Elizabeth and Angie discuss many, many things in a short time, including coffee, Kafka, the relative speed of mail in the 19th century and why rejection might be more under your control than you think.

They discuss the importance of researching the journal, film festival or agent you are submitting to, the value of etiquette when presenting your project to someone who has no idea who you are or what it is you’re sharing. Think of your project as a blind date: you consider the folks you’re setting up to ensure you’ve aced a good match that won’t make everyone angry you thought of a blind date in the first place.

Links Discussed:

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh

Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

Medicine for Melancholy by Barry Jenkins

In today’s podcast, Angie and Elizabeth sit down with actor and memoirist Peter Coyote, talking about his unique journey from counterculture to Hollywood in his 40s and beyond. After analyzing movie stars to determine his approach to auditioning, Peter shifted his thinking and found success. When Elizabeth heard this idea at Sonoma County Writer’s Camp, she was inspired by the idea, adopted the attitude, researched the agents of writers she admired, and consequently signed with her dream agent. In addition to discussing agents and publishers, we touch on the performance of politics, the difference between memoir and screenwriting, and even how the narratives we grow up reading shape us as storytellers.

Peter Coyote Website

The Rainman’s Third Cure: An Irregular Education by Peter Coyote

Sleeping Where I Fall by Peter Coyote

Light Years by James Salter

Sonoma County Writers Camp

In this week’s podcast, Angie and Elizabeth reconnect with Micah Perks and discuss her new book of linked stories. Micah has always been a fan of episodic work, and after working with a longer forms of writing, she decided to turn to a short story collection. She took short, stand-alone stories she had written in between projects and morphed them into something new and connected, realizing that working with completed drafts made for a faster process than she was used to. Micah admits that she can often be guilty of over-revising, wondering at what point the work is just different instead of better. Is she just wasting time? There are so many worries about what we “should” be doing. In the end, do what makes you feel the fullest.

True Love and Other Dreams of Miraculous Escape by Micah Perks

The Weird Sisters: William Shakespeare

Kelly Link - MacArthur Fellow

Tana French: The Witch Elm

This week, Angie and Elizabeth chatted with Laurie Ann Doyle about her process transitioning from writing short stories to writing her first novel. From doing research, to choosing the right words, both short and long stories are all about crafting a narrative. They focus on one of Laurie’s stories Or Best Offer from World Gone Missing, a collection of short stories with the theme of people going missing. Angie and Elizabeth asked if the theme came first, Laurie believes that the theme should evolve naturally, and that people can disappear in more ways than one.

Laurie Ann Doyle - Website

Nina LaCour - Interview

Barbara Oakley - Learning How to Learn

Wayne Dyer - Before You Go To Sleep video

Story Makers is a podcast that features in-depth conversations with accomplished writers, filmmakers and industry experts about story craft, technique, habit and survival--everything you need to know to stay inspired, connect to your creativity, find others’ wonderful stories and your own success.

The hosts:

Elizabeth Stark is a published, agented novelist and distributed filmmaker who teaches and mentors writers at BookWritingWorld.com.

Angie Powers is a distributed filmmaker and published short story writer with an MFA in creative writing and a certificate in screenwriting from UCLA who teaches story structure at BookWritingWorld.com.