond Blue. I might have an opportunity to contribute to the charity’s marketing by sharing my story about being bereaved by my mother’s suicide.As if all this weren’t surreal enough, one of my stories has been shortlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize and will be included in the anthology. The prize’s theme is “transformation,” in conjunction with the Bodleian Libraries’ “Kafka: Making of an Icon” exhibition. On 26 October, the event “Words of Wonder” will include a launch and eight author readings—including yours truly. So if you’re in the area, please head over to Oxford University’s Weston Library at 2pm!Submissions stats — tracked on Chill Subs 📊🏆 6 accepted⏱️ 10 pending🙅‍♀️ 6 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)🚫 41 rejected🟰 63 totalMost book links go to my Bookshop.org page, where sales are win-win-win, benefiting the authors, local bookstores, and my own writing—unlike using A…you-know-who!If you enjoy The Spark, please share it, rate, and review on your favorite podcast platform or go to Substack where you can listen to the podcast and subscribe to the newsletter!Thanks for reading The Spark! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Last week was the first full week of the younger kid being back at school (the older one is off to uni/college next week), with my husband and me back at work at our sustainability consultancy. I got in a little bit of writing on Wednesday morning and then a fantastic 4-hour session on Saturday, so I’m all fired up now.Author interview with Sophie ThomasSophie Thomas is a Londoner, writer, and reader. She breaks the rules of grammar far too often for someone with an English degree. When she's not coming up with ideas on her hot girl walks or sitting in a theatre watching a musical, she enjoys getting people to fall in love and kiss each other (and get secret tattoos for one another).What inspires you?Anything can if I am in the right mindset. Typically there is something magical that happens when I hear a certain song lyric when I am mid-walk and an idea sort of spools from there. Sometimes my ideas come to me when I am not quite asleep but not quite fully awake. When I am reading a book I can come across something that I can use as a springboard for something in the piece that I am working on. Recently just watching sports has inspired a couple of ideas that I've had to add to the burner. Do you have a writing routine?For the most part I write in 50-minute bursts during Writers’ Hour hosted by London Writers’ Salon four days a week a minimum at 4pm. If I am in the flow then I will write for longer, or I will pick up my laptop and write at different times, but it's mostly in those 50 minutes that have allowed me to write and edit two novels, draft this third novel, write all my Substack posts, create content for marketing purposes, and so much more.Writing’s biggest secret is……there is no magic way to do it. You really do just have to sit there and put words on the page. Be that in large chunks of time or in stolen moments throughout the day in your Notes app. Then you have to delete those words and write them again. And again. And again. And it will somehow never feel “done” but it will feel “done enough.” Eventually.My worst writing momentI hate when you can feel yourself writing your way into a corner. You know where you have to go but you haven't quite made the journey to that end point clear and as you try to figure it out the words do weird things that kind of make sense but aren't actually getting you any closer to the destination you are trying to reach. So you keep going in the hope that the right path reveals itself but you actually just end up stuck. I hate having to sit in that corner and try and figure out if any of what I've written is salvagable or if I’m going to have delete it all and start again.My best writing momentWriting “The End” on my first book. I had attempted to write a book so many times over the years but had always run out of steam around 15-20,000 words. I could never make anything stick. I had a lot of beginnings and a lot of endings but the first time I managed to stick both the beginning and the end together with a mostly well-constructed middle felt almost euphoric. It unlocked something in me and gave me the confidence to know that I can do it again. And again. Writing the middle is still always a little bit terrible, but I have belief that I can navigate my way through it and that would not have been possible if it wasn't for what I am still lovingly calling Thing 2 (I do have the title and it is currently due to be released next year, I've just not made the title official yet).What are you reading right now?I am basically incapable of only reading one book at a time so at the moment I have What A Way to Go by Bella Mackie, Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett, and Funny Feelings by Tarah DeWitt.Book recommendationI will keep telling people to read Savor It by Tarah DeWitt until I have achieved the goal of getting everyone to read this book (the second venture to her Spunes, Oregon via her Left of Forever out next year is just as delicious). How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang is also a gorgeous novel. And for a trio of romance book recs I close it off with Kennedy Ryan’s Before I Let Go.Where can we find you?The Giraffe Files on Substack and @ashakespearenerd on Instagram.Book recommendations for ravenous readersIn The House of Doors, Tan Twan Eng transports us to Penang, Malaysia in 1910 and 1921. Think of a framed narrative, add a couple more frames, including spinning doorframes, and then you’ll grasp the nested structure of this work that fills all the senses. It could have been a response to, “What would it be like to invite Willie Somerset Maugham and Dr. Sun Yat-sen to a dinner party?”Speaking of transporting people through time, Kaliane Bradley’s debut, The Ministry of Time, is shockingly stunning. The plot, characters, and particularly the figurative language is outstanding: every simile and metaphor is