This week, Angie is cognitively processing while Elizabeth is rereading her manuscript on hardcopy yet one more time. In this episode, Angie and Elizabeth explore whether their newly cleared yard is a metaphor for anything relevant to writing, and conclude, by the end, that landscaping definitely provides insight into giving great notes on a manuscript. As does this episode. They touch on the importance of readers, how to become a strong editor, why what works matters as much as what doesn’t, and how prescriptive readers should be. In addition, Angie offers gratitude to all the first responders to all the crises our world is facing, they discuss social media in fraught times, and Elizabeth confesses to an early brush with eminent fame. Correction: Elizabeth actually met Angie the fall before that summer she went to Bennington, so Angie falls in the category of people Elizabeth met before her launch into inescapable writerly fame.

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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.