perfectly on point. I recommend the audio book, narrated (mostly) by Katie Leung.Adela shrugged. "We have time-travel," she said, like someone describing the coffee machine. "Welcome to the Ministry."And again speaking of time (see what I did there?), I consumed Ocean Vuong’s poetry collection Time Is a Mother like chocolate truffles, savoring it, reading and re-reading one poem per day or even less frequently. He packs entire, often heart-breaking, worlds into few words. I received this book in the mail a couple of years ago and it took me a few weeks to figure out that it was a gift from my brother. Thank you, Anthony.Resources for wonderful writersWho understood the reference from this month’s header photo? If you’ve read Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, you’ll remember her advice: if you’re feeling overwhelmed about what to write, start with what you can see through a 1-inch-square frame. I was looking for a 1-inch frame in wood and then found a necklace which Chriscelle, based in Bristol, made to the exact size for my bestie Kate Hammer and me.Remember last month’s guest, Iqbal Hussain? He’s interviewing Fighting Fantasy author Ian Livingstone on Monday October 7, from 7-8pm BST (2-3pm ET, 11am-noon PT). Tickets are free for the online "YOU are the hero!" Meet Fighting Fantasy author Sir Ian Livingstone.I regularly listen to Sacha Black’s The Rebel Author Podcast, and on practically every episode she mentions the Strengths (listeners can do a shot every time she says it). I DMed her to ask what the heck she was talking about, and she pointed me toward The Better-Faster Academy with Becca Syme. I now have all 34 of my Gallup CliftonStrengths and through the BFA, I’m learning how to apply them to my writing. It’s mind-blowing and I’m really immersing myself in it (hello, Learner and Activator!).Updates on my moseyingOn September 3, freshly arrived home after a week away at a family wedding in the U.S., I attended a talk at the University of West London by Jung Chang, author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China and Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China. I had been to her reading at Conway Hall in 2019, when she signed my book. It was fascinating and entertaining to hear her anecdotes of being a student at UWL and later, the first person from the People's Republic of China to be awarded a PhD from a British university—namely, linguistics from York. I haven’t actually read her Sisters book yet, so at least it’s off the shelf and on my coffee table now.Whenever I listen to The Creative Penn podcast, I get excited about self-publishing. My plans for my short story collection change almost daily. Today’s idea is to complete chapters 8 (my Poa-Poa Corri) and 9 (my brother’s and my trip to China in 2015) and then submit it to small presses. I read that 40,000 words is the minimum for a short story collection, and that would be right around where my word count for the 9 stories would land. I’m sure my vision will be different by the time The Spark comes out in October. By the way, I’m aiming for the 15th of each month for The Spark’s publication.Submissions stats — tracked on Chill Subs5 accepted14 pending4 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)35 rejected (with a record 3 in one day ) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com

Welcome to the relaunch of The Spark. I published a dozen weekly editions last autumn which you can find online. This new incarnation will be monthly, with four sections: an author interview, book recommendations for ravenous readers, resources for wonderful writers, and updates on my meanderings.Author interview with Iqbal HussainIqbal’s debut novel, Northern Boy, about being a “butterfly among the bricks”, was published in June with Unbound Firsts. He is currently working on edits for his debut middle grade children’s novel, The Time Travelling Misadventures of the 7th Son. His work appears in various anthologies, including Mainstream by Inkandescent, and Lancashire Stories by UCLan Publishing. Iqbal’s short stories have won multiple awards, including the Creative Future Writers’ Awards, Writing Magazine’s Grand Flash and the Evening Standard Short Story Competition. You can read Iqbal’s nature writing on sites including The Hopper and Caught by the River.What inspires you?I’m often inspired by things that happened in my childhood. My first novel, Northern Boy, is semi-autobiographical, and draws on a lot of things that happened while growing up in a Northern former mill town. I just think that if I don’t document what happened back then, those stories, characters, and streets will be lost for ever. The neighbourhood I grew up in was razed to the ground after a compulsory purchase order, so my past has literally been wiped out — so it’s so important to preserve it in any way I can.Do you have a writing routine?I have a regular job for four days of the week, working in the word-processing department of a City [of London] law firm, so I write on the other three days. I tend to start around 9 in the morning, and then keep going until 5, with breaks to take our labradoodle Milo out for his walks. I’d love to have a day off, when I can just spend time with my partner, but it’s tricky to build in, especially when there are always deadlines to be met. I tend to say yes to most writing opportunities that come my way, as I can’t bear to miss out! I write directly on the computer — my handwriting is too terrible to sustain an analogue process. I use Word, which I’m able to manipulate to be the best writing software for my needs. I’ve tried Scrivener, but have found the learning curve too steep, plus the one time I exported back to Word I ended up with section breaks everywhere, which really weren’t helpful.Writing’s biggest secret is……it’s not that lonely! I have a good group of writing friends, from various parts of my writing past. It keeps me sane, and you know that they will completely understand what you’re saying when you go into raptures about a scene you’ve written, or when you’re banging your head against a wall when the words won’t flow. I also love a book launch, where I’m often found to be gossiping around the drinks table with a samosa in one hand and a glass of bubbly in the other, putting the world to rights. I can’t stress the importance of finding your writing community, to exchange views, news, tips, challenges. To share in each other’s successes — and failures and rejections, as there are plenty of those outside of the curated posts we put on social media.My worst writing momentWhen Northern Boy failed to be picked up on submission. It was incredibly dispiriting. All those years of working on it, only to be told no-one wanted it. Nothing prepares you for it, as you always assume once you’ve got your agent the rest is plain sailing. Sadly, it isn’t, and there are many more hoops to pass under and gates to walk through.My best writing momentWhen Northern Boy got picked by Unbound Firsts as one of their two novels by debut writers of colour for publication in 2024. I sent the manuscript to them on an off-chance, not for one second thinking it would be picked — and then it was! I can’t describe how loudly I screamed. I’m delighted by how gorgeous a job the whole Unbound team have made in bringing my characters to life. I can’t think of a better home for my debut.What are you reading right now?I’m a magpie, and read widely and, often, simultaneously. Currently, I’m reading Timeline by Michael Crichton, a highly entertaining blend of sci-fi, time travel and historical fiction. Also on the go is The Explorer by Katherine Rundel, a rip-roaring read about four children whose plane crashes in a South American rainforest.Book recommendationHarriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. This New York-set children’s book from the ‘60s made me laugh and cry when I was a child, and it still does (I’ve read it many times over the years). It tells the story of Harriet, who keeps a notebook in which she makes observations about her friends and neighbours. These aren’t always nice observations, but they’re always honest. When her friends find her notebook, they’re understandably annoyed and upset, and Harriet finds herself ostracised. What’s extraordinary is that, even when the odds are stacked against her, Harriet remains true to herself — a message that really struck me as a child, and which appears throughout Northern Boy. With the help of her former nanny, Harriet realises you sometimes have to tell a lie to keep the peace, but to always be true to yourself. I spent many hours as a child spying on neighbours, making a spy route like Harriet did, and she inspired me to become a journalist and a writer. Thank you, Harriet!Book recommendations for ravenous readersSpotify’s decision to include audiobooks for Premium users has been a game-changer for me. I always listen to podcasts on dog walks and often while driving. I think it was on the now-ended podcast Literary Friction where I heard about finding your way into audiobooks with nonfiction. My first listen was The Salt Path, written and narrated by Raynor Winn. It was disturbing how a middle-class couple could become homeless so quickly due to one bad investment and a lost court case. After the bailiffs claimed their house, they gathered a few things into backpacks and set off on England’s 630-mile South West Coast Path. Winn originally wrote the account for the eyes of only one person, her walking companion: her husband. Her writing, particularly about the natural world, is lyrical and evocative.A more recent listen was Echo Boy by Matt Haig. It’s a young adult thriller romance set in 2115. Because I’m toying with a near-future thriller concept for my second book, I appreciated the characters, pace, and world of Echo Boy. Also, I haven’t read much YA (young adult) since I was a YA myself, and I do enjoy the definition of one’s identity and coming to know the world that are typical of that age category.Resources for wonderful writersThe Write Now with Scrivener podcast features interviews with authors in all genres. It was a fun surprise to hear Natasha Bell, a thriller author who taught a one-day course I took at City Lit on writing autofiction. (My affiliate link for the Scrivener writing software is here.)Lisa Cron’s Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel focuses on characters’ backstories and psychology: their “live wire” that is the root of their expectations and desires. The plot is there to serve that third (electrified) rail. Using her scene card format has strengthened my writing.I’m on Chill Subs most writing days, to look for magazines and contests, and to track my submissions. The team there also runs the weekly Sub Club newsletter with listings of agents, small presses, contests, and magazines open to submissions and pitches.Updates on my moseyingSince the last edition of The Spark, I’ve been rewriting my 93k-work creative nonfiction manuscript as standalone short stories. The collection links memoir with my family's intergenerational tale: the tragedies and triumphs of Chinese and Eastern European Jewish immigrants who converged in California.It’s quite handy having a bunch of short stories to submit to contests and magazines. In the spring, two of my stories, “His Bones” and “Things My Dad Told Me,” were longlisted in Flash 500 Short Stories 2024. In April, “Data Double” was produced and critiqued on The Failing Writers’ podcast. (“…we take a look at another listener's bit o' writing they've kindly sent in to share with the class. This week we try and make Madelyn Postman cry...”)And in June, I almost gave my family a heart attack with my screaming when I found out that “Things My Dad Told Me” was shortlisted for The Hope Prize and will be published in an anthology by Simon & Schuster Australia this December. All royalties will go to mental health charity Beyond Blue.Submissions stats — tracked on Chill Subs4 accepted15 pending4 withdrawn (accepted elsewhere)31 rejected This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit madelynpostman.substack.com